Revisiting Russia vs Georgia in light of Ukraine

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Archive-mining for what was said in 2008 about not standing up to the Russians splitting Georgia

http://wargamer.com/forums/posts.asp?t=306206  post #8

The only main maneuver element the US will have over there is 2d ACR. �The heavy stuff is coming home.

My question is: defend them from what?

Uh, you're watching Georgia right now, aren't you? �You can't think the Ukraine isn't next, with it's large Russian minority in the East.

http://wargamer.com/forums/posts.asp?t=305193&pg=2  post #32

Why does this crisis remind me of the Sudentland in 1938? When I heard about Sarkozy's peace plan, I had an image of him waving a piece of paper in the air and blathering about "Peace in our time".

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http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/russia/articles/20080901.aspx

September 1, 2008: Russia has announced that it will, in effect, annex the Georgian separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. No one is willing to face down the Russians on this issue, which many of Russias neighbors see as the first of many such annexations. There is a precedent for this sort of thing, and it all began on the French-German border in 1936.

Some historians see the German reoccupation of the Rhineland in 1936 as the real beginning of World War II. As part of the treaty that ended World War I, Germany agreed to keep troops out of the Rhineland (a German region on the French border). Going back in was a huge gamble for the Germans, who were in the midst of rebuilding their military, and, in 1936, much weaker than France or Britain. But neither of these countries were willing to risk the violence that might occur if they went after the 32,000 troops and police Germany sent into the Rhineland. This convinced Hitler that he could bully the Western allies, and grab neighboring countries with impunity. This worked for Austria and Czechoslovakia, but triggered World War II when Germany and Russia (by prior agreement) carved up Poland in 1939.

Russia may not have its sights on Poland this time around, but Belarus, Ukraine, the Baltic States and a few of the Central Asian "stans" would be nice. Would, or could, anyone stop them? Hitler didn't have nuclear weapons, nor was Germany the supplier of a quarter of Europe's energy needs. Hitler also didn't have the support of the German people for such military adventures, the current Russian government does. Russia also still has its secret police apparatus. Perhaps not as large as when the Soviet Union was still around, but it's still there. Credit Cards, the Internet  and cell phones make it easier to keep track of people.

There are still KGB old timers around who remember how to run a prison camps. Absorbing the nations of the "near abroad" (as Russia calls its neighbors), would mean having to deal with a lot of dissidents. That's what the Gulag (the Russian acronym for the prison camp system, or "The Chief Administration of Corrective Labor Camps and Colonies") was created for. It gets the troublemakers off the streets, permanently, as needed. Puts the fear of Moscow into the newly acquired citizens of the Russian State. It worked before, it can work again. So did taking over the Rhineland.

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http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/2008/08/the-truth-about-1.php

TBILISI, GEORGIA – Virtually everyone believes Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili foolishly provoked a Russian invasion on August 7, 2008, when he sent troops into the breakaway district of South Ossetia. "The warfare began Aug. 7 when Georgia launched a barrage targeting South Ossetia," the Associated Press reported over the weekend in typical fashion.
Virtually everyone is wrong. Georgia didn't start it on August 7, nor on any other date. The South Ossetian militia started it on August 6 when its fighters fired on Georgian peacekeepers and Georgian villages with weapons banned by the agreement hammered out between the two sides in 1994. At the same time, the Russian military sent its invasion force bearing down on Georgia from the north side of the Caucasus Mountains on the Russian side of the border through the Roki tunnel and into Georgia. This happened before Saakashvili sent additional troops to South Ossetia and allegedly started the war.
Regional expert, German native, and former European Commission official Patrick Worms was recently hired by the Georgian government as a media advisor, and he explained to me exactly what happened when I met him in downtown Tbilisi. You should always be careful with the version of events told by someone on government payroll even when the government is as friendly and democratic as Georgia's. I was lucky, though, that another regional expert, author and academic Thomas Goltz, was present during Worms' briefing to me and signed off on it as completely accurate aside from one tiny quibble.
Goltz has been writing about the Caucasus region for almost 20 years, and he isn't on Georgian government payroll. He earns his living from the University of Montana and from the sales of his books Azerbaijan Diary , Georgia Diary  and Chechnya Diary . Goltz experienced these three Caucasus republics at their absolute worst, and he knows the players and the events better than just about anyone. Every journalist in Tbilisi seeks him out as the old hand who knows more than the rest of us put together, and he wanted to hear Patrick Worms' spiel to reporters in part to ensure its accuracy.
"You," Worms said to Goltz just before he started to flesh out the real story to me, "are going to be bored because I'm going to give some back story that you know better than I do."
"Go," Goltz said. "Go."
The back story began at least as early as the time of the Soviet Union. I turned on my digital voice recorder so I wouldn't miss anything that was said.
"A key tool that the Soviet Union used to keep its empire together," Worms said to me, "was pitting ethnic groups against one another. They did this extremely skillfully in the sense that they never generated ethnic wars within their own territory. But when the Soviet Union collapsed it became an essential Russian policy to weaken the states on its periphery by activating the ethnic fuses they planted.
"They tried that in a number of countries. They tried it in the Baltic states, but the fuses were defused. Nothing much happened. They tried it in Ukraine. It has not happened yet, but it's getting hotter. They tried it in Moldova. There it worked, and now we have Transnitria. They tried it in Armenia and Azerbaijan and it went beyond their wildest dreams and we ended up with a massive, massive war. And they tried it in two territories in Georgia, which I'll talk about in a minute. They didn't try it in Central Asia because basically all the presidents of the newly independent countries were the former heads of the communist parties and they saidwe're still following your line, Kremlin, we haven't changed very much."
He's right about the massive war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, though few outside the region know much about it. Armenians and Azeris very thoroughly transferred Azeris and Armenians "back" to their respective mother countries after the Soviet Union collapsed through pogroms, massacres, and ethnic-cleansing. Hundreds of thousands of refugees fled savage communal warfare in terror. The Armenian military still occupies the ethnic-Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh region in southwestern Azerbaijan. It's another so-called "frozen conflict" in the Caucasus region waiting to thaw. Moscow takes the Armenian side and could blow up Nagorno-Karabakh, and subsequently all of Azerbaijan, at any time. After hearing the strident Azeri point of view on the conflict for a week before I arrived in Georgia, I'd say that particular ethnic-nationalist fuse is about one millimeter in length.
"Now the story starts really in 1992 when this fuse was lit in Georgia," Worms said. "Now, there's two territories. There's Abkhazia which has clearly defined administrative borders, and there's South Ossetia that doesn't. Before the troubles started, Abkhazia was an extremely ethnically mixed area: about 60 percent Georgian, 20 percent Abkhaz, and 20 percent assorted others – Greeks, Estonians, Armenians, Jews, what have you. In Ossetia it was a completely integrated and completely mixed Ossetian-Georgian population. The Ossetians and the Georgians have never been apart in the sense that they were living in their own little villages and doing their own little things. There has been inter-marriage and a sense of common understanding going back to distant history. The Georgians will tell you about King Tamar – that's a woman, but they called her a king – and she was married to an Ossetian. So the fuse was lit and two wars start, one in Abkhazia and one in South Ossetia."
South Ossetia is inside Georgia, while North Ossetia is inside Russia.
"The fuse was not just lit in Moscow," he said. "It was also lit in Tbilisi. There was a guy in charge here, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, a little bit like [Serbian Nationalist war criminal in Bosnia Radovan] Karadzic. He was a poet. He was an intellectual. But he was one of these guys who veered off into ethnic exclusivism. He made stupid declarations like Georgia is only for the Georgians. If you're running a multi-ethnic country, that is really not a clever thing to say. The central control of the state was extremely weak. The Russians were trying to make things worse. There was a civil war between Georgians and Tbilisi. But the key thing is that here there were militias, Georgian militias, and some of them pretty nasty."
Thomas Goltz then interjected his only critique of Patrick Worms' explanation of events that led to this war. "It started in 1991," he said, "but it went into 1992 and 1993, as well." Then he turned to me. "This guy, [Zviad] Gamsakhurdia, was driven from power from across the street. They bombed this place." He meant the Marriott Hotel. We stood in the lobby where Worms had set up his media relations operation. "There's a horrible picture in my Georgia book of this facade."
"Of this building?" I said.
Yeah," Goltz said. "That was December 1991. He fled in December 1991."
"Where did he go?" I said.
"To Chechnya," Goltz said. "Of course. He led the government in exile until he came back in 1993 then died obscurely in the mountains, of suicide some people say, others say cancer. Then he was buried in Grozny." He turned then again to Patrick Worms. "1991," he said. "Not 1992."
"1991," Worms said. "Okay."
So aside from that quibble, everything else Worms said to me was vouched for as accurate by the man who literally wrote the book on this conflict from the point of view of both academic and witness.
"So in 1991," Worms said, "things here explode. And basically it gets pretty nasty. Thomas can tell you what happened. Read his book , it's worth it. And by the time the dust settles, there are between 20,000 and 30,000 dead. Many atrocities committed by both sides, but mostly – at least that's what the Georgians say – by the Abkhaz. And the end result is everybody gets kicked out. Everybody who is not Abkhaz or Russian gets kicked out. That's about 400,000 people. 250,000 of those still live as Internally Displaced Persons within Georgia. As for the rest: the Greeks have gone back to Greece, the Armenians to Armenia, some Abkhaz to Turkey, etc.

