The Washington Post's Philip P. Pan had an excellent story today on the ways in which Russia used economic coercion to aid and abet regime change in Kyrgyzstan last week.  This part stands out in particular:

After the opposition announced plans for nationwide protests, Putin provided a final spark by signing a decree March 29 eliminating subsidies on gasoline exports to Kyrgyzstan and other former Soviet republics that had not joined a new customs union.

When the tariffs kicked in April 1, Russian fuel shipments to Kyrgyzstan were suspended, said Bazarbai Mambetov, president of a Kyrgyz oil traders association. Within days, gas prices in Bishkek began to climb, enraging residents already angry about sharp increases in utility fees.

As the Kremlin leaned on Bakiyev, it also consulted the opposition, hosting its leaders on visits to Moscow, including in the days before the protests. On the eve of the demonstrations, the Kyrgyz prime minister accused one, Temir Sariev, of telling police that he had met with Putin and had won his support for efforts to overthrow Bakiyev.

What's interesting about this is that Russia didn't rely on "smart sanctions" that would only hurt the ruling elite.  They clearly imposed sanctions designed to roust the mass public into action. 

Sometimes, dumb sanctions aren't actually all that dumb. 

[So you're saying that similar sanctions should be imposed against Iran?--ed.  No.  Iran is not Kyrgyzstan, and the United States is not Russia.  There are too many differences between the two cases to make that facile comparison.  I'm just  pointing out that there is more than one way for sanctions to change a targeted state's behavior.]

Over in Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovich's apparent narrow victory over the Yulia Tymoshenko has had the anticipated effect inside the U.S. foreign policy community -- there's been an exercise in massive navel-gazing.  I'm therefore going to make things worse by engaging in meta-navel gazing (usually something I only consider doing with you-know-who).

Let's start with the Century Foundation's Jeffrey Laurenti: 

Yanukovych's election yesterday, narrowly edging out prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko in the run-off, spotlights the folly of Washington conservatives who pressed single-mindedly to lock Ukraine (and Georgia) into the Western military alliance during the Bush administration.  They discounted deep ambivalence among Ukrainians themselves and sought to override overt opposition from NATO's leading members in western Europe. 

Like insects trapped in Baltic amber since dinosaur days, American conservatives remained frozen in a comfortingly simple cold-war view of the world:  Russia is incorrigibly suspect and must relentlessly be hemmed in by American power. 

That sounds like a cue.... yes, let's click over to The American Interest's Walter Russell Mead: 

The apparent victory of Viktor Yanukovych in yesterday’s Ukrainian presidential election is yet another setback to the idea that the world is rapidly becoming a more democratic place....

In hindsight, the choice that we made to extend NATO farther east in gradual steps might have been a mistake.  Russia hates NATO expansion and always has.  To some Russians it looks like the inexorable approach of a hostile alliance that endangers the motherland; to others it is a constant humiliating reminder of Russian weakness and the west’s arrogant presumption after 1989.  The expansion was annoying when it was limited to the former Warsaw Pact Soviet allies; it was maddening and infuriating when it extended to territories that were once part of the USSR like the three Baltic republics of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia.  The prospect of a new wave of expansion to include Georgia and Ukraine, and push right up to the Russian frontier, was a worst case scenario nightmare for Russia.

If we were going to expand NATO eastward, we probably should have done it all at once, making agreements in principle and establishing basic interim security treaties with those countries whose actual entry might have to be delayed.  What we’ve done instead is like pulling a bandage off tiny bit by bit, endlessly prolonging the agony.  We should have ripped the whole thing off twenty years ago.  (We should have also thought much more seriously than we ever have about the likelihood that expanding NATO probably ultimately entailed bringing the Russians in as the only way to stabilize the security situation across Europe.)  Now the combination of Russian opposition (which, among other things, reduces European enthusiasm for expansion), geopolitical instability (do we want to get sucked into a new Russia-Georgian war?) and the general decline of US interest in Europe make a strong new push for expansion unlikely — even if the Yanukovych government wanted to join NATO.

So here we are: stuck with a security fault line in Europe, while the Russians will continue to fish where there aren’t any signs.

Both of these posts suggests way too much focus on the immediate implications of the election -- a president more favorably disposed towards Moscow. 

