Georgia is to blame for the Gerogia War; Russia set it up to happen.

MOSCOW — After a lengthy inquiry, investigators commissioned by the European Union are expected to conclude that Georgia ignited last year’s war with Russia by attacking separatists in South Ossetia, rejecting the Georgian government’s explanation that the attack was defensive, according to an official familiar with the investigators’ work.

But the report is expected to balance this conclusion with an equally weighty one: If Georgia fired the first shot, Russia created and exploited the conditions that led to war, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the report had not yet been made public.

In the years preceding the conflict, Russia encouraged separatist movements in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, territories in Georgia, training their military forces and distributing Russian passports.

This New York Times Article explains what happened to set of the Georgia War.

It's an interesting article, but it does not address the admittedly parochial American issue of whether the Bush administration failed to adequately restrain Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili.

Putin accuses US of fomenting crisis in Georgia to get one Presidential candidate elected.

From CNN Europe:

From CNN's Matthew Chance

SOCHI, Russia (CNN) -- Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has accused the United States of orchestrating the conflict in Georgia to benefit one of its presidential election candidates.
Russian PM Vladimir Putin has accused the U.S. of orchestrating the conflict in Georgia.

In an exclusive interview with CNN's Matthew Chance in the Black Sea city of Sochi on Thursday, Putin said the U.S. had encouraged Georgia to attack the autonomous region of South Ossetia.

Putin said his defense officials had told him it was done to benefit a presidential candidate -- Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama are competing to succeed George W. Bush -- although he presented no evidence to back it up.

"U.S. citizens were indeed in the area in conflict," Putin said. "They were acting in implementing those orders doing as they were ordered, and the only one who can give such orders is their leader."

Gee. Why he would think that? And which candidate do you think he is talking about, the one that belongs to the party in the White House or the one who belongs to the party outside the White House without the power to induce Saakishvili to attack South Ossetia?

Considering the history of the Bush/Cheney administration there is no accusation that can be made that is too extreme to be considered within the realm of reasonable possibility, is there?

Cheney's top top National Security aide was in Geogia just before Saakishvili attacked South Ossetia

Does anyone seriously believe that Joseph R. Wood, Cheney's deputy assistant for national security affairs was in Georgia just before Saakishvili attacked into South Ossetia and didn't discuss (and encourage?) the attack?

Read the LA Times short article Why was Cheney's guy in Georgia before the war?, then go read Pat Buchanan's description of what happened in South Ossetia at Pat Buchanan on what happened in South Ossetia.

Dick Cheney is, of course, the leader of the Neocon ProWar efforts trying to demonize Iran, North Korea, Syria, the Palestinians, and others. Every international problem calls for another war or application of military force. Wood's presence in Georgia just before the hotheaded Saakishvili invaded South Ossetia is unlikely to be a mere coincidence. That so many Georgians reported believing that the U.S. would come to their support if the Russians counterattacked suggests that Wood had reinforced the apparent American support for Georgia in its conflict with Russia over the breakaway provinces.

Did Wood encourage Saakishvili to "Bait the Bear" as Dick Cheney's representative? Was Cheney beating they could bluff Putin? Some reporters think so. Now that the effort has failed, we'll probably never get any answer from the Office of the Vice President. Maybe, once the Bush administration is gone, the Georgians will tell what happened. Of course, since the direct responsibility for the disaster falls on Saakishvili, it'll have to come from someone other than him.

It's another disaster mystery out of the Bush administration that the historians are going to need to dig into.

How long will the oil underlying Russia's current assertiveness last?

Much of the recent military assertiveness by Russia in Georgia is based on an economy newly rebuilt by oil and gas exports. What happens if that oil runs out soon? Tom Lasseter at McClatchy News writes that Russia's oil and gas supplies may be a lot less than has recently been believed.

Most of the oil produced after the country's 1998 financial collapse has come from drilling and re-drilling old Soviet oil fields with more advanced equipment — squeezing more black gold out of the same ground — and efforts to develop new fields have been slow or non-existent.

That strategy is potentially disastrous, said Valery Kryukov, who researches oil companies in western Siberia for a government-funded think tank.

