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2008-08-11 Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

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Posted by tipper 2008-08-11 01:06|| || Front Page|| [11124 views ] Top

#1 While the Soviet politicians pulled off an astonishing feat by dissolving the empire without bloodshed (and creating fourteen new countries from portions of the empire that decided not to stay with the new Russia), there were lots of smaller groups that still had separatist grievances. Two of these groups were in Georgia, and occupied the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

The populations rebelled against the Georgian government and drove out Georgian officials, troops and ethnic Georgians. Thousands of ethnic Abkhazians and Ossetians fled to the new statelets. Since both of these areas were on the Russian border, Russia saw an opportunity to quiet things down (they did not want an ethnic based guerilla war going on along their border). So Russia offered its services as mediator and peacekeeper in the early 1990s, and peace was restored. The UN agreed all this, and a reluctant Georgia went along. But after that, the Russians refused to leave, or encourage the Abkhazians and Ossetians to work out a deal to become part of Georgia once more. Abkhazians and Ossetians wanted to be independent, and declared themselves so. No one else recognized this. In 2004, Georgia began cracking down on the smuggling and other criminal activity that was keeping the economy in South Ossetia going. This led to more and more gunfire along the border between Georgia and South Ossetia.

Two years ago, Georgia began a major expansion of its armed forces. Officially, the active forces were then about 26,000 troops, already up from about 12,000-14,000 just a couple few years before that. Unofficially, the government has raised strength to about 28,000. This was done by adding more professional troops and increasing the order-of-battle by two battalions of conscripts. The government goal is to increase the active force to about 35,000. In addition, Georgia began building a reserve force.

The principal reason for the military build-up is the secessionist regimes in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The Georgians wanted the option of trying for a military solution. There are also some Russian troops, leftovers from Soviet Union era garrisons, still in the country. Georgia has been trying get all the Russian soldiers out since the Soviet Union collapsed (and Georgia became independent once more) in 1991. But the Russians have come up with a long string of excuses for delaying a final pullout. To make matters worse, several thousand of those troops are "peacekeepers" in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. To most Georgians, the Russian peacekeepers are there mainly to keep the rebel regions free of Georgian control.

It's not yet clear what the Georgian government was thinking when they allowed the border skirmishing to escalate to a military effort to restore government control over South Ossetia. It didn't work, as the Russians promptly counterattacked and drove the Georgian troops out of South Ossetia. The Georgians can try a guerilla war, and hope that their new relationship with the United States and the European Union will add some measure of protection. That's a false hope. The Russians have made it clear during the last few years that any real, or imagined, Western influence or interference in nations that border Russia (what the Russians call the "near-abroad") will be opposed with lots of noise, followed by some firepower. The recent events in Georgia are an example of that, an example the Russians hope the West takes seriously, even if the Georgians don't.

Russian politicians have been playing the nationalism card, catering to widespread feelings that the Soviet Union should be restored. Most Russians never cared for the communist dictatorship, but they did like being a superpower. The Russians also feel that those fourteen nations that split off when the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, left Russia surrounded by a lot of unstable and vulnerable nations. This sounds paternalistic and paranoid to Westerners, but not to Russians. And the Russians are willing to use force to back up these attitudes, as the Georgians just discovered. Russia still has nukes, and some Cold War attitudes that make for a potentially very dangerous situation.

Posted by KBK 2008-08-11 01:21|| 2008-08-11 01:21|| Front Page Top

#2 I agree that it was an overreach by Georgia. But the Russian response was away over the top in terms of bombing civilians outside the area, and demolishing (with artillery) the very cities they were claiming to "protect".

The viciousness and overly blunt application of force (including the illegal naval blockade) are lesons the West should take to heart.

If the Russians want to play an imperialistic militaristic power again, then we will have to treat them as an adversary, treat them like the Soviet Union in locking them out of world markets and economies as much as possible.

Posted by OldSpook 2008-08-11 02:19|| 2008-08-11 02:19|| Front Page Top

#3 Putin's gambling that Europe wants/needs his energy suppies too much to allow that.

Posted by lotp 2008-08-11 10:51|| 2008-08-11 10:51|| Front Page Top

#4 No, OldSpook, I respectfully disagree. Russia's response was not way over the top: it was exactly what it should be if the goal is to teach your small neighbors to never, ever tug on Superman's cape.

"Just War" and "proportionate response" are western, moral responses to the problem of war. Russia has never adopted these ideas and never will. As far as Putin is concerned (best I can tell, I'm no mind reader), squishing the Georgians sends a message to all others around the New Russian Empire as to how to behave. And that's why he's bombing the snot out of Georgia.

Georgia was downright foolish: they thought that they could use their modernizing military to whack the Ossetians and hold off the Russian bear. Ooops. They should have known better, and the fools running that country are going to be chastised and likely removed from power.

Proportionate response is something the progressive Left pushes. But war isn't won by proportionate response, it's won by overwhelming your enemy and making him bend to your will. Putin understands this.

