Georgia

Since the shocking news about the Russian involvement in the conflict between Georgia and South Ossetia broke and disturbed the Olympic opening ceremony my mood was greatly decreased. That's because I suspected that the situation may get much worse than most people then believed, and because of the consequences of that. When on the following Monday my friend asked why I was so depressed I told her about my worst predictions. But since then it got even worse because now I know they were true and I was unfortunately right. What I told her was that Russia is going to occupy Georgia and take the Ossetia and Abkhazia from it. And that the West will look at it and do nothing but talking. If I was younger I would still believe it could be different. But the life teaches that everybody minds just his own business, and that one who is attacked by the strongest guy in the neighbourhood is always left alone.

Now someone could ask, why does that matter so much for a Polish guy anyway? And the answer would be that it is not just the compassion which I feel to poor civil people of all the sides of the conflict, who have to pay the highest price for the decisions of politicians they did not even vote for. It is mostly for the possible - and as it seems inevitable - consequences of the laziness and lack of guts of the weak western leaders. It is that if nothing changes no former country from the Soviet block will be safe anymore. Including not just Ukraine but also members of NATO and EU such as Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Poland. The situation is known from the history and it takes just enough imagination that I unfortunately have to predict how it all may evolve in the next few years. Let's first analyse what my predictions are based on. First - the overly strong believe in the declarations of friends and allays seems exactly the same cause of defeat as it happened in case of the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. The so called word powers are too occupied with their own business to really care about a small country somewhere in a distant part of the world. They need good relationships with Russia and will not risk them for stupid democratic ideals, which are just good to delude their citizens. In fact it is all about money and power, the ideals are no match for that. Second - the lack of strong reaction to growing aggression of a psychopathic tyrant resembles the situation with Hitler growing in power before the WWII. The problems started when he grew too big, but then it was a bit too late. Every doctor knows that prevention is always cheaper and more effective than fight with developed illness. Everyone knows that. Except for politicians. The cause for that is their wishful thinking and inability to face the hard truth. They prefer to believe that deep in his heart Putin is a democrat and that he is their friend. And even when he speaks clearly that he wants the Soviet Union back they seem to hear something else.

But Putin is an extremely clever player with clear goals. What are these goals no-one except him knows for sure. But my suspicion is that they are not good for so called western democracy and anybody but Putin and part of Russian officials and politicians. They are bad for citizens of western countries, and what is nothing knew also bad for common Russians. Tsars never cared about their people. Putin has been probing the West for quite some time. Whether it was stopping the supplies of gas in quarrels with Belarus, stopping import of Polish or European meat, throwing cyber-attacks against Estonia, or killing a British citizen in London, he was observing the reaction and keeping his eye on the ball. Slowly but cleverly, step-by-step testing the limits. He was dividing the European Union, buying prominent western politicians (like the former Chancellor of Germany), and building his political power. Now is the time of the ultimate test. The reaction to the attack on Georgia will be crucial for determination of his further actions. If it continues to be the farce of empty talks and declarations, or even shameless support for Putin from somebody who should know better (President of Czech Republic) and trying to calm the situation by proposing unfair peace treaties he will grow stronger. Who can be next? Ukraine (whose eastern half naturally gravitates towards Russia)? Estonia (with 30% of Russian citizens who also may suddenly start to feel very oppressed)? Lithuania? Poland? And if something happens will the NATO help? Or will it be again just empty talks and ineffective mediations? Will the western politicians see their interest more in Russian oil and bribes payed them by NordStream and Gazprom than in protecting their fellow member states? Will they believe the Russian propaganda that it was not them who started the conflict and that they had to protect their citizens? Or will they finally face the reality? And will it not be too late?

I hope to never have to see that. It is still not too late to stop the lunatic who is responsible for all that trouble. But will the West have balls? Sadly I am rather a pessimist.