"If the situation which exists now stays the same, oil production will start to decline seriously in two years," Kryukov said in a phone interview from his offices in the city of Novosibirsk.

The implications extend far beyond Russia's borders. Last year, Russia was the world's second-largest oil producer. If its output begins to decline or is hampered by inept or corrupt business practices, the price of oil could begin climbing again.

The concerns about Russia's oil industry also raise questions about the health of the nation's economy, which has enjoyed stratospheric growth thanks to high oil prices since the economic crisis a decade ago, according to interviews with a dozen economists and analysts. [Snip]

That's a serious matter for a country where, by some estimates, the oil sector funded about a third of the national budget last year, and where by all accounts industrial, technological and agricultural businesses lag far behind. Russia's other major revenue source is natural gas, in which Russia leads the world; oil and gas sales are mainly responsible for the country's $592 billion in gold and foreign exchange reserves.

The practice of reaping quick profits and ignoring long-term interests is reminiscent of the former Soviet Union's development policies, and it was embraced by post-Soviet billionaires, known as oligarchs, who propped up flimsy companies to strip Russia's natural resources for as many fast rubles as possible. It continued as the government took over many of those private companies, often by brutish means.

Without the income from oil and gas, Russia's economy is not going to be able to afford the recently assertive military it has been fielding. Yet the oil and gas the Russian economy is based on comes from secondary recovery from old oil and gas fields. Without new fields, the secondary recovery effort will stop being effective quickly.

This will badly effect the Russian economy, and since much of Europe's Winter heating and electricity is produced from gas provided from Russia, Europe's economy will be hurt also. The new "Cold War" currently being discussed will then just be reduced to everyone, Russian and European alike, being very cold.

With both the US and Russia effectively out of oil and unable to supply a long range military forces without external help from oil suppliers, it is unlikely that there will be any combat between those two nations. Any military actions will occur between close neighbors. In that case the US will once again be protected by its ocean borders.

The possibility of Russia quickly running out of oil and gas to export puts a whole new spin on the possibility of a new Cold War between the US and Russia.

I told you so - the Russians are not leaving Georgia

As I wrote yesterday, the Russians intend to dismember Georgia. This from The LA Times:

MOSCOW -- A ranking Russian military official today said Moscow plans to establish 18 long-term checkpoints inside Georgian territory, including at least eight within undisputed Georgian territory outside the pro-Russian enclave of South Ossetia.

The checkpoints will be staffed by hundreds of Russian troops, with those in Georgia proper needing supplies that would be ferried to them from South Ossetia. [Snip]

"This is the essence of it," Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of the army general staff, told reporters at a briefing. He showed maps detailing the proposed Russian positions, one just outside the key city of Gori.

"The president ordered us to stop where we were," he said. "We are not pulling out and pulling back troops behind this administrative border into the territory of South Ossetia." [Snip]

Russian officials insist they may keep troops along the South Ossetian-Georgian border as well as within Georgia proper as part of a peacekeeping mission begun in the 1990s. Russians say their peacekeeping mandate gives them access to a "security zone" along the border.

The Russians are delivering a message to all the nations of the old USSR, those they call the "Near Abroad." Putin is also delivering a message to the People of Russia that in spite of the last two decades, a period during which Russia has reached low points they previously achieved only during WW II (The Great Patriotic War) they are now coming back and Russia will again become a significant player on the world stage.

Bush was talking about bringing Georgia and the Ukraine into NATO. What if Russia still ran the Warsaw Pact and was discussing membership with Cuba and Venezuela? How would the US react?

Putin is a politician. He is reacting to his constituencies. That is more important to the Russians than any threats the US or Europe can make. Besides, the Russians have recently gone through a period since the collapse of the USSR that is a great deal worse than anything Europe or the US can threaten them with.

Bluster and threats are not going to sway the Russians. The message they are delivering is a lot more important to them than anything that Europe (dependent on Russia for gas that provides electricity and heat in the coming Winter) or the US (totally tied militarily tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan) can threaten them with.

Saakashvili and Bush are both experts in bluster and threats. Both have a history of collapsing with faced with real resistance. When Bush collapses he accepts the demands of his opponent and declares victory. Saakashvili is not known to follow the same pattern of behavior. The Russians are in a position to easily present real resistance, and it is greatly approved of at home in Russia.