More at the link

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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/29/world/europe/29putin.html?_r=0

MOSCOW — As Russia struggled to rally international support for its military action in Georgia, Vladimir V. Putin, the country's paramount leader, lashed out at the United States on Thursday, contending that the White House may have orchestrated the conflict to benefit one of the candidates in the American presidential election.

Mr. Putin's comments in a television interview, his most extensive to date on Russia's decision to send troops into Georgia earlier this month, sought to present the military operation as a response to brazen, cold war-style provocations by the United States. In tones that seemed alternately angry and mischievous, he suggested that the Bush administration may have tried to create a crisis that would influence American voters in the choice of a successor to President Bush.

"The suspicion would arise that someone in the United States created this conflict on purpose to stir up the situation and to create an advantage for one of the candidates in the competitive race for the presidency in the United States," Mr. Putin said in an interview with CNN.

He added, "They needed a small victorious war."

Mr. Putin did not specify which candidate he had in mind, but there was no doubt that he was referring to SenatorJohn McCain, the Republican. Mr. McCain is loathed in the Kremlin because he has a close relationship with Georgia's president, Mikheil Saakashvili, and has called for imposing stiff penalties on Russia, including throwing it out of theGroup of 8 industrialized nations.

Mr. Putin offered scant evidence to support his assertion, and the White House called his comments absurd. But they underscored the depth of the rift between Moscow and Washington over the Georgia crisis, which flared three weeks ago when the Georgian military tried to reclaim a breakaway enclave allied with Russia. They also suggested that the Russian leader was deeply concerned about the possibility that Mr. McCain, widely viewed here as having a strong bias against Russia, could become president.

Only last spring, Mr. Putin, the president at the time, held a summit meeting with Mr. Bush in which the two expressed personal affection for each other and sought to smooth over tensions in the bilateral relationship.

Russia has been struggling to persuade the outside world to back its action in Georgia. On Thursday, China and four other countries meeting with Russia for the annual summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a security alliance, declined to back Russia's military action in a joint communiqué.

Mr. Putin's interview came after his protégé, President Dmitri A. Medvedev, spoke to several foreign news outlets this week as part of a concerted move by the Kremlin to counter Georgia's public relations offensive in the international media. Mr. Medvedev's tone was less harsh, though he also criticized the West.

On Thursday, Mr. Putin, now prime minister, also said Russian defense officials believed that United States citizens were in the conflict area supporting the Georgian military when it attacked the separatist region of South Ossetia.

"Even during the cold war, during the time of tough confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States, we have always avoided direct clashes between our civilians, let alone our servicemen," Mr. Putin said. "We have serious reasons to believe that directly, in the combat zone, citizens of the United States were present."

"If the facts are confirmed," he added, "that United States citizens were present in the combat zone, that means only one thing — that they could be there only on the direct instruction of their leadership. And if this is so, then it means that American citizens are in the combat zone, performing their duties, and they can only do that following a direct order from their leader, and not on their own initiative."

In Washington, the White House spokeswoman, Dana M. Perino, dismissed Mr. Putin's remarks. "To suggest that the United States orchestrated this on behalf of a political candidate just sounds not rational," she said.

She added, "It also sounds like his defense officials who said they believe this to be true are giving him really bad advice."

A senior Russian defense official, Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, said at a news conference in Moscow on Thursday that Russian forces had found a United States passport in a ruined building near Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia. The position, he said, had been occupied by Georgian Interior Ministry forces.

"What was the gentleman's purpose of being among the special forces and what he is doing today, I so far cannot answer," General Nogovitsyn said, holding up what he said was a color copy of the passport. He said members of the Georgian unit had been killed, and the building destroyed.

