Wrap Up - For Now
It seems like Saakashvili's little deadly adventure is over. For now:
Georgia has ordered its forces to cease fire, and offered to start talks with Russia over an end to hostilities in South Ossetia, Georgian officials say.
The Russian's though will not immediately accept that. There are still points to be made. They will request a binding agreement from Georgia to never again use force against South Ossetia and Abkhazia. If Saak is not willing to sign that, I'd expect a few more bombs on Georgian military installations.
Allover I think the Putin-Mevedev pair has handled this one quite well. They certainly did not overreach. They could have done what Israel did to Lebanon 2006 but with much more justification. But air attacks on Georgia were very limited and only on a few military targets. Neither the BTC pipeline nor other civilian infrastructure was hit.
This was certainly not the use of 'excessive force' as the U.S. and the NATO chief mouthpiece claim.
The Georgians are furious over the whole affair and pissed about their 'allies':
"Many people can't understand why the West failed to protect us," said Sandro, a student in Tbilisi.
"America was seen as an ally, and Georgian soldiers have been dying in Iraq in the interests of global security. But the West has shown that it doesn't care about Russia invading other countries."
"All they did was express 'concerns' while bombs were falling on us," added Shalva, his friend.
One can expect some interior political fallout from this crisis. I doubt that Saak will stay in his current job much longer.
The bigger impact is that others will take notice. The Baltic countries, the Ukraine and Central Asian states now learned that they can not depend on the U.S. as an ally when the going gets tough.
Other points:
Some blogs have argued that Russia was prepared for this conflict and pulled Saak into a trap. Like me the Nightwatchers from AFCEA find that implausible. It took Russia some 12 to 15 hours to response to Georgia's shelling of Tskhinvali. In response they sent in a regular armored battalion and only later reinforced that with the real quick reaction force, paratroopers and spetsnaz (special forces).
Next to Georgia the Ukraine was hoping to get into NATO. A Georgian paper claimed that one of the Russians jet was downed with an SA-5 missile. Georgia is not supposed to have those but the Ukraine does. Russia warned the Ukraine yesterday that support of this kind was not seen as a friendly act. Today the Ukraine pushed back:
Ukraine warned Russia on Sunday it could bar Russian navy ships from returning to their base in the Crimea because of their deployment to Georgia's coast.
If that were really to happen, another war could be on soon (see here for background on the Crimea port issue.)
Posted by b on August 10, 2008 at 17:07 UTC | Permalink
So the chease-fire was offered but Russia says that Georgia is still fighting on
In a statement the Russian MFA said that Lavrov gave his Georgian counterpart specific details about the location of Georgian forces “in and around Tskhinvali, which are continuing combat activities, including with the support of artillery and sniper fire.”A BBC reporter on the ground confirms the Russians:It also said that additional forces were being sent to the region from other parts of Georgia.
“Only the unconditional withdrawal of Georgian troops can help to restore peace in the conflict zone,” the Russian MFA said.
But at the border, it soon became apparent the Georgian withdrawal had not brought an end to the fighting.It seemed there were still some Georgian units within South Ossetia fighting the Russians.
We witnessed an artillery barrage, with the shells landing about 1km (0.6 mile) from the checkpoint.
And just a few hundred metres beyond the Russian checkpoint, the road leading into Tskhinvali remained extremely dangerous.
There had been heavy exchanges of gunfire, mortars were being used and overhead Russian jets had been seeking out targets.
Seems Saak is lying again and the Russians know this.
As I expected the Russians continue to bomb:
Russia has continued air raids deep inside Georgia, after it rejected Tbilisi's announcement that it had called a ceasefire and wanted talks.The will keep this up until Saak really gives in. They can do this for month if needed ...Jets bombed targets near Tbilisi, including the airport, and a Georgian boat was later sunk, reports said.
Calls to Saint George appear to have been unanswered. He's been too busy mugging for pictures with beach volleyball players in Beijing.
Posted by: biklett | Aug 10 2008 19:13 utc | 3
MoA = invaluable resource.