The Russians are not leaving Georgia. They have no need to and no one can make them.

The Russian fait accompli in Georgia

Russia has taken control of South Ossetia and the town of Gori just to the south. According to Jonathon Finer of the Washington Post,

GORI, Georgia, Aug. 17 — Russia pledged Sunday to begin removing its troops from Georgia on Monday, but the streets of this occupied city reflected a broadening, not a waning, of Russia's military incursion. [Snip]

Russian soldiers dug fortified positions for tanks along highways east and west of Gori and trucked in television and radio equipment to begin broadcasting in their own language.

Luke Harding of the Guardian reports:

The Russians, with an estimated 10,000 troops and 150 tanks in Georgia, show no intention of withdrawing the entire invasion force, and plan to leave troops in Georgia proper, beyond the two pro-Russian breakaway provinces. Yesterday, troops set up a series of checkpoints between Tbilisi and Gori. [Snip]

The Kremlin said from today Russia would "begin the withdrawal of the military contingent moved to reinforce Russian peacekeepers after the Georgian aggression against South Ossetia". But it said the force would not retreat to Russia, only to South Ossetia, and that forces would stay in the "security zone."

The Russians intend to establish buffer zones in previously Georgian-controlled territory beyond South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
[Emphasis mine - Editor WTF-o]

It's pretty obvious now what the buffer zone will be.

By holding Gori, Russia cuts Georgian in half and eliminates Tbilisi's control of Western Georgia, including the Abkhazia province. On NPR this morning it was reported that a span of a railroad bridge on the rail line parallel to the road through Gori has been blown up. There is now no rail and no road communications between east and west Georgia that the Russian military does not completely control.

The Russians said that they would protect South Ossetia, where they have been handing out Russian passports for several years to South Ossetians, and they would hold parts of Georgia they need for "Security." (Read "Gori" and the transportation routes through Gori.)

The Russian military have also not protected Georgians living in South Ossetia from marauding bands of South Ossetians who have followed the Russian troops burning out Georgians. This is ethnic cleansing. The Russian are also moving missile launchers into South Ossetia, suggesting a long military stay.

By holding Gori Russia effectively dismembers Georgia. The Georgian military can no longer reach South Ossetia or western Georgia, and the Russian military owns the choke point.

Google maps does not show the road net or towns in Georgia and will not give distances between cities there, but the distance between Tskhinvali in South Ossetia and Gori in Georgia is at most a few hours tank drive. The Russians intend to destroy Georgia as a unitary state, and holding Gori will do that.

Since the European Union is dependent on Russia for gas supplies that provide much of Western Europe's heat and electricity in the Winter, there is little likelihood that Europe will do much beyond make noises. Since the US under Bush is severely overextended militarily and economically, there isn't much the US can effectively to.

Bush's blustering rhetoric and efforts to push NATO right up against the Russian border has left the Russians fuming. Saakashvili's blustering rhetoric and clear effort to join western Europe at the expense of Russia, his next door neighbor, hasn't helped the situation, nor did his taking the bait and invading the breakaway South Ossetia. It doesn't help any that the Bush administration has been acting like it was still the Superpower that Clinton handed them in 2001, even though the invasion of Iraq has sapped most American military power, while the idiotic tax cuts in the face of war expenses has similarly squandered much of America's economic power.

The result is that Europe is looking to the US for leadership, and the Bush administration has nothing to offer.
So we are going to listen to the clueless media discuss a lot of empty words from helpless and similarly clueless politicians in the near future as the Russians sit on Abkhazia and South Ossetia and dismember Georgia as a functioning state.

The Russians have accomplished a fait accompli in Georgia. That's just one more piece of the Bush Legacy.

---

Here is a good road map of Georgia.

Pat Buchanan on what happened in Georgia

by Patrick J. Buchanan

Mikheil Saakashvili's decision to use the opening of the Olympic Games to cover Georgia's invasion of its breakaway province of South Ossetia must rank in stupidity with Gamal Abdel-Nasser's decision to close the Straits of Tiran to Israeli ships.

