The Russian invasion of Georgia is reminiscent of the incident in 1850, in which the British Government dispatched a squadron of the Royal Navy to blockade the port of Piraeus in retaliation for the harm done by the Greeks to a British subject, David Pacifico, and the subsequent failure of the Greek government to compensate Pacifico. Like the Russians in South Ossetia who are Russian passport holders, Pacifico was a British citizen born outside of Great Britain in the crown colony of Gibraltar.
The Russian’s claim that their invasion of South Ossetia is to protect Russian passport holders. MADE FOR TELEVISION!
Those who thought we had seen the end of Russian ’Tank Diplomacy’ with the fall of the Berlin Wall had counted without the 19th Century mentality of the current Russian Government. If a wall is there to be leaned on with relative ease, then the Russian Government will lean on it. It would be tempting to write this up as a Slavic thing or a return of the cold war thing, but that would be to ignore the role of the West in similar adventures.
Once more, Britain is back in the opium business, this time in Afghanistan. The 19th Century gunboat diplomacy is alive and well, albeit without the boats. Other than that human nature does not fundamentally change, what does our crystal ball tell us about the future? Well, if history does repeat itself in endless cycles, we can expect a major confrontation later this century or early in the next. One crumb of comfort may exist in the form of climate change that may force a more sane approach by nations being forced to co-operate in order to save themselves from destruction. Either way, we shall, as always, live in interesting times.
A similar 19th Century incident is the War of Jenkins’ Ear. In 1738, Captain Robert Jenkins appeared before the British Parliament with his ear, which he claimed had been cut off by the Spanish when they boarded his ship seven years earlier. War was declared in 1739.
Jenkins’ Ear, Sudatanland Germans or WMD it makes little difference. It might one day be a sign of political maturity when a leader says, “It is in our financial interest to attack country X so we are going to do it”.
Of course, that would not be true either because you never get your money back that you spend on a war.