I think this is one time when the mainstream media actually brings greater value-added to the table.   The New York Times' Clifford Levy makes an intriguing suggestion in this news analysis -- that the process of Ukraine's election is more significant than Yanukovich's victory: 

[T]he election won by the candidate, Viktor F. Yanukovich, was highly competitive, unpredictable and relatively fair — just the kind of major contest that has not been held in Russia since Mr. Putin, the prime minister, consolidated power.

On Monday, for example, European election monitors praised the election that was held Sunday, calling it an “impressive display” of democracy. Ukraine's election, in other words, did not follow the Kremlin blueprint and, if anything, seemed to highlight the flaws in the system in Russia. As such, it presented a kind of alternative model for the former Soviet Union....

[Analysts said] that while the public ousted the Orange government, it did not want to do away with all aspects of the Orange democracy. They said a backlash would occur if Mr. Yanukovich tried to crack down.

The Ukrainian model may have particular resonance now with recent rumblings of discontent in Russia.

Late last month, antigovernment demonstrations in Kaliningrad, a region in western Russia physically separate from the rest of the country, drew thousands of people and seemed to catch the Kremlin off guard. Some protesters chanted for Mr. Putin’s resignation, complaining about higher taxes and an economy weakened by the financial crisis.

And last week, a prominent politician from what had been perceived as a puppet opposition party unexpectedly turned on the Kremlin and lashed out at Mr. Putin’s domestic policies. “Is opposition and criticism dishonest?” said the politician, Sergey Mironov. “In a civilized society, this is the duty and goal of the opposition.”

It is highly unlikely that Russia will soon have Ukrainian-style openness. The question now is, what will be the long-term impact across the former Soviet Union if Ukraine can follow its successful election with a relatively peaceful transition to a Yanukovich administration?

That's far from guaranteed, if Tymoshenko's latest actions are any indication.  And the past is not necessarily encouraging -- Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko won free and fair elections the one time they were held in Belarus, back in 1994. 

Still, this is an outcome that should have democracy activists pretty pleased with themselves -- and members of the foreign policy community less obsessed with the international relations version of horse race politics. 

I, for one, am glad that the foreign press is brave enough to cover what America's mainstream media is not -- the U.S. government's complicity in causing the Haitian earthquake. Never mind that the foreign media echo chamber aparentluy started with a false rumor -- with luck, our MSM will now start asking the tough questions.

This is a plan so brilliant that only the Evil League of Evil, in conjunction with the reverse vampires and the Obama administration, could have devised it.

Why, you might ask? What is America's motivations to trigger Haiti's earthquake and then intervene with massive aid in the hemisphere's poorest country? Well, there are different theories bandied about.

Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez suggests that this was a practice "drill," designed to test the earthquake weapon before targeting Iran (though see the update below). Very clever!! It is unclear whether Chavez believes that this is a test of the "demonstration effect" variety or not. It is also unclear just how such an earthquake would actually destroy Iran's nuclear program -- the 2003 Bam earthquake certainly didn't.

This Canadian-based Centre for Research on Globalization's Ken Hildebrandt offers the following ingenious explanation:

You've likely guessed my suspicions about recent events. I'm not saying this is what occurred, though it's sure a possibility to be considered in my view.

This could hardly have happened at a more convenient time. The president's ratings are plummeting, and his bill to subsidize the insurance industry has essentially divided the nation in two.

What better way to lead the people into believing we're one big happy family than to reunite former Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush along with Obama in a joint humanitarian effort?

This is so convenient... and brilliant!! It makes perfect sense that the Obama administation would try to kill upwards of 200,000 Haitians in order to bring the country together as one! Because, clearly, in recent years, natural disasters have bolstered the standing of U.S. presidents!! Certainly, a calamity in Haiti would work even better! If only Rush Limbaugh had played ball....

What I love about conspiracies like these is the careful balancing of smart and stupid that the key actors have to possess in order for the plan to work as described.

Question to readers: how far and how wide will this meme travel?

UPDATE:  I just received the following from a atrategic communications advisor to the Venezuelan Embassy in the United states: 

In response to your recent post on Foreign Policy’s website, I just wanted to clarify that President Hugo Chavez never associated himself with the theory that a U.S. weapon had caused the earthquake in Haiti.  