When the war broke out, the United States had about 130 military trainers in Georgia preparing Georgian troops for service in Iraq. The American Embassy in Tbilisi said these trainers were not involved in the fighting; about 100 remain and are assisting with the delivery of aid to Georgia that is arriving on military planes and ships.

General Nogovitsyn said the passport was in the name of Michael Lee White of Texas, but gave no information on whether Russians believed that he was a member of the United States military. The United States Embassy in Georgia told The Associated Press that it had no information on the matter.

Mr. Putin said in the CNN interview that Russia had thought that the United States would prevent Georgia from attacking South Ossetia, but suggested that he now believed that the Bush administration encouraged Mr. Saakashvili to send in his military.

"The American side in fact armed and trained the Georgian Army," Mr. Putin said. "Why hold years of difficult talks and seek complex compromise solutions in interethnic conflicts? It's easier to arm one of the sides and push it into the murder of the other side, and it's over. It seemed like an easy solution. The thing is, it turns out that it's not always so."

The Georgia conflict has become a flash point in the United States presidential campaign, with Senator McCain assailing what he refers to as "revanchist Russia" and asserting that he is far more qualified to handle such a crisis than the Democratic candidate, Senator Barack Obama.

Mr. McCain has long been friendly with Mr. Saakashvili, who has said he talks to Mr. McCain regularly. Mr. McCain's top foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, has worked as a lobbyist on behalf of the Georgian government, and Mr. McCain's wife, Cindy, traveled to the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, this week on a humanitarian aid mission.

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http://www.standard.co.uk/news/military-help-for-georgia-is-a-declaration-of-war-says-moscow-in-extraordinary-warning-to-the-west-6824402.html

Moscow has issued an extraordinary warning to the West that military assistance to Georgia for use against South Ossetia or Abkhazia would be viewed as a "declaration of war" by Russia.

The extreme rhetoric from the Kremlin's envoy to NATO came as President Dmitry Medvedev stressed he will make a military response to US missile defence installations in eastern Europe, sending new shudders across countries whose people were once blighted by the Iron Curtain.

And Moscow also emphasised it was closely monitoring what it claims is a build-up of NATO firepower in the Black Sea.

The incendiary warning on Western military involvement in Georgia - where NATO nations have long played a role in training and equipping the small state - came in an interview with Dmitry Rogozin, a former nationalist politician who is now ambassador to the North Atlantic Alliance.

"If NATO suddenly takes military actions against Abkhazia and South Ossetia, acting solely in support of Tbilisi, this will mean a declaration of war on Russia," he stated. 

Yesterday likened the current world crisis to the fevered atmosphere before the start of the First World War.

Rogozin said he did not believe the crisis would descend to war between the West and Russia.

But his use of such intemperate language will be seen as dowsing a fire with petrol.

The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Dallas at Georgia's Black Sea port of Batumi today, carrying what the U.S. says is humanitarian aid

Top military figure Colonel General Leonid Ivashov, president of the Academy of Geopolitical Studies in Moscow, alleged that the US and NATO had been arming Georgia as a dress rehearsal for a future military operation in Iran.

"We are close to a serious conflict - U.S. and NATO preparations on a strategic scale are ongoing. In the operation the West conducted on Georgian soil against Russia - South Ossetians were the victims or hostages of it - we can see a rehearsal for an attack on Iran." 

He claimed Washington was fine tuning a new type of warfare and that the threat of an attack on Iran was growing by the day bringing "chaos and instability" in its wake.

With the real architect of the worsening Georgian conflict - prime minister Vladimir Putin - remaining in the background, Medvedev followed up on Rogozin's broadside with a threat to use the Russian military machine to respond to the deployment of the American anti-missile defence system in Poland and the Czech republic.   

Poland agreed this month to place ten interceptor missiles on its territory, and Moscow has already hinted it would become a nuclear target for Russia in the event of conflict. 

"These missiles are close to our borders and constitute a threat to us," Medvedev told Al-Jazeera television. "This will create additional tension and we will have to respond to it in some way, naturally using military means." 

The Russian president said that offering NATO membership to Georgia and Ukraine, two former Soviet republics, would only aggravate the situation.

Moscow has consistently expressed its opposition to the U.S. missile shield, saying it threatens its national security.

The U.S. claims the shield is designed to thwart missile attacks by what it calls "rogue states," including Iran.

Meanwhile, Russia - seen by the West as flouting international law - today demanded NATO abide by an obscure agreement signed before the Second World War limiting its warships in the Black Sea.

"In light of the build-up of NATO naval forces in the Black Sea, our fleet has also taken on the task of monitoring their activities," said hawkish deputy head of Russia's general staff, Anatoly Nogovitsyn.

The Montreux Convention, as it is called, sets a weight restriction of 45,000 tonnes on the number of warships that countries outside the Black Sea region can deploy in the basin.

"Can NATO indefinitely build up its forces and means there? It turns out it cannot," said Nogovitsyn.

NATO has said it is undertaking pre-arranged exercises in the Black Sea involving US, German, Spanish and Polish ships. Two other US warships sailed to Georgian waters with humanitarian aid.

Georgia is poised to sever diplomatic relations with Russia, or reduce them to a bare minimum. 

"We will drastically cut our diplomatic ties with Russia," said a top official. 

President Mikhail Saakashvili said he was frightened to leave Georgia to attend the EU summit on the crisis.   

"If I leave Georgia, the Russians will close our airspace and prevent me from returning home," he said.

Russia sought Chinese backing for its action - but the Communist regime in Beijing appeared reluctant to offer support, instead issuing a statement saying it was "concerned" about recent developments.   

NATO called for Russia to reverse its decision on recognition for the two enclaves, both Georgian under international law.

But the new 'president' of South Ossetia, Eduard Kokoyty, called for Russian military bases on his territory.

French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner warned today that an marauding Russian bear could trample over other ex-Soviet states.

"That is very dangerous," he said, pointing at Ukraine and Moldova.

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Part 1 of 2

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2008/08/south_ossetia_the_perfect_wron.html

By now, days after Georgian forces stormed the capital of south Ossetia and Russian units counter attacked across the breaking away province and beyond; a devastating war has spread across the Caucasus causing death, destruction and displacement of populations. All wars are terrible  -- even the legitimate ones where country, freedom and survival at are at stake. But this war is particularly unnecessary, could have been avoided and above all is wrong; in fact I call it the perfect wrong war.

