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【登载媒体】CNN
【来源地址】http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORL ... a.oakley/index.html
【译者】erihao
【声明】本翻译仅供Anti-CNN使用,谢绝转载
Analysis: Georgia's major miscalculation?
(CNN) -- There has been no doubt of Europe's priority in the conflict between Georgia and Russia: Bringing about a ceasefire on both sides and minimizing further bloodshed. Beyond that, nothing in this conflict is simple.
European leaders feel a special responsibility for preventing further escalation and several of them have condemned a "disproportionate" use of force by Russia. The European Commission has called for an end to all Russian military activity on Georgian soil.
But at the same time European diplomats accept that Mikheil Saakashvili initiated military action in seeking to reassert Georgian control of its breakaway province of South Ossetia, perhaps hoping that he could consolidate power there while the world was preoccupied with the Olympics.
At the time of the Rose Revolution in 2003, European lawmakers saw Saakashvili through similarly tinted spectacles, but nowadays they regard him as a somewhat headstrong figure who had already damaged his credentials as a democrat by the way in which he suppressed dissent in his country last November.
Georgia may claim that South Ossetia's leaders are controlled by the Russia's FSB security service but Europeans sense Saakashvili gave Russia the excuse it was looking for to intervene, insisting that its own "peace-keepers" in South Ossetia were under threat and had to be protected.
If Saakashvili thought that the Europeans in particular and the Western world in general would rally to his cause, he miscalculated. European diplomats have for a while been confessing a degree of "Georgia fatigue."
That was why several of the Europeans banded together at the NATO summit in Bucharest in March to frustrate U.S. President George W. Bush's demand that Georgia should be set on the first step there towards NATO membership.
It is unlikely now that when NATO's foreign ministers meet in December to look again at the question of Georgia and Ukraine being invited to join NATO's Membership Action Program they will be handing out any gilt-edged cards.
Saakashvili insists that the Russia action is "premeditated aggression." But European leaders do not echo his rhetoric when he goes on to claim that "If the whole world does not stop Russia today then Russian tanks will be able to reach any other European capital."
Whatever the provocations, they do not thank him for turning the "frozen conflict" over South Ossetia and its other breakaway region Abkhazia into a real one.
Most European leaders are in a phase of working to improve relations with Russia, not least because the EU countries are dependent on Russia now for nearly 40 percent of their energy supplies.
They know that the Russian leadership has not taken kindly to their lectures on democracy and they are acutely aware of how irritated Russia was by most of the Europeans and the West backing the declaration of independence from Serbia declared by Kosovo. They also need to keep Russia on side in much bigger strategic questions like Iran's nuclear program.
In diplomacy the "many-sidedness of truth" is often apparent.
Those sympathetic to Georgia can point out the hypocrisy of Russia brutally suppressing separatism in Chechnya while fostering it in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. But others recall the parallels the Russians continually emphasized over Kosovo with the breakaway regions of the Georgian state that have enjoyed de facto independence since the early 1990s.
Where the Europeans will draw the line is if Russia continues to violate the statehood and sovereignty of Georgia.
We have already seen sharp exchanges at the UN between U.S. and Russian representatives, with Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. envoy, warning that "The days of overthrowing leaders by military means in Europe is over" and Europeans will certainly resist any Moscow-induced attempt to have the democratically elected Saakashvili removed by anything other than the actions of Georgian voters.
What Saakashvili has perhaps neglected is the bitterness the current Russia leadership feels not only over Kosovo but over the development of the US missile defence scheme in Europe, with installations planned in Poland and the Czech Republic, and over the steady expansion to the east both of NATO and the European Union.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his protege Dmitry Medvedev still smart for the humiliations suffered by the former Soviet Union during the Boris Yeltsin years. They remain firm believers in a Russian sphere of influence in which NATO and others meddle at their peril.
NATO's Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer may condemn Russia for a "disproportionate use of force," echoed by Russia's traditional critics within the EU like Poland and the Baltic states.
But when it comes to anything more than supportive words, Georgia is likely to be disappointed by the European reaction. It is likely to look in vain to Brussels for practical or military help in regaining control of its separatist regions.