The claim was made by a blogger on the website of a state-run yet independent television station. At some point thereafter, someone jumped to the conclusion that President Chavez had agreed or repeated the claim, which is absolutely not true. President Chavez did argue against an increased U.S. military presence in Haiti, but at no point did he question what had caused the earthquake or aligned himself with any conspiracy theories to that effect.

 

A theme common to all social scientists in the United States is the complaints lodged at "human subjects committees" or "institutional review boards" (IRBs).  These are committees set up to ensure that faculty research projects do not lead to the mistreatment of the human subjects that are the focus of said research.  This is all to the good for those researchers who are giving human subjects experimental drugs and treatments, mostly to the good for researchers who are running psychological experiments on test subjects, and one whopper of an inconvenience for the rest of us who have to get IRB approval for completely unintrusive investigations. 

In the New York Times, however, Ellen Barry writes about some new requirements for professors at St. Petersburg State University who wish to present overseas.   Their new requirements will make me a little less likely to bitch about IRB procedures: 

Word spread this month among the faculty members of St. Petersburg State University: According to a document signed on Oct. 1, they have to submit their work to administrators for permission before publishing it abroad or presenting it at overseas conferences.

The order, which was circulated internally and made its way onto a popular Internet forum, says professors must provide their academic department with copies of texts to be made public outside Russia, so that they can be reviewed for violation of intellectual property laws or potential danger to national security....

Though scientists have long been subject to export control rules, the St. Petersburg order applies to the humanities as well. It asks for copies of grant applications to foreign organizations, contracts with foreign entities, curriculums to be used for teaching foreign students and a list of foreign students, along with their plans of study.

Deans will clear the work for publication or submit it to an internal export control commission for review, said Igor A. Gorlinsky, the university’s vice rector for scholarly and scientific work. The order was issued to clarify a rule that has been on the university’s books for a decade, but that existed “only on paper,” he said. Dr. Gorlinsky added that the plan might be adjusted or streamlined in response to faculty feedback....

He said he doubted that work in the humanities would be affected unless it violated the university’s intellectual property rights.

“What state secrets could there be in the sphere of political science?” he said (emphasis added).

Ouch. 

According to the Associated Press, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev wants to get outside of the DC beltway in his next trip to the USA: 

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says he would like to meet with "dissidents" when he visits the U.S. next week.

Russian news agencies quote him as telling a group of visiting foreign experts that "I believe there are dissidents in the United States."

ITAR-Tass quotes him as saying: "Let them tell me what problems the United States has. That won't be bad, considering the Soviet experience."

I think that this is a fantastic idea, when one considers the potential pool of dissidents.  Fortunately, Andy Heil has come up with a list of possibile dissidents at RFERL's Transmissions blog.  His list:

1. Noam Chomsky
2. Rush Limbaugh
3. Michael Moore
4. Kanye West
5. Sarah Palin
6. Jeremiah Wright
7. Gus Hall
8. Sean Penn
9. Chirstopher Hitchens
10. Eric Cartman

This is an excellent start, but I think we can add a few names to the old dissident list.  Let me think.... who else is railing against the System these days?

1. Glenn Beck
2. U.S. Representative Ron Paul
3. Glenn Greenwald
4. Dick Cheney
5. Serena Williams
6. U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich
7. Jimmy Carter
8. U.S. Representative Joe Wilson
9. Terrell Owens
10. Beyonce (OK, technically, she's not railing against the system -- but as much of a jackass as he might have been, Kanye was right:  this is the most awesome video ever.  She was robbed, and I blame The Man). 

I'm just trying to imagine Medvedev meeting this crew. 

Commenters are encouraged to suggest additional names in the comments.

Joe Biden gave an interview to the Wall Street Journal after his sojourn to Georgia and Ukraine.  I wouldn't characterize his remarks as "diplomatic": 

The reality is the Russians are where they are. They have a shrinking population base, they have a withering economy, they have a banking sector and structure that is not likely to be able to withstand the next 15 years, they're in a situation where the world is changing before them and they're clinging to something in the past that is not sustainable.

If Biden was just shooting the breeze off the record, I'd be hard-pressed to disagree with anything in the quotes.  I'm pretty sure, however, that part of "smart power" is not being gratuitously insulting to fellow members of the nuclear club.  Maybe, just maybe, they'll take this kind of dumbass statement personally. 