Nasser's blunder cost him the Sinai in the Six-Day War. Saakashvili's blunder probably means permanent loss of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

After shelling and attacking what he claims is his own country, killing scores of his own Ossetian citizens and sending tens of thousands fleeing into Russia, Saakashvili's army was whipped back into Georgia in 48 hours.

Vladimir Putin took the opportunity to kick the Georgian army out of Abkhazia, as well, to bomb Tbilisi, and to seize Gori, birthplace of Stalin.

Reveling in his status as an intimate of George Bush, Dick Cheney, and John McCain, and America's lone democratic ally in the Caucasus, Saakashvili thought he could get away with a lightning coup and present the world with a fait accompli.

Mikheil did not reckon on the rage or resolve of the Bear.

American charges of Russian aggression ring hollow. Georgia started this fight – Russia finished it. People who start wars don't get to decide how and when they end.

Russia's response was "disproportionate" and "brutal," wailed Bush.

True. But did we not authorize Israel to bomb Lebanon for 35 days in response to a border skirmish where several Israel soldiers were killed and two captured? Was that not many times more "disproportionate"?

Russia has invaded a sovereign country, railed Bush. But did not the United States bomb Serbia for 78 days and invade to force it to surrender a province, Kosovo, to which Serbia had a far greater historic claim than Georgia had to Abkhazia or South Ossetia, both of which prefer Moscow to Tbilisi?

Is not Western hypocrisy astonishing?

There's more in the article by Pat Buchanan. He gets it all correct (unlike his earlier defense of Nazis a few years ago.)

How would we have reacted if Moscow had brought Western Europe into the Warsaw Pact, established bases in Mexico and Panama, put missile defense radars and rockets in Cuba, and joined with China to build pipelines to transfer Mexican and Venezuelan oil to Pacific ports for shipment to Asia? And cut us out? If there were Russian and Chinese advisers training Latin American armies, the way we are in the former Soviet republics, how would we react? Would we look with bemusement on such Russian behavior?

For a decade, some of us have warned about the folly of getting into Russia's space and getting into Russia's face. The chickens of democratic imperialism have now come home to roost – in Tbilisi.

Go read the whole thing.

Bush admin makes promise it it too disorganized to keep; What? Again?

Remember the man pretending to by President - you know, the bike rider? He promised that the US was going to send humanitarian aid to Georgia. Only - he never bothered to check first to see if the Turks would permit US naval vessels to go through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles that connect the Mediterranean to the Black Sea.

I'm sure that Condi Rice is happy to once again use her stock phrase "Gee? Who could have known ...?"

What is Russia's reasion for continuing to attack into Georgia?

In spite of an apparent ceasefire, Russian troops continue to engage with Georgian military. Why? Tom Lasseter and Jonathan S. Landay of McClatchy Newspapers provides the answer.

GORI, Georgia — Russian troops, in seeming violation of a cease-fire agreement set only on Tuesday, embarked Wednesday on what Georgian officials called a deliberate and systematic attempt to demolish what remains of the Georgian military. [Snip]

The state news service Interfax quoted an analyst saying that, "Moscow will now be listened to and treated seriously. The West has … not listened to Russia over the past 15 years."

The Russians have been working hard to induce the Georgians to attack South Ossetia so that they could justify counterattacking the Georgians. The Russians also know there will be a lot of international repercussions, so once committed, they want the greatest possible benefit.

The essential purpose of this effort is for Russia to show those countries next to them, the "Near Abroad," that Russia is back with a vengeance. The talk among those "Near Abroad" countries that they were going to join NATO to protect themselves from "The Bear" angered "The Bear" and so the nearby countries that thought they could act without considering what Russian wants/demands had better think twice.

The purpose of the attack into Georgia was to greatly damage and embarrass Georgia, and to the extent possible, to eliminate the Georgian military as a credible force. The Russian military will stop attacking the Georgian military when there is no significant Georgian military left to attack.

The rest of the near abroad nations, particularly Ukraine, will be carefully absorbing this lesson, as well at the helplessness of the US and the passivity of European nations. The Bear is back, and the western nations that were talking such a great fight have faded when a real fight was necessary. Talk is cheap, and the Russians are not.