Thanks b and all for added info, analysis, links.
Posted by: Hamburger | Aug 10 2008 19:39 utc | 4
What Hamburger said, in spades.
See my further commentary here.
Posted by: Helena Cobban | Aug 10 2008 20:07 utc | 5
It looks to me like even the pre-emptive PR campaign seems to have stalled. The New Zealand national radio broadcast this morning is still positioning this as a lawful and proportionate Russian response to Georgian aggression. They are also calling it "Saakashvili's adventure".
Whether this represents the coming day's news cycle, or NZ has just taken a different trajectory, I cannot tell.
Any info on the oil price? Even a half million barrels per day offline makes a difference these days.
Posted by: PeeDee | Aug 10 2008 20:26 utc | 6
HC,
Thanks for the link to your very informative commentary, and access to other sites I've not yet seen. Another great resource.
Posted by: Hamburger | Aug 10 2008 20:31 utc | 7
Here's an interesting comment on the Oil Drum:
I note that the BBC reports how surprised the US regime was by the hostilities' outbreak.Are we supposed to believe that tiny Georgia, latest and most utterly junior recipient of the Pentagon's largesse, was somehow able to launch warfare against Russian troops without explicit instructions from Washington?
I've quite a strong stomach, but I simply cannot swallow that. It stinks.
But if Tblisi was doing GW's bidding, then what is the US aim?
Thus far only one theoretically credible motive has occurred to me, that the possible strategic goal of "pushing China up a growth curve until it goes bust,"which depends centrally on further escalating oil prices, is endangered by the present oil-price drop reflecting looming recession fears.
Logically, getting Russian airpower to bust the pipeline that can move a million bbl/day westward should both restore rising oil-prices' ruinous impact on China's post-Olympic hangover, while also giving US voters a demonstrable and well-known foreign enemy to blame for crippling fuel costs.
Sounds plausible to me - anyone else?
Posted by: Hamburger | Aug 10 2008 20:51 utc | 8
the reporting in the states has been ridiculous, though how much of it has even penetrated the amerikan late summer haze is debatable.
thank you b. once again you've helped this too-often naive amerikan glimpse critical perspectives that our media is incapable of reflecting.
Helena's lauding is well deserved.
Posted by: Lizard | Aug 10 2008 20:58 utc | 9
Israeli connection:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3580136,00.html
Posted by: Susan | Aug 10 2008 22:09 utc | 10
Lots of links and interesting comments (scroll down) on the Georgia conflict over at The Oil Drum - more than I can summarize - past my bedtime. Night all.
Posted by: Hamburger | Aug 10 2008 22:21 utc | 11
Looks like you were correct about the US/EU endgame:
The French-drafted UN resolution is unlikely to apportion blame for the conflict in the interests of securing as many votes in favour as possible among the 15 members of the Security Council where Russia holds a veto. Diplomats said the text would call for a withdrawal of both Russian and Georgian forces, and envisage an "international" presence that would substitute for Russian peacekeepers deployed in Georgia's breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
So they are going to send Dutch "peacekeepers" to South Ossetia.
Bernard Kouchner is as big a dickhead as David Miliband!
Posted by: | Aug 11 2008 0:32 utc | 12
the text would call for a withdrawal of both Russian and Georgian forces, and envisage an "international" presence that would substitute for Russian peacekeepers deployed in Georgia's breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
This has as much chance of coming to pass as me being appointed president of Georgia.
Posted by: Thrasyboulos | Aug 11 2008 0:44 utc | 13
The very short version of the oil price and Georgia appears to be that the pipeline was offline due to mundane technical reasons before the war broke out.
Or so I remember Jerome writing somewhere.
Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Aug 11 2008 1:12 utc | 14
in between hysterical press releases from the georgian foreign ministry suggesting the russians are bombing everything that moves especiallly the emporia armani shops in tblisi - there have been a comment from the psychopath dick cheney offerring his full support for georgia tho i don't know what they would want with this senile piece of shit - perhaps he thinks his power means something
other than cheney a us representative from nato during clintion(an ambassador) was on bbc & sd quite clearly that the georgians had been led up the garden path by the us by initiating this provocation
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Aug 11 2008 1:32 utc | 15
As if the Georgian issue isn't enough... Damn the Torpedoes, Full Speed Ahead...! Batten down the Hatches, Boys and Girls!