Posted by Steve White 2008-08-11 11:46|| 2008-08-11 11:46|| Front Page Top

#5 Proportionate response IS part of the way we have tried to rebuild the world since 1945, and with some hope since 1989.

BUT it can only become part of the world IF those who believe in it are willing to stand behind it.

BTW, did Russia deny the principle of proportionate response when discussing the war in Lebanon? If you have a quote to that effect, an official russian one, Id like to see it. The hypocrisy, the dishonesty, the naked cynicism is overwhelming.

There are many countries around the world that have an INTEREST in a legal regime at least loosely based on teh UN charter. Contrary to local opinion here, that stuff is NOT based on loopy headed lefties in academia - it is ITSELF a response to international conditions, and an attempt (esp by smaller countries) to attain int rule more in keeping with their interests - and from time to time big powers find those rules in their interests as well.

I think the US continues to have an interest in those rules (and no, Lebanon is NOT a counterexample - Israel was trying to destroy Hezbollah, NOT to subordinate the govt of LebanoN- indeed the very notion of Israel aspiring to the kind of hegemony that Russia is now asserting is laughable)

We did not win the Cold War to create a world of spheres of interest and naked cynicism. Call me a democratic messianist (in the neocon sense, not the Obama sense) if you like, but I think we had loftier goals, AND I beleive, we can push toward them. We live in a world of nuclear weapons, and technology will give us worse. If we perpetaute the law of the jungle, it will be a sad future for our children (needless to say far worse if we let our adversaries pursue the law of the jungle while we cower)

Posted by superstitiousGalitizianer 2008-08-11 12:11|| 2008-08-11 12:11|| Front Page Top

#6 "But war isn't won by proportionate response, it's won by overwhelming your enemy and making him bend to your will. Putin understands this."

As the Russians found in Afghanistan. War must have ends, and the means must be selected RATIONALLY to meet the ends, or its a failure.

Is it worth losing Ukraine completely to get the Caucasian oil? maybe, but lets make Putin pay. He is COUNTING on us to be cautious and realistic while he expands. When we show his aggression is costly, he will reconsider. And yes, we CAN make his aggression costly. Especially IF we unite with our european allies. For some folks uniting with the social democratics and "tranzis" of europe is too big a price to pay for stopping Putin.

Posted by superstitiousGalitizianer 2008-08-11 12:15|| 2008-08-11 12:15|| Front Page Top

#7 Russia's response was not way over the top: it was exactly what it should be if the goal is to teach your small neighbors to never, ever tug on Superman's cape.

Russia isnt superman. Russia is probably #3 power on the planet, and its declining (despite the short term rise in oil prices). Their goal is to show the west is a paper tiger and to increase their own perceived power accordingly.

Posted by superstitiousGalitizianer 2008-08-11 12:16|| 2008-08-11 12:16|| Front Page Top

#8 Russias response is unjustified, and thay have bascially comitted full invasion and naval blockade agains a western oriented, freely elected democracy, a free nation, in order to subjugate it.

Where is the jsutification for that?

No amount of equivocating can justify the actions fo the Russins invading Georgia proper, boimbing civilians, detroying prot facilties outside the disputed areas, ocuping (after extensive shelling) a major Georgian city (Gori).

These are clear acts of unjutified and unprovoke naked agression.

If we do NOT act agains the Russian, we will allow Putin to have coimmitted criminal acts, and get away with it. Do you supposed that woudl encoruage or discourage him from further similar actions?

He is a Hitler in a KGB suit.

Posted by OldSpook 2008-08-11 13:55|| 2008-08-11 13:55|| Front Page Top

#9 Only answer I have for you, OS, is that when a country is invaded, or sees an ally invaded, they have the right to respond, and that response need not be limited or proportionate.

I don't like what's happening in Georgia, either, but in the end the international community is going to shrug its collective shoulders and say, "after all, the Georgians started it." And they're going to cite the Kosovo precedent to justify the South Ossetians wanting to go their own way.

Posted by Steve White 2008-08-11 16:38|| 2008-08-11 16:38|| Front Page Top

#10 Russia came in a few days ago with 10 tanks, troops, air force bombers (or whatever they are), and the navy steaming in to blockade the Georgian port. That kind of force is not prepared overnight. How long has Russia been waiting for an excuse to take over the two provinces where it already had troops, and charge over the border to flatten Georgia proper, Dr. Steve? What was the reason they chose to line everything up on the border, waiting to go in? Let's not talk as if this were Georgia's decision, alone.

Posted by trailing wife">trailing wife 2008-08-11 16:42|| 2008-08-11 16:42|| Front Page Top

#11 PIMF! 150 tanks, not 10.

Posted by trailing wife">trailing wife 2008-08-11 16:43|| 2008-08-11 16:43|| Front Page Top

#12 "Only answer I have for you, OS, is that when a country is invaded, or sees an ally invaded, they have the right to respond, and that response need not be limited or proportionate."

