Rhymes with Keeno Luhrmanadze

Benefits of living in NYC:

1) Ridiculously easy public transportation.
2) Inflated sense of cultural importance.
3) More cool stuff to do than is ever possible to appreciate.
4) Relative proximity to important/powerful people.

All of these get blown out of proportion by people living here, but in each there is some grain of truth that does make New York (here used synonymously with Manhattan) pretty special. Not better than elsewhere, certainly not best, but admittedly special. Not sure how the effects or awareness of all this changes over time (I am now officially a 1-week New Yorker), but I got my first taste of #4 yesterday and it was pretty interesting.

Nino Burjanadze is a former president, and until recently, also Prime Minister of the Republic of Georgia (the one with mountains, not the right-wing secessionist dixie-mongers). She gave a lecture at Columbia's Harrimon Institute of Foreign Affairs, and by virtue of my shiny new student ID, I got to go.

I've been following the recent conflict in Georgia with considerable interest. Not sure why I'm so fixated on it, but it has something to do with my summer education on the realities of the Soviet empire and its legacies.

So when I heard about the lecture, of course I had to attend. Unfortunately, this rapt attention wasn't quite enough to get me out of my tendency for mild tardiness, so by 11 minutes after the lecture should have started, I hopped into an elevator with 8 other people. And we only pressed one button - 15, top floor. Apparently, we were all late for the same lecture.

When the car stopped on just the 12th floor, we all groaned at this extra 15 seconds of delay. We're New Yorkers, right? We've got places to go... Then things got confusing.

Have you ever been assaulted by Papparrazi? Stepped out of a car only to be flooded by bright flashes, a crush of humanity, and a half dozen microphones thrust at you like obscene ice cream cones from a suspicious-looking stranger? Well, neither have I, but the scene that greeted me as the reflective chrome doors slid open on the 12th floor was as close as I hope to get. Video crews were setup, practically pointing into the elevator, and the several crouching photographers certainly covered any angles the larger lenses left to the imagination. As if this wasn't dazzling enough, we had only a second to process it before two very large square men in dark suits pushed into the elevator to carve a nitche for two young ladies in smart suits and one late middle-aged woman in a black and white checkered jacket.

As the doors slid closed, I heard a better-informed grad student to my right whisper, "that's her." Still recovering from the dazzle of a moment ago, I jovially shot back, at an equally inaudible level, "at least we're not late."

The ensuing lecture/press conference was equally ludicrous. They planned to hold it in a room built for maybe 20 people, and so part-way through the introduction, with about 100 people still lined up outside, they elected to transition the whole affair (microphones, chairs, banners) to another room. It was like a CNN-day parade.

Things eventually got settled, my brush with regional political fame passed, and for those that are especially interested, here are some of the interesting points regarding the Georgian side of the conflict that I was able to walk away with:

Mrs. Burjanadze is of the opinion that the recent conflict is not an isolated event, and instead illustrates a dramatic new policy for the Russian Federation in regard to ensuring its influence and political (as well as economic) dominance among former Soviet Republics.

She further emphasized that the "break-away" regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia are indisputable territories of the Republic of Georgia, and have been such since before the establishment of the Soviet Union. And further, that there exists no historical bias or ethnic tension between Georgians and Ossetians, an assertion that is not true of the Abkhaz (who engaged in ethnic cleansing of Georgians in their territory during a brief conflict in 1992-93).

Another interesting comment was that there was no such thing as a "greater Ossetia," and that the term South Ossetia is intentionally misleading to suggest that Georgia is maliciously diving a common people. Mrs. Burjanandze points out that the S. and North Ossetians are separated by some of the least-passable mountains of the Caucus, severly limiting cultural exchange. Further, she points out that North Ossetians have been restricted to the Russian language and continuing Russification efforts of their culture, while Ossetians in the South are permitted to continue speaking and teaching their language and other cultural traditions without interference from the Georgian state.

As to the most interesting and important question of the day, Why on August 7 the government of Georgia decided to assault Russian fortifications in South Ossetia and thereby ignite the imbalanced Russian response, she made one good point, and one obvious dodge. She asserted that the attack was not without provocation or context, claiming that since mid-July the Russians had stepped up their occasional cross-border shellings and made dramatic diplomatic maneuvers by creating "special relationships" between Russian President Medvedyev and the leaders of the Ossetian and Abkhaz breakaway governments, comparable to the Russian President having a secret meeting with leaders of the Alaskan Independence party. How this went all the way to a planned Georgian offensive, and on the eve of the opening of the Olympics, was not illuminated. Instead, she said, "Now is not the time to concern ourselves with these questions, not while Russian soldiers continue to occupy Georgian territory and call for regime change...Once this crisis is resolved, then wil be the time to ask such questions." Of course, the question of who threw the first punch, and what the hell they were thinking, is pretty relevant before other countries decide where to throw their weight. Nice dodge, though.

the key problem with negotiations between Georgia and Russia, as I see it, is that Georgia is willing to make any normal concessions (land, money, promises), but what Russia wants are total intagibles (retribution for independent Kosovo, reversal of West-leaning former Soviet states, etc). In short, Georgia can't give Russia anything it wants, but Russia can get everything it wants by taking it from (or out on) Georgia.

And that's where Mrs. Burjanadze had a very interesting (and deviously multi-sided) suggestion. Ostensibly, part of Russia's motivation in pursuing the Georgian conflict so aggressively was the recent bid by Georgia to become part of NATO as well as the EU. The EU is one thing, but NATO is still, largely, anti-Russian in its purpose. Georgia wants to be part of this organization so that if Russia ever does attack (again) the other NATO members will be legally obliged to intervene (militarily, not just diplomatically). The inital bid was turned down, and so Russia considered itself free to act.

Mrs. Burjanadze now suggests that since Russia is not responsive to any other incentives for peace, perhaps reconsidering the NATO membership would be an appropriate counter-measure for the negotiations. In other words, if Russia won't take any of the carrots on the table, why not put a klashnikov down and see what happens. This would be brilliant for the Georgians - if Russia steps back, they might not lose huge chunks of their territory and would only accept their current non-NATO position, while if Russia refuses, they get the NATO membership they wanted anyway. It's a bold move, one that might even trigger a further Russian offensive, though it would be harder to justify this time around.

Still, these are interesting times, and provocative comments.

I miss breakfast tacos, air conditioning, and all my friends in Texas, but feeling like I'm hovering near the pulse of international relations is pretty darn exciting. Even in an elevator.

Weber (on the Lamb?)