That's the lesson. And unlike the US in Iraq, the Russians have sent enough troops to make sure the lesson is learned.

Cyberwar against Georgia; It started in June

The pressure against Georgia has been in cyberspace, too. From the New York Times:

Weeks before bombs started falling on Georgia, a security researcher in suburban Massachusetts was watching an attack against the country in cyberspace. [Snip]

Researchers at Shadowserver, a volunteer group that tracks malicious network activity, reported that the Web site of the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, had been rendered inoperable for 24 hours by multiple D.D.O.S. attacks. They said the command and control server that directed the attack was based in the United States and had come online several weeks before it began the assault.

As it turns out, the July attack may have been a dress rehearsal for an all-out cyberwar once the shooting started between Georgia and Russia. According to Internet technical experts, it was the first time a known cyberattack had coincided with a shooting war. [Snip]

According to Internet technical experts, it was the first time a known cyberattack had coincided with a shooting war.

But it will likely not be the last, said Bill Woodcock, the research director of the Packet Clearing House, a nonprofit organization that tracks Internet traffic. He said cyberattacks are so inexpensive and easy to mount, with few fingerprints, they will almost certainly remain a feature of modern warfare.

“It costs about 4 cents per machine,” Mr. Woodcock said. “You could fund an entire cyberwarfare campaign for the cost of replacing a tank tread, so you would be foolish not to.”

Exactly who was behind the cyberattack is not known. The Georgian government blamed Russia for the attacks, but the Russian government said it was not involved. [Snip]

In Georgia, media, communications and transportation companies were also attacked, according to security researchers. Shadowserver saw the attack against Georgia spread to computers throughout the government after Russian troops entered the Georgian province of South Ossetia. The National Bank of Georgia’s Web site was defaced at one point. Images of 20th-century dictators as well as an image of Georgia’s president, Mr. Saakashvili, were placed on the site. “Could this somehow be indirect Russian action? Yes, but considering Russia is past playing nice and uses real bombs, they could have attacked more strategic targets or eliminated the infrastructure kinetically,” said Gadi Evron, an Israeli network security expert. “The nature of what’s going on isn’t clear,” he said.

In addition to D.D.O.S. attacks that crippled Georgia’s limited Internet infrastructure, researchers said there was evidence of redirection of Internet traffic through Russian telecommunications firms beginning last weekend. The attacks continued on Tuesday, controlled by software programs that were located in hosting centers controlled by a Russian telecommunications firms. A Russian-language Web site, stopgeorgia.ru, also continued to operate and offer software for download used for D.D.O.S. attacks.

Since Georgia has so little Internet structure, this was probably just more harassment to rattle the Georgian high command. It may also have been a test of cyberwar capabilities, too. Such a test could determine effectiveness, the best manner of coordinating cyberwar with bullet-war and how to conceal the sources of cyber attacks.

In any case, this is an interesting new highlight of the Georgia - Russia war.

Some notes on the military terrain and situation in South Ossetia

I've been looking for a good description of the military terrain and related geographical situation in South Ossetia. Here is some information from a New York times Article from Aug 9, 2008.

The Ossetians, who number about 60,000, are part of the patchwork of ethnic groups that inhabit the mountains of the Caucasus. They have long yearned for separation from Georgia, appealing to Russia, their northern neighbor, for support.

Over the years, ethnic tension became a way of life in Tskhinvali, the provincial capital of South Ossetia, a city ringed by highlands where concrete street barriers were sometimes erected to keep the groups apart. During flare-ups, gangs of young men would ambush convoys on mountain roads. [Snip]

Although Abkhazia has far more strategic importance to both sides, the city of Tskhinvali is in a valley ringed by Georgian-held villages, on terrain easily navigable by tanks.

Mountains seal off the region to the north, toward Russia, so separatists rely on a single key route — the Roki Tunnel, which cuts deep through the mountains — for commerce, military aid and evacuation to the north.