Read and watch this:
http://www.infowars.com/?p=3871#comment-496900
Quote:
“There are lots of bodies over there, a lot of people have been killed, mostly Ossetians, but also Georgians, they had American emblems on their forearms and they were in black uniforms,” she said.
Black uniforms are a trademark of Blackwater and DynCorp mercenaries (see Chris Hedges, America’s Holy Warriors). DynCorp’s presence in Eastern Europe is well documented, particularly in occupied Bosnia where it engaged in sex-trafficking and prostitution.
Posted by: vbo | Aug 11 2008 2:59 utc | 17
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3551206,00.html
-German Leaders Split on Placing Blame in Caucasian War
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3552150,00.html
Washington expressed its solidarity with Georgia in the conflict with Russia over the breakaway South Ossetian province. Meanwhile, Russia reportedly bombed military targets in Tbilisi suburbs early Monday morning.
Posted by: vbo | Aug 11 2008 3:10 utc | 18
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/08/10/un.georgia/index.html
Churkin said Russia's military action is a humanitarian campaign aimed at blocking the "ethnic cleansing" of Ossetians by ethnic Georgians.
----
Wasn't that ohh so OK in 1999 whena USA/NATO had "humanitarian campagn" on Serbia?
What goes around comes around...expect more...Pandora's box had been open on Balkan...
Posted by: vbo | Aug 11 2008 3:24 utc | 19
As to be expected the NYT is funneling Georgian propaganda, it is by no means clear that Russia is pushing further, but the last graph is again revealing: Russians Push Past Separatist Area to Assault Central Georgia
In Washington, Secretary Rice worked through the night Saturday with other Bush administration officials on a Security Council resolution. American diplomats said that they did not want an actual Security Council vote on the resolution until Tuesday or so, the better to draw out the debate and publicly shame the Russian government. While the resolution will carry no punitive weight, and is almost sure to be vetoed by Russia, a permanent Council member, the hope is that it could create more pressure for a cease-fire, officials said.
Interesting - the U.S. conforms that this wasn't a Russian plan: In Georgia and Russia, a Perfect Brew for a Blowup
Several American and Georgian officials said that unlike when Russia invaded Afghanistan in 1979, a move in which Soviet forces were massed before the attack, the nation had not appeared poised for an invasion last week. As late as Wednesday, they said, Russian diplomats had been pressing for negotiations between Georgia and South Ossetia, the breakaway region where the combat flared and then escalated into full-scale war.“It doesn’t look like this was premeditated, with a massive staging of equipment,” one senior American official said. “Until the night before the fighting, Russia seemed to be playing a constructive role.”
In Post #21, the NYT is propaganda, but in #22, it's reliable?
Posted by: Inkan1969 | Aug 11 2008 6:46 utc | 23
@Inkan1969 - the headline and the first graph of the first NYT link is propaganda. There are no signs of Russia going beyond South Ossetia but claims from some Georgian mouthpiece. Indeed BBC people on the ground do not report any further Russian move.
What I quoted are parts where U.S. officials are quoted with stuff that is not the party line. I doubt that the NYT made that up. So that is not propaganda in the sense that these are lies as the first claim is.
IDF vets who trained Georgia troops say war with Russia is no surprise
L. was hired by Global CST, owned by Maj. Gen. Israel Ziv, and Defense Shield, owned by Brig. Gen. Gal Hirsch, about a year ago, right after he left the army. He had served as a combat officer in an elite unit, and he got the adventurous offer through his commanding officers. "It looked interesting. Relative to Israel, the money was excellent, too."There was an atmosphere of war about to break out. We received basic background about tensions between Georgia and Russia, but most of what I learned came from talking to the soldiers. From my point of view, the battles of the past few days were to be expected."
