Newspapers around the World published the following editorials last week.

Russia isn’t going to lean West

Russia’s mauling of Georgia had intensified a warning as clear as it is ominous: Moscow now is willing to deploy overwhelming military force to keep republics of the former Soviet Union from tilting too far to the West. ..

Who started this conflict — and why — isn’t the issue. ... The Russians have been looking for an excuse to flex their muscle. ... This military pummeling surely has rattled fledgling nations that were long dominated from afar by Moscow. Leaders of those countries surely now fear they’re next. Those leaders have looked to Washington, NATO and the UN for economic help and, should the need arise, protection from an oil-emboldened Russia.

The U.S. almost certainly won’t be sending troops to this conflict. Nor does Washington want to aggravate Moscow, which it hopes will help prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. That said, crucial principles of freedom and democracy are on the line for the U.S. and so is loyalty to an ally. If the West looks away in order to appease the Bear, years of liberalizing progress in what was the Soviet sphere could well evaporate.



Let Europe take lead on Georgia

After having given Georgia inopportune and unrealistic support, the United States could not be the mediators of the crisis. It was necessary to have someone who did not have prejudice against Russia or insensitivity to the issue of Georgian independence. France is currently holding the EU presidency, it has an ambitious head of state and a foreign minister with a respectable humanitarian pedigree.

Nicolas Sarkozy and Bernard Kouchner divided their tasks skillfully. The minister’s trip to Georgia showed that Europe is ready to support the country’s independence. The president’s trip to Moscow (and his arguments) ... showed to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that Europe understands Russia’s needs and does not question them.

This does not mean, obviously, that the 27 members of the EU all have the same opinions ... But France right now can count on the support of Italy, Germany, Spain and maybe even Britain.



Russia’s ties to West are very weak

With only some 75,000 residents, South Ossetia is sure to continue playing a crucial role in world politics for a long time. Besides Russia’s role in the post-communist world, stakes in this game involve economic interests including battle for the control of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline.

How do we proceed from here? After the smoke has cleared, maintaining an international peacekeeping force in the crisis area and having NATO offer Georgia a coherent membership plan would seem to be the best solution.

Only this way can the West send a clear signal: joining an international organization is up to the applicant country itself and is not something that is up to Russia’s will.

The war in Georgia seems to have opened the eyes of the even most naive Western leaders. The conflict means that one cannot expect Russia’s ties with the West to improve any time soon as has been hoped by many observers.

It is clear by now that Russia is not the dignified world power that it presented itself as when the country was granted the right to host the Olympics in Sochi in 2014. Diplomatic advice ... has never worked in changing Russia’s course.



There are still double standards

The end of the 20th century and the start of the 21st will no doubt go down in history as an era of double standards...The current conflict in the Caucasus is more proof of this...There’s Georgia, and then there’s South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which are part of Georgia. At one point South Ossetia and Abkhazia wanted to secede from Georgia, which is their right. It is also Georgia’s right to prevent its country from falling apart.

Georgia had two choices: create such living standards that no one would want to secede, or use force. Georgia chose the second...and Russia, which is on the side of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, intervened. And what do we see? The West accuses Russia of aggression.

The same principle applies in another situation. There’s Serbia, and then there’s Kosovo, which is part of Serbia. At one point Kosovo wanted to secede from Serbia, which is its right. And it’s Serbia’s right to prevent its own dissolution. Like Georgia, Serbia chose force...and the United States and NATO intervened. They nearly wiped Serbia off the map, and then declared that every nation has the right to self-determination. ...