Territorial Integrity

That would be the same territorial integrity threatened, in the Russian case, by the American-backed Islamic separatists in Chechnya? And, in the coming Chinese case, by Islamic separatists in Xinjiang who will enjoy, even if not the official backing of the Obama Administration, nevertheless the full help and co-operation of the CIA, the remnant neoconservative movement, and all the rest of them?

Compare and contrast the treatment of the territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, still in existence and enjoying full international recognition at the time of the UDIs in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina (with absolutely no history of independence).

The territory apparently enjoying such integrity in Georgia was arbitrarily imposed by Stalin. Neither Abkhazia (home to the port of Poti, Georgia proper being landlocked) nor any part of Ossetia was ever part of Georgia before that. Whereas, for example, Tibet and Xinjiang have been part of China for as long as there has been a China, and Kosovo has been part of Serbia for as long as there has been a Serbia. If ninety-per cent ethnically Albanian Kosovo can declare independence (undoubtedly with a view to incorporation into Albania), then why cannot ninety-per cent civically Russian South Ossetia (by no means certainly with a view to incorporation into Russia)?

Of course, we all know why. Like the Yugoslav government before it, the Serbian government was not brought to power by a CIA-fomented coup, is not headed by someone who is culturally and effectively an American (much like Britain under Blair, of course), and does not have an actual Israeli as Defence Minister. So much for territorial integrity. Territorial integrity is intimately related to sovereignty. And the Satrapy of Georgia simply is not a sovereign state.