The Israelis, who were stationed at bases throughout the country, were to carry out battalion-level infantry and reconnaissance training. "Israel Ziv and Gal Hirsch would come from time to time and watch us in action, but we managed day-to-day operations ourselves," L. said.
L., who trained a Georgian reconnaissance unit, says the troops were high quality. "It's not the standard we know in Israel, but when we left them they were at a good level. They took the training very seriously. There is a wider age range than in Israel, from 18 to 35, but they function very well. Over the past few days I've been following the news and I think they grasped a little of how to use strategy, like we taught them. It looks like we did a good job." L. refuses to discuss the weapons they trained the Georgians with, but he says the program was approved by Israel's Defense Ministry and included no classified information. "We taught them counterterror and house-to-house fighting, but that was very basic."
adding to 24 - London Times from the ground in Gori:
There was no obvious sign, however, that the city had been devastated by a massive air attack, or that Georgian forces had repulsed the Russians there last night - two of the claims that Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili has made this morning.
Ethnic cleansing on their mind.
"They may have calculated that some people would leave the region and flee north to North Ossetia, but the rest would stay and the problem would basically be resolved."
In hindsight, [Denison] said, the Georgians should have thought about blocking or blowing up the Roki Tunnel that links South Ossetia to Russia and gave Russian forces access to the region. But the Georgians needed to keep the tunnel open so that South Ossetians could escape north.
The things you learn when you have good military trainers, experts in their field.
Posted by: Thrasyboulos | Aug 11 2008 11:36 utc | 27
the world could hardly be surprised that the united states supports a 'cease-fire' - when its practice for nearly all its time at the united nations (especially for israel) has been that it has used its veto against this or that ceasefire - only in this case does it seem nothing more than what it is - an exercise in cynicism to help a partner they have led up the garden path
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Aug 11 2008 14:18 utc | 28
American diplomats said that they did not want an actual Security Council vote on the resolution until Tuesday or so, the better to draw out the debate and publicly shame the Russian government
enough to make one wonder just how much this entire situation was a setup thru the cynical use of georgia to provoke russia into a somewhat predictable response
Posted by: b real | Aug 11 2008 14:22 utc | 29
the timing served to demonstrate how much control putin actually exerts & w/ ban ki-moon out on vacation, it neutralized even more the role of the u.n.
Posted by: b real | Aug 11 2008 14:32 utc | 30
the timing served to reveal how much control putin holds/exerts. and w/ ban ki-moon off on vacation (and not coming back on emergency), the u.n. was practically guaranteed to avoid any prominent role. the rejection of the phrasing in the earlier russian draft stmt starting on thursday shows that this much is true.
Posted by: b real | Aug 11 2008 14:38 utc | 31
the timing served to demonstrate how much control putin actually exerts
b real do not make the mistake to assume that it is Putin who is leading this. He has a role but he is NOT alone in Moscow.
no assumptions necessarily, but it does work toward the west's tradition of creating supervillians for propaganda campaigns. alot of coverage over the w/e has made a big deal of the putin role so far.
Posted by: b real | Aug 11 2008 16:14 utc | 33
Well, b, reporter Toni Halpin is now reporting that Russian troops are in Gori and Senaki now, beyond the borders of SO and Abkhazia.
Posted by: Inkan1969 | Aug 11 2008 18:52 utc | 34
reuters, bbc qquite clear - no russians in gori
even your times article does not prove its case, in any way
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Aug 11 2008 19:10 utc | 35
Allover I think the Putin-Mevedev pair has handled this one quite well. They certainly did not overreach. They could have done what Israel did to Lebanon 2006 but with much more justification. But air attacks on Georgia were very limited and only on a few military targets. Neither the BTC pipeline nor other civilian infrastructure was hit.
I just don't understand you at all. Putin handled this quite well in what sense? You approve of the use of hard power, or are merely admiring Russian strategic art? You approve of the Russian use of force as a mechanism for threatening former Soviet & Eastern bloc states? For resurrecting siloviki dreams of Imperial Rus? What? Weird...