【译文】
分析:格鲁吉亚的重大失策
毫无疑问,欧洲在格鲁吉亚和俄罗斯冲突问题中的首要任务是:促使双方达成停火并减少进一步的流血冲突。而除了能做这些之外,解决这场冲突则远非那么简单。
欧洲的领导者们感到特别有责任阻止冲突的进一步的升级,并且谴责俄罗斯“不对称的”使用武力。欧洲委员会已经呼吁俄罗斯结束在格鲁吉亚领土上的军事行动。
但是,与此同时欧洲的外交家们承认,为了加强格鲁吉亚对南奥塞梯这个叛离省的控制,是米哈伊尔.萨卡什维利首先发起了军事行动。并且他有可能希望利用世界关注奥运会无暇他顾的时机,妄图统一该地区。
在2003年发生“玫瑰革命”之时,欧洲的立法者并没有看清萨卡什维利的真面目,但是如今他们认为萨卡什维利是个顽固分子,去年11月镇压异见者的事件已经使他褪去了民主的外衣。
格鲁吉亚可以宣称南奥塞悌的领导者们是受俄罗斯联邦安全局控制的,但是欧洲人认为正是萨卡什维利在给俄罗斯提供借口,使俄罗斯有机会坚持以“南奥塞悌的“和平守护者”正遭受威胁、必需受到保护”为名介入争端。
如果萨卡什维利以为西方国家,特别是欧洲会因这个冲突集结在一起(对抗俄罗斯),那是他失策了。曾有一度,欧洲的外交家们承认患上了“格鲁吉亚疲劳症”。
这也是为什么一些欧洲国家会联合抵制美国让格鲁吉亚加入北约的原因,尽管,在3月举行的北约布加勒斯特峰会上,布什曾有意让格鲁吉亚履行成为北约成员的第一个步骤。
即便是在将于12月召开的北约外长会议上(将审核格鲁吉亚和乌克兰受邀加入北约的执行程序),他们也不太可能会批准两国的申请。
萨卡什维利坚持认为俄罗斯的行动是“有预谋的进攻”。但是当他宣称“如果整个世界今天不制止俄罗斯,那么俄罗斯的坦克将开进每一个欧洲国家的首都”时,欧洲的领导者们对这种夸张之词并没有做出回应。
萨卡什维利已经将南奥塞悌和阿柏克兹亚(Abkhazia)地区“冻结的冲突”变成了现实的冲突,无论他如何煽动,欧洲的领导人都不会因此感谢他。
大多数欧洲领导人都处在努力改善与俄罗斯关系的阶段,这并不只是因为欧盟国家40%的能源供给依赖俄罗斯。
他们知道俄罗斯的领导层不会因为他们的民主训诫而变得温和,而且他们十分清楚:当大多数欧洲和西方国家支持科索沃从塞尔维亚独立出来时,俄罗斯是如何的愤怒。他们需要保证俄罗斯在更大的战略性问题上(如伊朗核进程)与他们保持一致。
在外交领域,“多边主义的现实”是显而易见的。
他们对格鲁吉亚的同情会使他们指责俄罗斯的伪善:在镇压车臣分离主义分子的同时,却扶植南奥塞悌和阿柏克兹亚的分裂势力。但是其他人也会想起,俄罗斯不断的强调科索沃和这些叛离的地区应该等同对待,因为后者实际上自上世纪90年代就已经独立了。
如果俄罗斯一直侵犯格鲁吉亚的主权和领土,那么欧洲人将如何画界?
我们已经看到了美国和俄罗斯驻联合国的代表之间的激烈争执,美国特使警告俄方特使Zalmay Khalilzad:“在欧洲靠军事手段推翻领导人的时代已经过去了”而且欧洲会抵制俄罗斯策划的除掉民选的萨卡什维利的任何图谋,除非通过是格鲁吉亚人的投票选举。
萨卡什维利可能忽视了当前俄罗斯领导层的愤恨——不仅是对科索沃,也包括欧洲的导弹防御计划(准备在波兰和捷克部署导弹),以及北约和欧盟的稳步东扩。
俄罗斯总理普京和他的弟子梅德韦杰夫,仍然对前苏联在叶利钦时代所遭受的屈辱保持警觉。在俄罗斯的影响范围内,他们(俄罗斯的领导人)依然有坚定的追随者,即使这些地区是北约和其他国家冒险干预的地区。
北约秘书长夏侯雅伯谴责俄罗斯“不对称的使用武力”,这遭到了欧盟内部传统俄罗斯实力范围(如波兰和波罗的海沿岸国家)的批评。
但是如果格鲁吉亚希望得到除了言论支持以外的东西,那么恐怕他要对欧盟的反应失望了。看上去,希望通过向布鲁塞尔(欧盟总部所在地)寻求行动和军事方面的帮助来重获分离地区的控制权,将是徒劳的。
[ 本帖最后由 erihao 于 2008-8-12 03:54 编辑 ] |
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