Madam, - President Saakashvili of Georgia clearly made serious miscalculations in deciding to intervene in South Ossetia, both with regard to the Russian response and to the support Georgia would receive from its Western allies.
The resultant Russian geopolitical experiment in the Caucasus has potentially disturbing implications both for the future of the region and for the world order as we know it.
The absolute futility of a UN dominated by a hamstrung Security Council has been reasserted. The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe has been dealt a possibly fatal blow. Worryingly for Ireland, the EU has been revealed to have no meaningful foreign policy beyond enlargement (and even that is now in doubt) and certainly no ability to support its "neighbours" in the near east with anything more than rhetoric.
If I were a member of a group purportedly concerned about peace, I would be much more concerned about this than with promoting red herrings about conscription to European armies in the Lisbon Treaty. - Yours,etc,
RICHARD MORE O'FERRALL, Dublin 18.
Madam, - The short war in Georgia, which has resulted in the effective annexation of large tracts of that country by Russian forces, could have serious long-term consequences for peace and security in Europe.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has adroitly managed to retain influence in certain of the former Soviet republics by propping up totalitarian regimes, as in Belarus, and by encouraging separatist movements, as in Georgia and Ukraine, with a view to destablising democratically elected governments.
Given Georgia's strategic value to the West, and the pro-Western sympathies of its government, it was entirely foreseeable that Russia would seek use the leverage created by the secessionist regimes in South Ossetia and Abkhazia as a means of humiliating it and drawing it back into its orbit.
Notwithstanding the rather unwise decision of the Georgian president to begin military operations against South Ossetia in circumstances where success was unlikely, the leaders of France, Germany and Italy must bear significant responsibility for what has befallen the Georgians. Last March, in the teeth of opposition from the United States, they successfully thwarted speedy membership of Nato for Georgia and the Ukraine.
This represented a craven betrayal of the legitimate aspirations of those states for the sole purpose of maintaining trade relations with Russia, particularly access to its gas and oil. It was correctly interpreted by Russia to mean that they considered those countries to be little more than satellites in whose sovereignty it could freely meddle, a situation exacerbated by the EU's separate failure to countenance admitting them to membership.
Of even greater concern now is the danger that Russia will again seek to foment strife in Ukraine, where 11 million ethnic Russians live, in the absence of any security guarantee to that country from the West. There are any number of pretexts on which it could do so, foremost among them the presence of the Black Sea Fleet in Crimea. Any such turmoil in Ukraine would damage that fragile country and could lead to its partition.
In these circumstances, Europeans who value liberty and democracy, and see them cynically undermined, must hope that the US and like-minded allies will take steps to ensure that Russia is contained and isolated. The US should continue with its plan to base a new missile defence shield in the Czech Republic and Poland and persuade its Nato allies to extend membership to Georgia and the Ukraine without delay.
Comfort can be taken from the fact that Senator John McCain is under no illusions about the nature of the Russian regime and, should he attain the presidency, is likely to reassess relations with it in a variety of areas.
Failure to do so, and adopting the course of France, Germany, and Italy will embolden a belligerent Russia, undermine democracy, and constitute a strategic blunder of the first magnitude. - Yours, etc,
ANTHONY MOORE, Oldbridge, Drogheda, Co Louth.
A chara, - Amid the welter of predictable anti-Russian comment on the Georgian war, can some of your correspondents spare a thought for the Ossetians?
The Ossetians are not a numerous nation, but they are as entitled to sovereignty as the Georgians or anyone else. And the South Ossetians have made it plain that they do not want to be ruled by Georgia, but prefer to be part of Russia, united with their Northern Ossetians fellow nationals with real autonomy in that federation.
Not the preferred choice of your correspondents, but that's what the Ossetians want.
Georgia's response was to launch a violent attack on South Ossetia, capturing the capital Tskhvinkali for a few hours, and leaving the city devastated when they were finally driven out. Now the Georgians who launched this war are trying to play the victim, and Russia is being blamed. Should the Russians have followed Jack Lynch's example and stood idly by when the Ossetians came under attack?
All war is a tragedy, and the picture you published of a Georgian woman weeping as she fled the fighting was very moving. But Ossetian women weep as well, and some 30,000 Ossetians were driven from their homes by the Georgian attack. - Is mise,
EOIN Ó MURCHÚ, Ascal Ghleann na hAbhann, Cluain Dolcáin, Baile Átha Cliath 22.
Madam, - Sean Ward smugly asks (August 13th) where all the anti-war protesters were when Russia attacked Georgia.
Obviously Mr Ward himself was not outside the Russian embassy in Dublin protesting. If he was he may have noticed some other people, who were rightly opposing the carefully prepared Russian invasion.
Perhaps Mr Ward didn't even notice the snippets in the news telling him that about 100 people protested outside the embassy at the weekend. That is more than three times the number who protested at Shannon on the same weekend.
Despite these facts he decides to accuse Irish peace activists of being one-dimensional anti-American hypocrites. I've met the same type of person before, asking me: "Why didn't I see you protesting against those Chinese politicians when they visited." My answer: "Because you were not there, mate, but I was there."
As for why the anti-war groups in Ireland might make the Iraq wars a priority, Mr Ward neglects the obvious factors. In its invasion of Iraq, the US used Shannon Airport as a refuelling hub for its troops, weapons and CIA aircraft, a situation which is still ongoing, but is no longer very "newsworthy". Such is the banality of evil.
The loss of an Iraqi or a Georgian or South Ossetian life is equally bad, but at least we can't blame Fianna Fáil for assisting in the deaths in Georgia. No Russian tanks used the M50 for a shortcut. If we had directly helped the Russians, you can be sure more people would have been on the streets of Dublin in outrage.
So, now that Mr Ward knows where some of the peace activists were, perhaps he will tell us where he was. - Yours, etc,
TIM HOURIGAN, Cedar Court, Kennedy Park, Limerick.