Peace Plan for the Caucasus

Recent events in the Caucasus have highlighted the fact that there are numerous simmering animosities in the region that have remained unresolved since the collapse of the Soviet Union. This is a place where society has not quite matured beyond the tribal level of thinking and acting, where groups defined by ethnicity are prone to looting and burning each other’s villages. This is a phenomenon that the West has not experienced itself for some considerable time.

The complicated ethno-territorial issues of the region were suppressed or hidden from view by the Soviets but have nevertheless simmered for centuries. This is a place where great powers have played the great game of domination since near the beginning of civilization. They sweep back and forth through here from their epicentres of power cutting a swathe of destruction and misery every time, leaving behind a legacy of territorial dispute.

Now we are seeing the next round of this game being played out between the United States and its allies in NATO and the significantly weakened successor to the Soviet Empire the Russian Federation. The Russians have been largely retreating from their peripheral territories for the last twenty years and NATO has been circling like a pack of menacing dogs nibbling away at the wounded beast. This may not be how the West views the current situation but it is certainly the viewpoint of the Russians. The Black Sea is Russia’s gateway to the Mediterranean and the United States perceived a chance to neutralize this threat forevermore by bringing the Ukraine and Georgia into the fold alongside Greece and Turkey. Brussels, NATO’s headquarters, has resisted giving full membership to these two countries for various reasons. One being the likelihood of aggravating Russia to the point where it may feel compelled to lash out and spoil everyone’s plans. Another being, as mentioned above, the fact that these people still loot and burn each other’s villages – an activity that could embroil NATO in ugly wars that could spiral into a major conflict with Russia. Slowly, slowly would be the sensible European approach.

If we are to use chess analogies the three pawns in play at the moment are Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia. While some might argue that this is but one pawn, Georgia, the reality is that Georgia has not controlled the other two for quite a few years now as they are clearly being played by the Russians. Georgia is the Western pawn or maybe we should consider it to be a knight as Georgia alone possesses greater power than the other two put together. The other two have fairly safe positions, being protected by Russian rooks, knights and bishops. Georgia herself appears to be protected by the US queen.

to be continued....

Searching for the Truth in Georgia

I’ve been searching for some analysis of what was going on just prior to the escalation of hostilities in Georgia. Why did Saakashvili make that decision to take Tskhinvali by blitzkrieg on the night of August 8 2008? I found this at Jamestown.org in a piece entitled RUSSIA’S WAR ON GEORGIA IS AIMED AGAINST THE WEST. From the title I can immediately sense that the Jamestown folks are a little biased however let’s take a look:

Hoping to stop the bloodshed, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili announced a unilateral ceasefire at 9:00 P.M. on August 7 (Georgian Public Broadcaster, August 7, 9:00 P.M.). Despite this, Russian-armed, Russian-commanded South Ossetian forces continued firing at and shelling Georgian villages and police, as well as the Georgian peacekeeping contingent. At least 50 lives—civilian, police and peacekeepers--were lost during two hours under this ceasefire. After 11:00 pm that evening Saakashvili ordered an end to the unilateral ceasefire because Russian troops in massive numbers, with tank columns and artillery, started streaming through the Roki tunnel from Russian territory into Georgia, across the internationally recognized border.

Now I think it is extremely unlikely that fifty lives were lost during the two hours of shelling between the ceasefire and the start of the assault on Tskhinvali. If you did declare a ceasefire at 9pm you would expect the other side to take some time, certainly more than two hours, to settle down. It would take time to communicate the orders to the opposing factions wouldn’t it? This sounds like a very desperate attempt by the Georgians to justify the assault. Surely the assault was prepared long before the declaration of the ceasefire as it takes time to get tanks and troops assembled at the jump points and aircraft fuelled and armed up. This declaration of a ceasefire was no more than a sneaky trick to get an advantage at the get go of major hostilities. It is a common tactic known to have been used since the beginning of warfare. Personally I would only do it if I was in imminent mortal danger or had a 99% chance of success.