Unfortunately, when battles are raging with tanks, artillery, bombs and all sort of firepower, it becomes more difficult to see the substantive issues clearly than before the confrontation began. For example, it becomes more pressing to reach a cease fire, provide medical attention, create Red Cross corridors, stop ethnic cleansing, human rights breaches and take care of refugees, than to investigate who began the hostilities, what provoked it, what are the local claims and what international equation has permitted such an onslaught. And to make it more complicated, rushed journalistic reporting -- often biased -- confuses public opinion endlessly. In short, once the bullets fly, media sensationalism explodes and political agendas creep in.

Let's review the battle of arguments in the South Ossetia conflict and try to analyze the essence while keeping an eye on the bigger picture, the one that affects democracies' national security and international efforts against terror forces.

The classical slogans

When you observe the media analysis worldwide, you can spot the mutual classical slogans and easy assessments, not always accurate. As soon as the clashes began in Tskhinvali (the South Ossetian capital), anti-American propagandists rushed to accuse the Bush Administration of "pushing President Mikheil Saakshvili to perform an attack destined to weaken the Kremlin." Other more sinister charges linked the Georgian move to a US "interest in Oil pipelines." Similar to the 9/11 conspiracy theories these allegations were also found in some Russian unofficial commentaries.  But opposing narratives spoke of a "Putin offensive to expand Russian power southbound after years of weakness." Many stories accused the Kremlin of simply trying to "re-occupy" former Soviet Republics.

Obviously these slogans from this and other sides are frivolous. Neither Moscow nor Washington are in a state allowing them to wage wars at will 18 years after the end of the Cold War. The United States, involved in two battlefields in Afghanistan and Iraq and closely monitoring developments in precarious Pakistan and in aggressive Iran, is certainly not planning another conflict in the Caucasus where it would have to commit a ground support. With a US Presidential election in weeks and a major debate about US involvement anywhere, forget about these hallucinations. Moscow too, despite the sour post-Soviet feelings in Red Square, is not in the business of re-invading any Republic to bring it back to the "empire:" In Hollywoodian imagination, maybe; but in real politics not so likely. So what are the actual reasons behind these tragic events and escalating military clashes?   

The roots of the local conflict

South Ossetia and Abkhazia are provinces (self declared Republics) within a sovereign country, Georgia. The populations of these two entities, non ethnic Georgians and mostly ethnic-Russians, rose to obtain separation based on their own perception of cultural identity. In comparative analysis they would be the equivalent of Kosovo's ethnic-Albanians. As in other ethnic conflicts, each side claim superseding ownership; but in the eyes of modern international law that is irrelevant after hundreds of years of settlement. An initial confrontation in the early 1990s (1992-1994) between Georgia's post Soviet Government and the separatist movements led to agreements allowing for local autonomy for these two areas and for the deployment of Russian (CIS) Peacekeepers.


For almost 16 years this status quo survived while awaiting a final resolution of the conflict. As in many spots in the Caucasus and the Balkans, borders do not always correspond with nationalities and ethnicities. The agreement between South Ossetia and Georgia, blessed by Moscow, was the guarantee of stability, until times changed.

Five reasons led to transformations: One was the shift of Georgia to NATO and friendship to Washington; two was a shift in Moscow from good relations with the US under Yeltsin and the first years of Putin to more tense relations in the last Putin years; three was the active participation of Georgia in US-led activities in Iraq; four were the Ossetians' continuous aspirations towards self determination; and last but not least, the breakdown of friendship between the West and Russia since the Kosovo resolution few months ago, the real last straw.

The Kosovo factor

Since 1999, the outcome of the Western campaign in Kosovo brought about a parallel status quo to the one established in South Ossetia and in Abkhasia. In short, NATO had created an autonomous area for the ethnic Albanians inside a sovereign country, Serbia; while Russia and the CIS have insured autonomous status for South Ossetians and Abkhasians inside another sovereign state, Georgia.

From a Russian perspective the two cases were linked and would eventually be resolved via negotiations. From a Western perspective Kosovo was "unique" and was to be resolved differently, that is granted independence unilaterally. But as long as Russian-American relations especially under Presidents Bush and Putin were warm, the de facto enclaves in Kosovo and Ossetia lived in stability.

The challenge began when during winter 2008, the US and the European Union decided to unleash Kosovo's separation despite Serbia's opposition. In international jurisprudence, breaking away entities need validation by the country the partition is going to affect. In Canada for example, Quebec would always need the other provinces to agree on separation. Agreement of "both sides" is usually sought.

But in the case of Kosovo, for international political motivations, including a gesture to please the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in the midst of a campaign to win hearts and minds, Washington and Brussels went ahead swiftly and endorsed Pristina's declaration of separation from Belgrade. The Western powers argued that going back to Serbia was out of question for the Kosovars; therefore going forward was the only option, despite Serbian claims inside the province.

The underlying geopolitical reasoning was that no force including the Russians would be able to oppose the move. "They are too far" to intervene, assumed the diplomats. But Moscow made its intentions known the day of Kosovo's declaration of independence.

The Russian statement was poorly covered in the international media. The release said the Russian Federation will recognize the efforts by South Ossetia and Abkhazia to secede from Georgia. It was a clear eye for an eye declaration, but it went unnoticed in the West. In an article titled "Be Wise on Kosovo," published on December 13, 2007 in the American Thinker,  I warned that a chain reaction may begin elsewhere. The confrontations taking place today in the Caucasus were triggered strategically in the Balkans few months before. Russia was ignored on the shores of the Mediterranean, it responded on the shores of the Black sea. To Moscow, Georgia's allies are also "too far" when the enclaves would move to separation.



Direct causes

But Georgia's Government realized the sense of Russia's statements and still decided to act preemptively. President Mikheil Saakashvili must have calculated that by moving fast on the ground he would avoid the repetition of a Kosovo-like declaration in South Ossetia. His strategic algebra is still unclear to me. Was he hoping for a blitz seizure of Tskhinvali and the formation of a pro-Georgian local government? Was he predicting a slow Russian reaction? Historians will tell. But the chain reaction is clear. Moscow gave the green light to South Ossetia and Abkhazia to follow the Kosovo model, and Tbilisi rushed to abort these moves. Hence Georgian forces were ordered by Saakashvili to "bring back constitutional order" to the breakaway republics -- 16 years after a status quo -- and Medvedev and Putin responded by sending Russian forces to drive the Georgians out of the two provinces. In its own response Russia was telling the West: South Ossetia is Kosovo and Georgia is Serbia; I am applying your doctrine in the Caucasus.

From August 6 on, the Georgian offensive attempted to seize the capital of the enclave and the Russian counter offensive pushed the Georgians out. Moscow accused Tbilisi's units of ethnic cleansing and Georgia's leaders counter-accused the Russians of invading all of their country. The fog of war is still too thick at this point.