Don't take my word for it, though -- take Joe Biden's:

It is never smart to embarrass an individual or a country when they're dealing with significant loss of face. My dad used to put it another way: Never put another man in a corner where the only way out is over you. It just is not smart.

The word "stupid" has been thrown around a lot this week, but I think it applies pretty well to Biden's language. 

During the transition, Barack Obama voiced numerous concerns about being trapped in the Presidential "bubble," cut off from the rest of the real world. Oddly enough, this is also a concern of 30 Rock. 

If this New York Times story by Clifford J. Levy and Ellen Barry is any indication, the bubble seems to have completely enveloped Obama's White House staff: 

Crowds did not clamor for a glimpse of him. Headlines offered only glancing or flippant notice of his activities. Television programming was uninterrupted; devotees of the Russian Judge Judy had nothing to fear. Even many students and alumni of the Western-oriented business school where Mr. Obama gave the graduation address on Tuesday seemed merely respectful, but hardly enthralled....

Some Obama aides said they were struck by the low-key reception here, especially when compared with the outpouring on some of his other foreign trips. Even Michelle Obama, who typically enjoys admiring coverage in the local news media when she travels, has not had her every move chronicled here.

Seriously?  Seriously?!  The President of the United States visits a staunchly nationalist country that has significant conflicts with Washington, and the charm offensive didn't take?  Well, blow me down!! 

When/if Obama visits China and India, his staffers might have some more rude awakenings in their future.  

With Obama in Russia today, there are soome different blog takes on what to expect from bilateral relationship. 

Dave Schuler thinks Russian and American interests are increasingly incompatible: 

[T]here isn’t much basis for a good relationship between Russia and the United States. Russia’s population is dwindling, its economy languishing, it survives largely by selling its natural resources. Russia would be a difficult market for American goods and its natural customer for its oil and gas is Europe. We don’t really need Russia’s cooperation on pressing world issues like climate change.

Russia has had consistent and clear interests over the period of the last 200 years or more: annexing or at least neutralizing its neighbors.

Matt Yglesias has a slightly different take: 

The US-Russia relationship is multifaceted, and there’s plenty of stuff we disagree about. And within the category of “stuff we disagree about” there’s a particular sub-category of stuff that it’s exceedingly unlikely we’re going to agree about. Most notable among these is Russia’s relationship with the post-Soviet countries....

There’s a certain amount of sentiment in the United States that not only should the U.S. continue to disagree with Russia’s perspective on this, but that we ought to somehow elevate such disagreement to the very top of the U.S.-Russian bilateral relationship. The president should go over there, denounce the Russians, get denounced back, and then come back to Washington empty handed but full of self-righteousness. This is part and parcel of the phenomenon whereby people don’t grasp the difference between a pundit and a president. It makes a lot more sense to focus a visit on something like the nuclear issue, where U.S. and Russian interests are roughly in alignment and some high-level discussions stand a decent chance of bearing fruit.

I'm gonna side with Yglesias on this one, mostly because I don't think I buy Schuler's logic connecting Russia's strategic situation and the absence of any basis for a good relationship between Washington and Moscow.  I agree with Schuler that the reservoir of anti-Americanism in Russia runs long and deep.  That said: 

• There are issues where Russia's interest and America's interests coincide (Arms control, Afghanistan);
• There are some pressing world issues where Russian cooperation would be very useful (Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea);
• I'm pretty sure that Russia would be a useful market for American producers. 

Am I missing anything? 

Not everything going on in international relations is about Iran.  My latest column at The National Interest Online evaluates yesterday's BRIC Heads of State summit in Yekaterinaburg.  The closing paragraph:

[T]hink of the BRIC grouping as an homage to other toothless international groupings. Indeed, most of the official BRIC communiqué consisted of pledges to do things that will clearly not be done, like finish the Doha trade round. In doing this, the BRIC coalition appears to be quickly learning from the grand tradition of fruitless G-8 and G-20 communiqués.

Go read the whole thing. 

VP Joe Biden gave a speech at the Munich Security Conference today that made quite a splash. 

