A pawn for a pawn?

Here's a strategy that would really make Moscow stand up and listen

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

Russian boss-man Vladimir Putin probably figured he scored a big one for his reawakening empire by barging into the pro-Western, democratic nation of Georgia.

Fine, if that's how Putin Bonaparte wants to play it, we'll take . . . hmmmm . . . Cuba. We'll roll right in, just like the Russian tanks and fleet rolled into Georgia, and say, "Hello, Fidel. Good-bye Fidel."

Why not? The conventional wisdom is that we can't do a lot about Georgia, now a Russian captive nation like Soviet days of old, because ultimately we fear a direct face-off between U.S. and Russian military forces. Thus, we are limited to diplomacy and sanctions. We've got little to offer Putin that would appease his restore-the-Russian-Empire dementia, so diplomacy amounts to nothing more than a stink in a windstorm. Sanctions? To get the UN to impose any, the Security Council would have to approve them, over Russia's veto. We could impose our own sanctions, which might be considered an act of war. Throw Russia out of the global economic powerhouse of the Group of Eight or reject its application for membership in the World Trade Organization? Maybe, but who knows?

So, we are left with a game of "you take my pawn, I'll take yours." In Cuba, we could use the same kind of baloney that Russia used to justify its invasion of Georgia: We installed a free Cuban government for "humanitarian" reasons. Who in this hemisphere has suffered more at the hands of a tyrant than the Cuban people? Who needs more protection from the tyrant Fidel Castro than people would who risk their lives crossing 90 miles of ocean in an overloaded, open boat? Who has a greater interest in securing the liberties of the Cuban people than the tens of thousands of Cubans living in America whose gifts of billions to relatives back home is what has kept Castro's pathetic communist utopia going?

Cuba and Russia are on the threshold of strengthening relations, which were weakened after the Soviet Union fell apart, thanks to America winning the arms race and the intrinsic flaws of the communist system. Ever since Castro marched out of the hills and into Havana almost 50 years ago, Russia has considered Cuba a client state, just as Putin intolerably views Georgia as an American client state. Putin wants Georgia to be his client state, because he can't tolerate freedom on the doorstep of his empire, especially if the Georgian people, in their freedom, prefer to ally themselves with Western democracies.

So, what if Putin shuts down the petroleum pipeline to Europe and the West in retaliation? Fine. Declaring a national emergency, we take oil-rich Venezuela, which, under its emerging tin-pot communist tyrant Hugo Chavez, also is tending toward becoming a Russian client state. If Putin wants to engage in an empire-building contest, maybe we should take back all the countries that we once had, however briefly, and then gave back to become democracies—the Philippines, Panama and Grenada, for example. After all, they're in our "sphere of influence," just as Putin claims Georgia is in his. Two can play the empire game, and Putin and all his oil aren't up to the competition.

By now, you must be saying that I've got to be kidding. I am, sort of. I described this global scenario because Russia's invasion of Georgia is the scariest global moment since the end of the Cold War. This Putin-inspired conflict could spiral into a replay of the Cold War in all kinds of ways, with nuclear annihilation, mutually assured destruction and tens of millions of combatants, if not hundreds of millions of civilians, dying in a World War III. That's why the presidential and congressional candidates' response to Russia's attempted enslavement of Georgia perhaps is unexpectedly the most critical issue of this election cycle.

Both presidential candidates have issued standard statements calling for "restraint" and "talks," but a clearer understanding about how to meet this newest foreign policy challenge has yet to emerge. Recognition that we might now be engaged in two conflicts—one against terrorism and the other the traditional state-to-state variety—is a good place to start; then we can move on to the details.

Democrat Barack Obama already has said he favors, in essence, a weaker military because he apparently believes that state-to-state conflicts are old hat. Will events require Obama to change his position, again?