International reactions

The US blasted the Russian Federation for the attack while the European Union called for a return to the status quo ante, technically cancelling the effects of the Georgian attack but hoping for a Russian stop of operations.  In the Security Council a battle of words has been raging for days without real results, other than wishes for a cease fire. Naturally Britain stood by America and China discreetly backed Russia.

In Central and Eastern Europe, particularly in the Baltic sub-region politicians are very concerned. From Prague to Tallinn politicians remember the Soviet occupation and fear a repeat of Ossetian scenarios on their land. In the Baltic States many are concerned that local Russian populations may call for similar interventions. Perhaps these fears are unwarranted as the Caucasus enclaves have historical roots, unlike the north.

But on both sides of the Atlantic unease is spreading. Hard core critics of Russia, vestiges of the Cold war, still believe that the Soviet Union changed clothes but is still around. Others boil down the crisis to standing by Georgia as an ally, period. On the left, any alibi is good to demean American policy. In a sum, confusion reigns: how did the West get itself to face off with post Soviet Russia in an ethnic standoff in the Caucasus? Was the Kosovo episode too rushed? Did Washington and Brussels' East Policies fail in the middle of a war on terror? Or was the Atlantic West dragged by other world powers to re-clash with the East? Again, historians will have to investigate.

But meanwhile, a growing number of observers in the West are connecting the dots from the South Ossetia drama to much wider and strategic horizons.  How to look at the Caucasus crisis is the question. Do we want to bring back the Cold war and the Russo-Western struggle? Do we want to drop the War on Terror and swim back to the pre 1990s years? Or do we want to win the global confrontation with the forthcoming Jihadi Caliphate?

At the end of the day, it is a question of choices, and mostly the democracies' choice.

[bayonetbrant]

part 2 of 2

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2008/08/south_ossetia_the_perfect_wron.html

Hard strategic questions

Is the Russian current leadership displaying features of superpower-return, of zones of influence and of so-called strategic belts? Yes it does. Prime Minister Putin and his Government showed many signs of opposition to the advancing NATO influence in what he perceives as Russia's neighborhood: the crisis with Ukraine, opposition to missiles defense shield in Eastern Europe and nervousness about US military influence developing at the edges of the former USSR, including in Romania, Bulgaria, Estonia and Georgia.

But beyond these geopolitical considerations the Kremlin also rejected the US-led Iraq campaign, the isolation of the Syrian regime and the containment of the Iran Khomeinist power. And here lies the distinction. If Moscow's politico-military establishment feels uncomfortable with NATO coming closer to Russia's borders, it can express that discontent and address it in bilateral relationships with Washington. The United States, for example, wouldn't be very comfortable seeing Russian missiles systems installed in Mexico or a strategic defense treaty signed between Haiti and China. These are classical moves in international relations, drawing tensions and counter moves.

But for Russia to actively arm Iran and Syria, this is a feature of cold war, inconsistent with present the international consensus against Terrorism. The Tehran-Damascus "axis" is in an active campaign to support Jihadi terror forces in the region and armed groups involved in the killing of US and Coalition personnel. It would be the equivalent of having the US arming and providing technology to Wahabi Chechen Terrorists operating against Russian cities and military. Hence, while Americans are as anti-terrorist as Russia is when it comes to the al-Qaeda Salafi threat, Russians are still feeding anti-Western forces in the Middle East. Hence there is a difference between Russian discomfort with NATO growth around the CIS and US concerns about Russia's protection of Iranian-Syrian efforts in the region. Moscow is backing a party at war with the US Coalition while Americans aren't assisting parties at War with Russia.

So, if that is the case, what is the best strategic course of action that the US and NATO must follow to address this problem? Some advise Washington to press the encirclement of the Russian Federation and put pressure on its few allies in the Balkans, thinking that this would weaken the Kremlin resolve to fight back. I disagree. If Russia's leadership has moved to counter US efforts in the Middle East the right response is not to escalate against the Russians in Kosovo and along their borders, including in Ossetia. For by pursuing such policy -- while the US and its allies are engaged in massive confrontations against the Salafist movements and the Khomeinist power -- the West will find itself over stretched on two world fronts, one of them at least is unnecessary: Russia.     

To be crude: Liberal democracies have no interest in over-pressuring Russia in the course of strategic gaming while they are at full war with the Global Jihadists. Such a move will push the Russians away from converging with the West against the "common enemy." Instead of consolidating a Western-Russian entente against both Salafists and Khomeinists, Russia and the US are confronting the Wahabis separately and in most cases unsuccessfully while the Russians have befriended the Khomeinists who are harassing the Americans. The Russo-American competition is not helping either side,  but one other side does win: the Global Jihadists. 

Jihadi Dual agenda

The world Salafists' ultimate wish is to see the two infidel superpowers at odds with each other again; and that is happening. The combat-Jihadists want bloodshed both in Moscow and in Washington now and in the future. The long-term Wahabis likes the idea of an American demobilization against Jihadism and a re-mobilization against Russia. Ending the War on Terror and reigniting the Cold war is the ultimate fantasy of the oil producing fundamentalist powers.

On the other hand, the Iranian regime and its allies in Syria and Lebanon have clearly opted for privileged strategic relations with Russia as a way to counterbalance the US and its allies in the region. The flow of petro cash from Iranian oil revenues can ensure a good business and military relationship with Moscow. Some in the latter city -- still recalling Cold War feelings -- like the idea of client states (or so they think) counterbalancing American presence in the Middle East.
In the final analysis, the two main trees of Jihadism are playing West against East to ensure the weakening and ultimately the collapse of their grand foes. The Wahabis wants to bring Russia down via the establishment of several Wahabi emirates in its midst --from Chechnya to Central Asia. And the Khomeinists want the US out of the region so that they can establish their own dominance instead.


Moscow and Washington (and Brussels as well) should not be manipulated by oil fundamentalist powers against each other. The Cold War should not be brought back at the expense of winning the conflict against Jihadi Terrorism. In clear terms: no wars should be waged outside the international campaign against the terrorists, should it be an ethnic or economic one. These, including the current Caucasus conflict, are wrong wars as they would profit the global Jihadi forces, both political and military.

The road from here

With this outlook in mind Western and Russian actions must climb back the walls and get off the pit they got themselves in.

1)      First a swift conclusion of the Georgia-South Ossetia-Abkhazia conflict.