As for the "Russian troops in massive numbers, with tank columns and artillery, started streaming through the Roki tunnel from Russian territory into Georgia" This is not actually true and even if it were would not the sensible thing to do be run away as quickly as you can? Which is exactly what the Georgian army did do but only once the columns started streaming out of the tunnel in response to the assault on Tskhinvali, which by this time, had ground to a halt.

Now let’s look at the rationale of the Georgian leadership as postulated by the writers at the Jamestown Foundation. Keep in mind that they have already glossed over the fact that Saakashvili has already blatantly lied about a ceasefire.

The Georgian leadership faced two options: First, hold the unilateral ceasefire and allow the Russian-led Ossetian forces to overrun or destroy Georgian controlled villages in South Ossetia, and do nothing until Russian troops came down from the Roki tunnel to join the carnage in a matter of hours. Or, second, to start fighting back and push the potential frontline as far north as possible.

The Georgian leadership chose the second option as the lesser of two bad options. On August 8 and 9 Russian forces overran South Ossetia, amid credible reports of rounding up local Georgians, while North Caucasus and South Ossetian paramilitaries committed acts of violence against unarmed civilians in the villages. From August 9 onward, Russian ground forces and aviation carried out operations deep inside Georgia, targeting both military and civilian sites.

This is the sort of stuff I have been searching for. Now what was so wrong about taking the first option which seems to be no more than the status quo? Russian troops had not yet passed through the Roki tunnel in force and nothing unusual was happening in North Ossetia to suggest that a major invasion was imminent. Russian peacekeepers were already in South Ossetia and as far as I am aware Georgian villages in South Ossetia were not under ground attack. They were being shelled but then so were Ossetian villages. Well maybe not for the two hours prior to the blitzkrieg but fairly heavily before that. South Ossetia was already largely out of the control of Georgian forces and had been since 1991. Indeed Russian forces were there at the bequest of the Georgians due to the bitter fighting that had gone on during that period.

So apparently the Georgian leadership chose the second option as the lesser of two bad options. This option was to take Tskhinvali as quickly as possible and neutralize all of South Ossetia. The main problem with this is that surely it is the worst of the options. Russian soldiers were inevitably going to be killed and this would certainly bring down the wrath of the Russian army on poor little Georgia. Now if Russian forces were going to enter the Roki tunnel and proceed toward Tbilisi the sensible thing to do would be draw back to a pre-prepared line of defence north of Tbilisi and slug it out as ferociously as possible. The Russians would take them out eventually but world opinion would be totally on the side of the Georgians. It would be almost impossible for the Russians to get away with this sort of aggression in today’s political climate. It simply would not have happened.

As it turned out South Ossetian irregulars and Russian peacekeepers bogged down the Georgian army in Tskhinvali and they were unable to realise their plan. The next day the Russian army attacked and the Georgians were routed. This is not at all surprising since the Georgians were no match for even a small part of the Russian armed forces and the Russians had made it quite clear that armed incursions by Georgia into South Ossetia would be repelled by force.

The Jamestown analysis makes no sense and unashamedly paints the Russians as brutal aggressors. They even use the word brutal to describe the Russian counter attack yet use no such adjectives when describing the Georgian assault on Tskhinvali. How can a successful military assault not be, in a sense, brutal? The Georgian assault is merely, “to start fighting back and push the potential frontline as far north as possible.” Never mind that Tskhinvali is entirely civilian and that schools, churches and hospitals would be indiscriminately hit in a hail of Grad rocket fire. Of course the Russians “carried out operations deep inside Georgia, targeting both military and civilian sites.”

I find after reading this ‘analysis’ I am no closer to the truth as to what compelled the Georgian leadership to make such a rash decision. The Jamestown Foundation appear to be an organ of the Western propaganda apparatus:

All these aspirations and visions will be irretrievably lost if Georgia is allowed to fall. Georgia’s fall under Russia’s continuous blows would signify an historic rollback of the West from Europe’s East.

