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The Alliance
US troops to go to Georgia
2002-02-27
  • The United States is planning to send elite military forces to the former Soviet republic of Georgia to help train that country's troops, U.S. officials said on Tuesday, opening a third front in its war on terrorism. A final decision had not been made but Army special forces trainers were expected to go to Georgia soon in what would become a third front for the U.S. military in the war on terrorism after Afghanistan and the Philippines.
    Ain't that interesting. Can't wait to hear the details of the SF and the SpetsNaz comparing notes and techniques. Little doubt that there will be (if not already) SpetsNaz involvement. I'd guess that this phase will also be more bloody than Afghanistan was, more of a guerilla war like the Talibs would have liked to have fought.

    Georgia, significantly, wasn't a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States, presumably still isn't. The diplomatic implications are very significant, in that the Russers regard Georgia as their stomping grounds and Georgia under Shevardnadze has fiercely maintained its independence. The political strings are horribly tangled, going back to the late Zviad Gamsakhurdia (the self-styled "Saddam Hussein of the Caucasus") and his alliance with equally late Dzokar Dudaev in Chechnya after being tossed out of Georgia. Khattab, the current leader of the Chechen banditi is a wily and vicious commander. And there's a large part of the media who buy the Chechen side of things against the Russers. If we do manage to do anything - and there aren't even any guarantees of that - it's going to be extremely ticklish.
    The net result of this may well be a partition of Georgia [see http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/commonwealth/ethnocaucasus.jpg ] along ethnic lines, as the Ossetians and Abkhazis have ongoing insurgencies against the Tblisi government. In particular, the Ossetians have harbored Chechen fugitives and the recently cited pass where al Qaedaistas were sited is through the Caucasus in this Ossetian area. The Russians are interested in not having independent nations on their borders, and having protectorates in Abkhazia and Ossetia is consistent with their actions in the rest of the Caucasus, Moldavia, the Ukraine, and Belarus.
    Posted by Tom Roberts 2/27/2002 2:03:05 PM
    • Posted by:Fred Pruitt

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