It is important to help the parties to the conflict end the military confrontation as fast as possible. Open wounds should not be allowed to fester. Lines of direct clashes must be frozen. After the consolidation of an internationally endorsed cease fire, security measures on the ground have to take place in a way to ensure a non repeat of the drama. Georgian forces should return to their initial positions of pre August 6, 2008 -- that is on their national soil but outside the two "ethnic republics." To separate them from the South Ossetians and Abkhasians until the political conflict is resolved, CIS Peace keepers should remain in their initial positions but it is highly recommended that other forces --not engaged in the latest clashes -- deploy between the two contending armed forces. A United Nations mandate (not regular UN units at this stage) for specially selected troops trusted from both sides such as French, Spanish, Greek, Mongolian, Japanese, Argentines,
etc. would be best to separate the militaries on the ground. Once that stage is completed, the political process must begin.

2)      International resolution process

A UN-led commission of inquiry (with and all members of the UN Security Council) must meet with representatives of the South Ossetians and Abkhazians to determine their suggested claims and meet with the Government of Georgia to note their demands as well. Unlike in the Kosovo case, all sides should be listened to and all concerns should be catered to as well. The interim stage can take different shapes but the ultimate process ironically must follow the Kosovo precedent -- that is to grant the South Ossetians and Abkhazians their right for self-determination while Georgians concerns must be addressed. The final security arrangements are best to be made under international auspices so that responsibility for breaches can be determined by universal measurements.

3)      Russo-Western guarantees

To guarantee the two processes, security and political, a Russo-Western summit (in different shape) must take place including Russia, the United States and the European Union. Such a summit should work on ending the tensions between the two sides worldwide and in the Caucasus. A thinking process about a NATO-Russian dialogue must begin based on two principles: stabilization of ethnic conflicts internationally and focus on a new stage in the confrontation with international Terror forces. This process may take a long time, but as it begins, crises such as the South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Georgia must be addressed immediately and military clashes avoided.

Conclusion

In the end, even if the above comments and opinion seem to be too utopian, a simple review of the alternatives is a road to nowhere except a defeat of the international community in its quest for a win against Terror. This Caucasus conflict should create enough consciousness among Western and other democracies, including Russia, that any global confrontation between these large blocs -- regardless of their pending issues -- is a loss to the overarching world efforts against the danger that menaces all democracies, including India, other world powers such as China, and Muslim moderate countries as well. Obviously to those many among us in the West who are still swimming in Cold War culture, and to those in Russia who perceive the post-Soviet era with pre-1990 lenses, these crises are opportunities to sharpen the old rusty swords of the East-West conflict. I am making the case strongly in this article against such a return to a past we all lived through and hoped would end. After the terror attacks of 9/11, Madrid, London, Mumbai, Moscow and Beslan we have all moved to a new era: a relentless Jihadi war War waged against all Kuffars (infidels) worldwide.

The Kosovo affair was concluded with sourness that came back to haunt the international community in South Ossetia. That is the first lesson to learn from it. The military clashes between Russia and Georgia told us that new conflicts would collapse all that the international community has tried to achieve for the last seven years. That is the second lesson. Third and last, without going back to the blame game, the South Ossetia war was a wrong war that should have been avoided: It was a perfect wrong War.

Dr. Walid Phares is a Senior Fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a visiting scholar with the European Foundation for Democracy, the author of The Confrontation: Winning the War against Future Jihad, and teaches Global Strategies at the National Defense University.

[bayonetbrant]

http://www.jamestown.org/edm/article.php?article_id=2373298

THE GOALS BEHIND MOSCOW'S PROXY OFFENSIVE IN SOUTH OSSETIA

As anticipated (see EDM, July 11, August 4) Moscow has initiated an offensive military operation by proxy against Georgia in South Ossetia. Although the blow had been expected in upper Abkhazia and may yet materialize there, Russia shifted the direction of attack to the South Ossetian front.

The brazen attacks during the night of August 7 to 8 in South Ossetia left Tbilisi with no choice but to respond. Continuing Georgian restraint would have resulted in irreparable human, territorial, and political losses. Moscow's military and propaganda operation bears the hallmarks of its blitzkriegs in Transnistria in 1992 and Abkhazia in 1993. Georgia's defensive response in South Ossetia since August 8 is legally within the country's rights under international law and militarily commensurate with the attacks.

Russia usually stages military incidents in Georgia in August, while European officials take their vacations. This year, however, the operations are systematic, lengthier, and considerably higher on the ladder of escalation than in previous years. After concentrating supplementary forces in Abkhazia during the spring and expanding its military infrastructure there in early summer, Moscow switched on the escalation process in South Ossetia.

On July 3 an assassination attempt targeted Dmitry Sanakoyev, head of the Tbilisi-backed interim administration of South Ossetia, which controls at least one third of the region's territory. The blast injured Sanakoyev's bodyguards. On July 9 Moscow demonstratively acknowledged that four Russian Air Force planes had flown a mission over South Ossetia.

That action sought to deter Georgia from flying unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), thus blinding Tbilisi to Russian and proxy military movements in the area. A series of roadside bomb blasts targeted Georgian police patrols. During the second half of July and the first days of August, Russian-commanded Ossetian troops under the authority of Russian-led South Ossetian authorities fired repeatedly at Georgian-controlled villages, forcing Georgian police to fire back defensively. Meanwhile, Russia's state-controlled media orchestrated a war scare, accusing Georgia of intentions to attack.

In the North Caucasus and Russia proper, Cossack chieftains on government payroll threatened to send "volunteers" to fight against Georgia. The North Ossetian authorities, apparently aware of Moscow's plans, showed nervousness at the prospect of becoming embroiled in a major military operation by proxy to their south. The goals behind Moscow's operation are threefold, each with its own time frame. The immediate goal is to re-establish the authority of Russian-controlled negotiating and "peacekeeping" formats.

By firing on Georgian positions unremittingly and escalating the intensity of the fire with every passing day, Moscow hopes to force Georgia to turn to those Russian-controlled formats to relieve the pressure. Furthermore, Moscow wants to force Tbilisi to acknowledge a leading Russian role as "guarantor" of an eventual political settlement. Moscow's next goal, on a timeframe overlapping with the first, is to capture Georgian-controlled villages in South Ossetia.

The pattern of attacks since August 6 indicate the intent to reduce the Sanakoyev administration's territory to insignificance or even remove it from South Ossetia altogether. If successful, this undertaking may well be replicated in upper Abkhazia by Russian and proxy forces attempting to evict authorities loyal to Tbilisi. The strategic political goal is to dissuade NATO from approving a membership action plan (MAP) for Georgia at the alliance's December 2008 or April 2009 meetings.