So ossetia isnt a country, damn it. It cant be anyones ally. If Israel sends troops into the arab villages of the Gallilee can the arab states respond with force? and if they do, will that effect the world view of the conflict?

"I don't like what's happening in Georgia, either, but in the end the international community is going to shrug its collective shoulders and say, "after all, the Georgians started it." And they're going to cite the Kosovo precedent to justify the South Ossetians wanting to go their own way."

The international community isnt homogeneous, will respond diversely. South Africa wont respond the same way as Poland, say. Most of them KNOW the difference between Kosovo and Ossetia, thats just Russian pablum, no one really takes it seriously as a point of international law. The usual antiwestern third worlders will wink cause the just do, unless they are really freaked about precedents. US and UK and France and the eastern euros are clearly not going to accept this, the only question is what they think they can do about it. The biggest obvious case where the fact of Russian aggression may change minds is Germany, and they are the target audience for a lot of the propaganda, as they have been for several years (and their polity is quite split - the CDU is pro-Georgian, more so than the govt). China, as others have noted, is also interesting. They did not like the Kosovo precedent, but adding more weight to it, this time humanitarian intervention as an obvious fig leaf, cant please them too much either. I think it boils down to their weighign continued resentment of the US position on Taiwan, vs possibly growing discomfort with a reckless USSR.

Posted by superstitiousGalitizianer 2008-08-11 16:54|| 2008-08-11 16:54|| Front Page Top

#13 BBC: Mr Bildt, a veteran of the diplomatic realities of the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo, could only shrug in the fierce Georgian sun, look across to the French jet waiting to take off, then turn away for his own mission.

He already told me on the plane that the diplomatic challenge to restrain Russian intentions was "immense in every respect".

The widespread diplomatic concern in the EU and Nato is that after South Ossetia and probably Abkhazia, next Moscow will have its eyes set on the Crimea region of Ukraine and then Ukraine itself.
No programme

It is the first time in the Council of Europe's 60-year history that two member nations who have pledged to resolve disputes peacefully have instead resorted to war. Turkey's invasion of northern Cyprus in 1974 does not qualify.

Along with the Council of Europe's Secretary-General, Terri Davis, Mr Bildt is here to make an assessment ahead of an emergency EU meeting in Brussels on Wednesday.

"This is unprecedented," said Mr Davis. "There is no international right to go into a country to protect the right of your citizens." South Ossetia is thought to have 70,000 Russian passport holders.

"It is against what Russia signed up to - to settle disputes by peaceful means."

I asked Mr Bildt whether it is too late before his first meeting with Georgia's foreign minister.

"Evidently, since the war is ongoing," he said, with Swedish understatement.

What should have happened?

"Perhaps to have acted more forcefully earlier and dealt with the activities that we saw," he added.

"There has been escalation over some time, over weeks and over months."

Mr Bildt and Mr Davis will have 36 hours here.

There is no programme, no list of appointments - just a determination to be well informed before difficult decisions have to be taken by the EU and Nato to underscore the warning of US Vice President Dick Cheney that Russian aggression "must not go unanswered".

The US and the EU are united on this as never before. That will not only anger the Russians, but all on right and left who hate the idea of US-Euro cooperation.

Posted by superstitiousGalitizianer 2008-08-11 17:04|| 2008-08-11 17:04|| Front Page Top

#14 Four minutes to President Bush's statement.

Posted by trailing wife">trailing wife 2008-08-11 17:09|| 2008-08-11 17:09|| Front Page Top

#15 I doubt its important. or if it is, its a peace deal. if it was coming down hard on the Russians, President "world hates him and hes a lame duck anyway" wouldnt be giving the speech, one of the euros would.

Posted by superstitiousGalitizianer 2008-08-11 17:11|| 2008-08-11 17:11|| Front Page Top

#16 'Only answer I have for you, OS, is that when a country is invaded, or sees an ally invaded, they have the right to respond, and that response need not be limited or proportionate.'

so if China declares a blockade of their province of Taiwan, and a US ship interferes with that blockade, and China responds by nuking Los Angeles, you woulnt consider that a disproportionate response, that should impact the views and actions of those US allies who did not share our original view of Taiwan?

Without the notion of proportionate response, thered be effectively no world law. Theres ALWAYS some minor incidents between nations.

Posted by superstitiousGalitizianer 2008-08-11 17:20|| 2008-08-11 17:20|| Front Page Top

#17 It is intersting. I remember reading somewhere of a theory that Al Queda attacked because they were weak and knew it and war was a way to galvanize the Islamic world slouching towards secularism.

We pretty much all know Russia is in demographic decline. I have to wonder if the same sort of thing isn't at work here, to some extent. Giving the Russian people something to rally around and restore pride and all.

Posted by rjschwarz 2008-08-11 18:24|| 2008-08-11 18:24|| Front Page Top

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