As to whether their response was "excessive", the fact that you think no is an interesting reflection on your earlier post on the collapse of Doha as a victory for sovereignity. Russian invasion of Geogian territory is hardly furthering that goal and seems to be a pretty clear breach of international law:
With Russia justifying its actions in Georgia through reference to the Canadaian "Responsibility to Protect" doctrine, it's worth reminding ourselves what this doctrine actually says about international interventions to protect civilians. This doctrine... begins by spelling out the "threshold requirements" for such an intervention - in other words, the conditions under which human rights abuses inside a state justify grounds for breaching the territorial integrity of that state through the use of force....
But the R2P doctrine is not simply a green light for great powers to violate small states' territorial integrity whenever they can reasonably claim civilians are at risk. Rather, it carefully balances humanitarian concerns with the UN Charter regime. Intervening governments must not only demonstrate just cause, but they must meet six other criteria as well:
Right Intention...
Last Resort...
Proportional Means...
Reasonable Prospects...
Anyone can see that Russia's intervention satisfied the last of these criteria quite nicely. And although the jury is still out, for the sake of argument let us accept Russia's claim that the Georgian government's crackdown on separatists in S. Ossetia was indiscriminate and thus constituted just cause for an intervention. Even if so, it is hard to argue that Russia's means have been proportionate to its goals, that Russia exhausted any non-military avenues first, or that Russia has actually acted solely out of humanitarian objectives.
Perhaps most importantly is the question of right authority: who decides on the legitimacy of such a move? The Commission recognized the validity of such arguments, then made by Russia and China, that a humanitarian intervention norm would create a slippery slope toward the dissolution of the non-aggression norm entirely. So they devoted an entire chapter to the question of the authority to determine whether such an intervention should take place. It first stresses that to be genuine, humanitarian intervention must be multilateral, not unilateral; that it ought to be endorsed by the Security Council; and failing this (as it did in the case of Kosovo and now Darfur) could be legitimized under a Uniting for Peace resolution in the General Assembly. Point being, a single state exercising this "responsibility" on its own, without even a discussion among its peers, would negate the concept entirely.
http://elected-swineherd.blogspot.com/2008/08/was-russia-exercising-responsibility-to.html
Oh yeah and,
On July 30, it was announced that Russian Railroad Troops have completed their mission in breakaway Abkhazia and are withdrawing. A battalion of some 400 men of reportedly unarmed Railroad Troops was sent to Abkhazia to repair the railroad on May 31 without warning or the consent of the Georgian government....
The troops have repaired 54 km of Soviet-built tracks with 20 tunnels and bridges south of the Abkhaz capital Sukhumi to the coastal town of Ochamchire.... At a colorful official ceremony in Dranda... the commander of the Railroad Troops General Sergei Klimets told journalists that the railroad operation was “purely humanitarian”... but Abkhaz officials said there is much more work left to do before this one-track railroad will have any commercial usage (RIA-Novosti, Interfax, July 30).
http://jamestown.org/edm/article.php?article_id=2373276
Hmmm...
The comments to this entry are closed.
Although tangential to the topic, those seeking "protection" under the US "umbrella" might do well to read stuff like this:
The new debate on U.S. grand strategy is essentially about which variant of a hegemonic strategy the United States should pursue. The strategy proposed by President George W. Bush is, in caricature, unilateral, nationalistic, and oriented largely around the U.S. advantage in physical power, especially military power. This is “primacy” as it was originally conceived. The last years of Bill Clinton’s administration saw the emergence of a strategy that also depended heavily on military power, but which was more multilateral and liberal, and more concerned with international legitimacy. It aimed to preserve the dominant U.S. global position, including its military position, which was understood to be an essential underpinning of global activism. That strategy has recently been elaborated, formalized, and defended under the rubric of “selective
engagement” by Robert Art. Though this is too big an argument to settle on the sole basis of a military analysis, the understanding of U.S. military power developed below suggests that selective engagement is likely to prove more sustainable than primacy.
Posted by: D. Mathews | Aug 10 2008 18:50 utc | 1