More immediately, Moscow seeks to derail the North Atlantic Council's assessment visit to Georgia, scheduled for September, or at least to influence the visit's assessment about Georgia's eligibility for a MAP. Since NATO's "Russia-Firsters" insist that unresolved conflicts disqualify Georgia from a MAP, Russia seeks to demonstrate that those conflicts are indeed unresolved.

NATO's failure to approve a Georgian MAP at the April 2008 summit emboldened Russia to escalate military operations against Georgia. Moscow also seeks to bleed Georgia economically through protracted military operations. Russia can not tolerate the successful economic performance of a Western-oriented government on Russia's border. Aware, furthermore, that Georgia's government is accountable to public opinion, Moscow seeks to force the government to choose between yielding at the risk of a domestic backlash or, alternatively, fighting back in a costly confrontation

Resemblances with the Russian interventions in the early 1990s in Transnistria and Abkhazia are unmistakable. In that scenario, the Russian media create a hysterical, brink-of-war atmosphere, portraying the small country targeted for attack as a dangerous aggressor. Russian-armed proxy troops, already in place on the target country's territory, attack localities and seats of authority. Cossacks and North Caucasus "volunteers" are sent in. Russian officials can claim that the attackers act on their own, outside Moscow's control. Russian military intelligence coordinates the operation, while air and ground forces provide cover and would intervene directly if the target country defends itself. In the final stage of this scenario, Russian "peacekeepers" perpetuate the gains achieved on the ground. Throughout the crisis, most Western governments are confused and react irrelevantly by urging restraint on "both sides," ultimately tolerating the Russian faits accomplis.

That scenario started unfolding in South Ossetia in late July. By August 6 and 7, heavily armed proxy troops opened fire on Georgian villages, while the secessionist authorities refused to talk with Tbilisi. The attacking forces began destroying the transmission antennae of Georgian mobile telephone systems. Arms and paramilitary groups poured in from Russia to South Ossetia through the Russian-controlled Roki tunnel.

Russian officials in Georgia claimed that the attacking forces were out of Russia's control. Officials in Moscow, meanwhile, justified the attacks directly and indirectly by accusing Georgia of aggression (Interfax, Itar-Tass, Russian Television, August 4-7).

At 7:00 P.M. local time on August 7, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili spoke live on national television, announcing a unilateral ceasefire and asking the other side also to cease hostilities. In highly conciliatory words, Saakashvili called for talks "in any format"; reaffirmed the long-standing offer of full autonomy for South Ossetia; proposed that Russia should guarantee that solution; offered a general amnesty; and pleaded for international intercession to stop the hostilities (Rustavi-2 TV, August 7).

Following Saakashvili's address, attacks on Georgian villages intensified. The village of Avnevi was almost completely destroyed, Tamarasheni and Prisi shelled, and the police station in Kurta, seat of the Sanakoyev administration, smashed by artillery fire. Civilians began fleeing the villages. These attacks forced Tbilisi to take defensive action. By 10:30 P.M. local time on August 7 the Georgians returned fire.

During the night, Georgian forces including armored columns began advancing toward Tskhinvali, the secessionist authorities' administrative center. These Georgian actions have halted the repetition of a 1992-1993 type scenario in 2008.

[bayonetbrant]

Tuesday, Aug 12, 2008

Another European war

By GEORGE F. WILL, The Washington Post

Asked in 1957 what would determine his government's course, Harold Macmillan, Britain's new prime minister, replied, "Events, dear boy, events."

Now, into America's trivializing presidential campaign, a pesky event has intruded — a European war. Russian tanks, heavy artillery, strategic bombers, ballistic missiles and a naval blockade batter a European nation. We are not past such things after all. The end of history will be postponed, again.

Russia supports two provinces determined to secede from Georgia. Russia, with aspiring nations within its borders, generally opposes secessionists, as it did when America, which sometimes opposes secession (e.g., 1861-65), improvidently supported Kosovo's secession from Russia's ally Serbia.

But Russia's aggression is really about the subordination of Georgia, a democratic, market-oriented U.S. ally. This is the recrudescence of Russia's dominance in what it calls the "near abroad."

Ukraine, another nation guilty of being provocatively democratic near Russia, should tremble because there is not much America can do. It is a bystander at the bullying of an ally that might be about to undergo regime change. Vladimir Putin, into whose soul President George W. Bush once peered and liked what he saw, has conspicuously conferred with Russia's military, thereby making his poodle, "President" Dmitry Medvedev, yet more risible.

But big events reveal smallness, such as that of New Mexico's Gov. Bill Richardson. On ABC's "This Week," Richardson, auditioning to be Barack Obama's running mate, disqualified himself. Clinging to the Obama campaign's talking points like a drunk to a lamppost, Richardson said this crisis proves the wisdom of Obama's zest for diplomacy, and that America should get the U.N. Security Council "to pass a strong resolution getting the Russians to show some restraint." Apparently Richardson was ambassador to the U.N. for 19 months without noticing that Russia has a Security Council veto.

This crisis illustrates, redundantly, the paralysis of the U.N. regarding major powers, hence regarding major events, and the fictitiousness of the European Union regarding foreign policy. Does this disturb Obama's serenity about the efficacy of diplomacy? Obama's second statement about the crisis, in which he tardily acknowledged Russia's invasion, underscored the folly of his first, which echoed the Bush administration's initial evenhandedness.

"Now," said Obama, "is the time for Georgia and Russia to show restraint." John McCain, the "life is real, life is earnest" candidate, says he has looked into Putin's eyes and seen "a K, a G and a B." But McCain owes the thug thanks, as does America's electorate. Putin has abruptly pulled the presidential campaign up from preoccupation with plumbing the shallows of John Edwards and wondering what "catharsis" is "owed" to disappointed Clintonites.

McCain, who has called upon Russia "to immediately and unconditionally ... withdraw all forces from sovereign Georgian territory," favors expelling Russia from the G-8, and organizing a league of democracies to act where the U.N. is impotent, which is whenever the subject is important. But Georgia, whose desire for NATO membership had U.S. support, is not in NATO because some prospective members of McCain's league of democracies, e.g. Germany, thought that starting membership talks with Georgia would complicate the project of propitiating Russia.

NATO is scheduled to review the question of Georgia's membership in December. Where now do Obama and McCain stand? If Georgia were in NATO, would NATO now be at war with Russia? More likely, Russia would not be in Georgia. Only once in NATO's 59 years has the territory of a member been invaded — the British Falklands, by Argentina, in 1982.