The main themes of the speech were about American outreach to Iran and Russia, Still, the Washington Post's Craig Whitlock reported the following oddity: 

Biden is scheduled to meet privately later this weekend in Munich with Sergei Ivanov, Russia's deputy prime minister. While he was conciliatory in his speech, Biden also signaled that the Obama administration would take a tough line when necessary.

For example, he said the U.S. government would not recognize the breakaway Caucasus republics of Abkhazia or South Ossetia, which seceded after the war in Georgia and has received strong Russian support.

This is Biden's example of a tough line? Well, whoa, blow me down!! 

In not recognizing Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the United States has bravely aligned itself with... every other country in the world except for Russia and Nicaragua. This is a tough line like saying the U.S. government would also not recognize Vladimir Putin as King of the World. 

We'll see how Tehran and Moscow respond to the outreach. I do like the fact that the "America will extend a hand to those who unclench their fists" line from Obama's inaugural address is now part of U.S. lexicon. It's a clever framing that puts the onus on Iran and Russia. 

The falling price of oil and increased political risk following the conflict in Georgia played a prominent role in driving Russia’s stock market to new lows on Wednesday. But bankers and traders said that the underlying reason for the selling was a liquidity crunch of the kind that affected western markets a year ago but has only recently appeared in Russia - a serious cash shortage that is forcing banks and funds to sell otherwise attractive assets. Analysts said the market was being forced down as leading Russian businessmen and funds had to liquidate positions due to margin calls as they were unable to raise cash elsewhere.

Russia is considering using money from its national wealth fund and pension fund to support financial markets where necessary in the future, Alexei Kudrin, finance minister said on Thursday as the country’s stock market trod water despite government moves to bolster confidence. In an unprecedented bid to reassure investors Mr Kudrin said: ”There are several proposals for the banking community to improve the instruments that would allow (markets) to calmly work in this environment,” ”Among these is a proposal to place pension fund money and national wealth fund money on the domestic market. In future it will be possible if it becomes necessary,” Mr Kudrin told reporters, adding the money would be placed in securities. The comments failed to impress the market. On Thursday, the dollar-denominated RTS index opened marginally higher before edging 0.1 per cent lower to 1,333.27, following an almost 12 per cent drop during the previous two sessions. The country’s more heavily traded rouble-denominated Micex index rose 0.6 per cent to 1,120.98. Intervention would knock Russia’s sovereign rating if it proved to be more than a verbal attempt to prop up the stock market, analysts warned.

Put aside Georgia, TNK-BP, and Vladimir Putin’s verbal mugging of Mechel and there were already good reasons why Russia’s market started falling in May, long before tanks trundled through the Roki tunnel. Those are the recovering dollar – forcing closure of long rouble positions – and falling prices of oil and commodities, whose long rally had underpinned the rise of Russian equities. Those factors are still in play, and fuelling the swing out of all big emerging markets. In Russia’s case they have come together with a big – and justified – leap in political risk that has turned what might have been a more orderly retreat into a rout.

• In February of this year, the Republic of Kosovo unilaterally declared its independence.  According to Wikipedia,* seventeen countries, including France, Turkey, Australia, Italy, Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom, recognized the country within its first week of independence.  As of this writing, 46 countries recognize Kosovo, including Japan, Canada, South Korea, and Sweden.  That's not a huge number, but when you're recognized by all G-7 members, it does count for something. 
• It's been more than a week since Russia recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states.  The number of other countries that have followed Russia's lead is.... well, maybe one (Nicaragua), as near as I can tell.  Belarus keeps promising that they'll get around to it, and Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko has defended Russia's recognition decision; since that initial promise, however, Belarus appears to have decided to sit on their hands.  In Venezuela, Hugo Chavez has expressed similar support of Russia's recognition decision -- but I haven't seen any actual recognition from Caracas either.  We'll know this Friday if any other members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization will sign up for recognition, but Vedomosti reports that, "It appears that the Russian government has reconciled itself to the fact that no other country has recognized the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said yesterday the reluctance of other states to recognize the independence of the breakaway Georgian territories was not critical."  I strongly encourage readers to fact-check me here.  [UPDATE:  The Moscow Times' Nasi Abdullaev reports that, "Russia last week attempted -- and failed -- to win support from its Central Asian allies on Abkhaz and South Ossetian independence at Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Tajikistan."  He also reports that as of yet the CSTO ain't budging.]