But Georgia still exists and Russia has largely returned to the original lines. Things are as they were except Georgia now seems to have no chance of regaining South Ossetia which is full of people who hate them anyway. My question is, why do they want them?


Note: The map at the top from the New York Times is a typical example of media bias. It says Georgian forces shelled South Ossetia's capital, Tskhinvali,on Friday. as if that is all that happened. No mention of tanks, infantry and air strikes. Shells rather than grad missile barrages. It omits an awful lot. The next sentence states, Russia took over the city Saturday in heavy fighting. As if the Russians were fighting South Ossetians.

Who started the War in Georgia?

What to make of the current little war going on in the Caucasus? One of the most fascinating aspects of the war has been the speculation as to who started it.

It would be extremely rare for a conflict to emerge from a vacuum without any prior hostilities going on, so as always the ‘who started it’ question is a matter of great debate with an answer that often comes down to a matter of opinion. What we do know is there is bad blood going back for many years, possibly centuries..

With a simmering low-level conflict that involves the odd shell careering over the border it would be fair to suggest that whoever takes it to the next level is to blame for turning it from a skirmish into a war. It appears that the Georgians took it from occasional shell lobbing to massive missile barrages, tank assaults with infantry and air strikes with the intention of taking the Ossetian main city by blitzkrieg. It’s almost an understatement to say this represents a dramatic change of intensity. There may be good reasons to escalate the violence to this level such as a spoiling attack on an enemy that was about to do the same to you. The Israeli Six Day War comes to mind as such a scenario. It seems unlikely that the South Ossetians were planning a full scale invasion of Georgia so if this was a spoiling attack then the targets would have to be the Russians. Now it appears that on the night of August 07 the Russians had not yet entered South Ossetia. A spoiling attack should have included the sealing of the Roki tunnel that separates North and South Ossetia in order to stop the Russians from reinforcing Tskhinvali. In any case this is a mad strategy as the Georgians had no hope of defeating the Russians and the Russians would be obliged, for reasons of national pride, if nothing else, to proceed to all out war. The Georgians would be better off to fiercely defend Tbilisi except that the Russians appear to have had no intention of attacking that city.

So was this some insane mistake on the part of the Georgian leadership or are there factors we are unaware of? Was Saakashvili gambling on the West coming in to assist him or less likely the Russians staying their hand? If it was a gamble it seemed like it had a one in a million chance of success. It is also an extraordinarily reckless thing to do gamble with the lives of not only the Ossetians and Georgians but practically the entire world. There must have been some discussion, some war room meeting, prior to the escalation of hostilities. Was there any dissent amongst the Georgian Generals concerning the wisdom of attacking Russia for surely attacking and killing Russian peacekeepers is akin to attacking Mother Russia herself? Usually this sort of reckless activity by a countries leader is a way of deflecting local criticism away from himself and out toward an external enemy. I wonder if this was the case.

The other, possibly more conspiracy minded theory, is that Georgia was encouraged by the US and possibly Israel to make the attack in the hope of stirring things up at home in order to improve the popularity of Republican Presidential hopeful McCain and or boost the arms industries. The wars against the rag tag Jihadis has not brought big contracts of new military hardware and development that a new Cold War would. This is perhaps being wise after the fact however the war seems to have resulted in this outcome. McCain now looks to have a fair chance of beating Obama. Evidence for this scenario is in the extraordinary number of US and Israeli ‘advisors’ on the ground in Georgia. When it looked possible that the Russians would advance on Tbilisi there was a mad scramble to the airport to get the hell out of there.

Whatever the truth of the matter this whole affair is extraordinarily interesting and worthy of more research and deep thinking. The next most interesting aspect of the war has been the propaganda war waged by both sides with Georgia deftly side-stepping the blame entirely and managing to draw in the sympathy of the entire Western world. This will be the topic of another post.