What is it about August? The First World War began in August 1914. The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact effectively announced the Second World War in August 1939. Iraq, a fragment of the collapse of empires precipitated by August 1914, invaded Kuwait in August 1990.

This year's August upheaval coincides, probably not coincidentally, with the world's preoccupation with that charade of international comity, the Olympics. For only the third time in 72 years (Berlin 1936, Moscow 1980), the games are being hosted by a tyrannical regime, the mind of which was displayed in the opening ceremony featuring thousands of drummers, each face contorted with the same grotesquely frozen grin. It was a tableau of the miniaturization of the individual and the subordination of individuality to the collective.

Not since the Nazis' 1934 Nuremberg rally, which Leni Riefenstahl turned into the film "Triumph of the Will," has tyranny been so brazenly tarted up as art. A worldwide audience of billions swooned over the Beijing ceremony. Who remembers 1934? Or anything. .

[bayonetbrant]

And, most painfully...

http://www.creators.com/opinion/dick-morris/the-lesson-of-georgia-bring-ukraine-into-nato.html

The Lesson of Georgia: Bring Ukraine Into NATO

As we watched Russian tanks and planes attack yet another small neighbor, the world had to be reminded of Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan, three other countries that had to watch their freedom crushed beneath tank treads. The blatant, outrageous and long-planned invasion of Georgia should make it clear to the United States and Europe that there is an urgent need to pre-empt further Russian expansionism by spreading the NATO umbrella more widely.

In Eastern Europe, Ukraine is the name of the game. With close to 50 million people, it is by far more populous and important than any other former Soviet republic or satellite. Russia, with a population of 142 million and dropping, needs to take over Ukraine to reassert itself as a global power.

Moscow is terrified that Ukraine will become part of the West. That's why Russian operatives poisoned democracy advocate Viktor Yushchenko, now the president of Ukraine, permanently scarring his face and almost killing him, and why Moscow refuses to extradite the agent responsible for the attack. And it is why the Kremlin tried to engineer the election of a pro-Russian puppet by cutting off gas supplies to Ukraine and then tripling the price it charged. The Ukrainians have voted again and again for democracy and ties to the West. Putin has tried repeatedly to force the nation back into the Russian orbit.

The clear implication of the invasion of Georgia is that Russia cannot be trusted to live in peace with its neighbors. The impetus to imperial conquest predated and has outlasted communism. As Henry Kissinger argues, Russia must either be expanding or contracting. With so many divergent and often hostile nationalities inside and around Russia, the momentum of conquest is the only way to avoid an inertia that leads to decomposition.

Ukraine wants to enter NATO, but our European allies, led by Germany, are so dependent on Russian gas that they are reluctant to antagonize the bear.

Until now, the case for expanding NATO's protection to Ukraine has been hypothetical, based on fear of Russian intentions. But by breaking the civilized rules of national conduct, Russia has demonstrated the folly of leaving smaller democracies exposed on its border.

Some — initially including Barack Obama — treated the Russian invasion as a border war for which both sides were responsible. The Democratic candidate called for mutual restraint and, only after two days had elapsed, did he label the Russian actions as "aggression."

Others have sought to blame Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili for the war because he sent troops into South Ossetia, long a part of Georgia, which the Russians have egged on to seek its independence. The breakaway province is an example of Moscow's oft-employed strategy of encouraging emigration to other countries so as to use the new demographics to justify a takeover.

Of course, NATO cannot extend its protection to every nation in Europe. It is, in the final analysis, a military alliance, and it must be certain that it can back its guarantees with adequate might. The location of Georgia makes this difficult to assure. But Ukraine, located right next to NATO members Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania, can and must be defended by NATO.

Russia is rapidly losing its population. It has the lowest birth rate in Europe and shrinks by half a million people every year. Its gross domestic product is only $1.7 trillion, a tenth of the Euro zone's. It is only through energy reserves that Russia is able to project its influence. And Russia must realize that the West's likely movement away from oil and toward alternative fuels may make the energy card obsolete in the future.

It is only through blunt, blatant military force that Russia can expand and trouble its neighbors. And if the United States and NATO stand up to it, Russia will back down. And Ukraine is where we must make a stand.

To find out more about Dick Morris and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

[GDS_Starfury]

I think we need a boardgame covering this.  ;)

[bayonetbrant]

I think we need a boardgame covering this.  ;)

http://talk.consimworld.com/WebX?14@@.1dd2a88d/68

So I've been fiddling around with the info I could find on the Georgia/South Ossetia War from this past summer. I was trying to piece together a scenario or two for Next Wars series using the existing Orange Crush counters, and a few slight mods... Basically, I was trying to set the game up so you could re-create the war and be able to play a 1-sitting game, in which each side was trying to do better than they actually did in the historical game.

Here's the problem, though. For either side to exceed their historical stopping points, you have to really "break" the game. For the Georgians to stem the red tide would require blowing up the Roki Tunnel - in which case, darn near nothing gets into the oountry, based on limited mobility elsewhere, and it becomes a Kosovo-ish air campaign on the part of the Russians (which Next Wars really isn't the best at).
The other option for the Georgians is to fight a total guerilla fight - again, not the best use of the Next Wars system.

If the Russians were to seize any more of Georgia than they did, you're likely running into more of a 4-headed diplomatic game. Additionally, to properly account for the Ossetian / Chechen / Abkhazian 'rebels' you've got to increase the partisan counters by a LOT in the countermix.

So, even though it seems like it'd be a TON of fun, I can't figure out a way to make the Next Wars rules work in a Georgia - Russia shootout.

If anyone's got any suggestions, I'm happy to hear them. Please share!

[Nefaro]

Archive-mining for what was said in 2008 about not standing up to the Russians splitting Georgia

http://wargamer.com/forums/posts.asp?t=306206  post #8

The only main maneuver element the US will have over there is 2d ACR. �The heavy stuff is coming home.

My question is: defend them from what?

Uh, you're watching Georgia right now, aren't you? �You can't think the Ukraine isn't next, with it's large Russian minority in the East.

http://wargamer.com/forums/posts.asp?t=305193&pg=2  post #32

Why does this crisis remind me of the Sudentland in 1938? When I heard about Sarkozy's peace plan, I had an image of him waving a piece of paper in the air and blathering about "Peace in our time".

There were definitely many people predicting this back then, and we've been proven correct. 

Now that we're saying it will continue if not checked in some way, I wonder if heed will be paid this time around.  ;)

[OJsDad]

I wonder how many highly paid advisors stated that Georgia was a one time limited thing and that the Kremlin wouldn't try any more land grabs.

[pawelj]

Helping wit Re-arming Georgia, would be useful in todays situation.