The euphoria that followed the destruction of Georgian's $2 billion Army and the humiliation of President Saakashvili has dissolved. And for the first time since Vladimir Putin – and his muscled, uncompromising, and vindictive world view – came to power in 1999, serious voices are expressing doubts about his judgment. They clearly feel that Russia has not emerged onto the world stage quite so authoritatively as Mr. Putin may have thought; the country has instead stumbled into a dangerous and debilitating trap. A number of prominent Russian foreign policy analysts saw the recognition of the disputed territories coming and warned urgently against it. They include a highly experienced diplomat and former government minister, Alexei Adamishin. "Russia has every moral right to recognize the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia," he wrote in an opinion piece beforehand. But the consequences will be "catastrophic." A couple of weeks earlier, Sergei Karaganov, of the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy, Russia's equivalent of the Council on Foreign Relations, urged the Kremlin to think carefully before recognizing the two secessionist states. Equally grim analyses have followed the announcement, and there are indirect signs of concern in the business community....  [Putin] trusts very few people. Aides say he makes policy on key issues – Georgia, Ukraine, NATO – himself, along with a small circle, and tends to improvise. He shows little interest in the Russian stock market, which has taken a battering since the outbreak of the Georgia crisis, while most of the mega-rich, many of them close associates, have attained their fortune by obeying one rule: Do exactly what Putin says. In the past, everybody obeyed this rule, and many in the ruling elite were genuinely convinced that he was the right leader for these times. Now, doubts are creeping in, and people are bracing themselves for tense years. The strong man has started to show his weaknesses. 

One minor casualty of the recent conflict in Georgia was the doctrine of peace through McGlobalization — a belief first elaborated by Thomas Friedman in 1999, and left in ruins on August 8, when Russian troops moved into South Ossetia. “No two countries that both had McDonald’s had fought a war against each other since each got its McDonald’s,” wrote Friedman in The Lexus and the Olive Tree (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux). Not that the fast-food chain itself had a soothing effect, of course. The argument was that international trade and modernization — and the processes of liberalization and democratization created in their wakes — would knit countries together in an international civil society that made war unnecessary. There would still be conflict. But it could be contained — made rational, and even profitable, like competition between Ronald and his competitors over at Burger King. (Thomas Friedman does not seem like a big reader of Kant, but his thinking here bears some passing resemblance to the philosopher’s “Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Perspective,” an essay from 1784.) McDonald’s opened in Russia in 1990 — a milestone of perestroika, if ever there were one. And Georgia will celebrate the tenth anniversary of its first Micky D’s early next year, assuming anybody feels up for it. So much for Friedman’s theory. Presumably it could be retooled ex post facto (“two countries with Pizza Huts have never had a thermonuclear conflict,” anyone?) but that really seems like cheating. Ever since a friend pointed out that the golden arches no longer serve as a peace sign, I have been wondering if some alternative idea would better fit the news from Georgia. Is there a grand narrative that subsumes recent events? What generalizations seem possible, even necessary and urgent, now? What, in short, is the Big Idea?

By any normal measures, the Russian market – down 36 per cent since May - is now as cheap as a bottle of bootleg vodka. Sadly, investors are concluding Russia is not a normal country. Its choice of confrontation with the west will do little immediate damage to its economy - $1bn a day is still flowing in from exports of oil, gas, and oil products. But the damage to growth and the development of its market could be long-lasting.... If reforms are slow or non-existent, long-term earnings growth will be slower too, and vulnerability to commodity shocks higher. Investors will demand a premium to reflect the political and event risk. Russia’s chances of closing the valuation gap with China and India – which it never quite managed – recede sharply. How much of that worst-case scenario comes to pass will depend, in part, on how the current crisis evolves. Meantime, investors will continue their retreat from Moscow in favour of places that act in their own long-term economic self-interest.

The post-Cold War world, the New World Order, ended with authority on Aug. 8, 2008, when Russia and Georgia went to war. Certainly, this war was not in itself of major significance, and a very good case can be made that the New World Order actually started coming apart on Sept. 11, 2001. But it was on Aug. 8 that a nation-state, Russia, attacked another nation-state, Georgia, out of fear of the intentions of a third nation-state, the United States. This causes us to begin thinking about the Real World Order.