Washington Times - O'SULLIVAN: Lessons of a post-modern war

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/aug/31/lessons-of-a-post-modern-war/?page=3

The global legalists were very quiet about Russia's breaking of the rules. The EU mission to Moscow led by French President Nicolas Sarkozy operated on the premise it was necessary to avoid condemning Russia in order to be a successful mediator. Yet Mr. Sarkozy and his EU team were bamboozled by the Russians into accepting and promoting a cease-fire agreement that contained loopholes through which the Russians drove entire tank battalions. And that diplomatic failure was made easier precisely because the Russians were not put in the dock.

In the end, the EU argument that pooling sovereignty leads to greater real power proved to be a sham - and worse. It led in practice to collective impotence and self-deception. There is a reason why that will always happen.

Global legalism rests upon the delusion that powers with the ability to assert their interest in some vital matter can be prevented from doing so solely by rules in which every state has a modest long-term theoretical investment. But as soon as a real crisis erupts - and Georgia is certainly such a crisis - the global legalists realize their legal restraints are incapable of restraining the rule-breaker. In order to maintain their legalist fiction, therefore, they have to deny or obfuscate the fact that the rules have been broken or that any particular state is responsible for the conflict.