Georgian leaders have long felt they could take the enclave swiftly, pushing north in one or two days to the Russian border. [Snip]

Hostilities routinely flare in the region late in the summer, when scarce water supplies pit neighbors against one another, said Sabine Freizer, the director of International Crisis Group’s Europe program.
[Emphasis added by Editor]

It appears that the Georgian military thought that they could quickly conquer South Ossetia from its more open South side, while the Russian military would be delayed by negotiating the tunnel and single road in from the North. That would have permitted the Georgians to present a fait accompli to the world before the Russians could get into combat.

Obviously that strategy failed. If the Russians had already moved their armor into South Ossetia, it was hopeless. Had the Georgians been able to tell where the Russians were forming up, or had the Americans had satellite surveillance of the area, perhaps the Georgians would not have attacked South Ossetia.

Since the Russians have been pushing the Georgians for months to make that attack, it is probable that they were completely prepared for it. What is really surprising is that the Americans weren't watching Russian troop movements, or if they were, didn't inform the Georgians.

Map of Georgia with A at Tskhinvali Pull back out and look at all of Georgia in the Terrain mode. I notice that google does not provide a road map of Georgia, probably so that the map can't be used for military reasons.

A view of American fecklessness from Turkey

Soli Ozel, who teaches at Istanbul Bilgi University's Department of International Relations and Political Science comments on the situation in Georgia.

Even if the Russians wanted to have an empire again, they would not wish to run it directly. They will of course have influence on their neighbors, just as the United States does in the Western hemisphere. The brutality of the Russian response is a function not just of their own regained self-confidence thanks to oil and gas money, or of their propensity for dominance, but also of misguided Western -- particularly American -- policies. If the United States cannot control a two-bit client such as Saakashvili (who turned out to be no better than the person he replaced, Eduard Shevardnadze) and keep him from taking this utterly destructive step, then what good is American policy? Would any self-respecting power tolerate the kind of 'in your face' attitude the Russians were expected to digest? When the United States supported Kosovo's independence and recognized the government in Prishtina, did it not think what would follow next or listen to what Putin had to say?

I support the independence of Kosovo. I find the Russian assault against Georgia illegal and disproportionate and I think the Kremlin's regime is brutal. But then again, would anyone take seriously Paris, whose complicity in the Rwandan genocide was recently reiterated, or Washington, which invaded a country (illegally and illegitimately by the judgment of most of the world) and made torture legal, when they accuse Russia of anything? [Snip]

Arguably the American moment in the Caucasus is gone. It is time to go back to the drawing board; to come up with a new policy that will speak to the Russians' better natures and bring them closer to Western policies, even if they are unlikely to become model democrats in the immediate future.

By the way, I am sure that in Tehran everyone has an irrepressible smile on their face, too.
[Bolding added to text by Editor]

The situation is the Caucus is not the cause of America's international helplessness. It merely demonstrates it. The Cheney/Bush/NeoCon strategy of meeting every international situation with extreme bluster and frequent (and often illegal) military force is the cause.

The situation in the Caucasus has merely demonstrated the severe weakness demonstrated by the Bush "bluster and bomb" effort to control other nations.

[H/T to Laura Rozen at War & Piece.]

Bush admin knew Russia was going to attack; Did nothing

So Russia attacks America's ~ally~ in the Causcusas, Georgia. Is that a problem for the Bush administration?

Apparently They don't think so. Bush attended the Olympics and Rice stayed on vacation. No quick gatherings to determine how to deal with the new and deadly situation. No top level diplomat sent to Moscow to try to stop the carnage. No real expression of concern, even. French President Sarkozy quickly visited Moscow to negotiate a ceasefire, but there was no real reaction from the Bush administration.

It's almost as if -- no, that's not possible -- almost as if the Bush people knew the attack was coming and had approved it in advance.

From Jonaton Landay of McKlatchy News:

Bush administration officials, worried by what they saw as a series of provocative Russian actions, repeatedly warned Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili to avoid giving the Kremlin an excuse to intervene in his country militarily, U.S. officials said Monday.

But in the end, the warnings failed to stop the Georgian president — a Bush favorite — from launching an attack last week that on Monday seemed likely to end not only in his country’s military humiliation but complete occupation by Russian forces.

The Pentagon claims they had no advance knowledge of the Georgian attack on South Ossetia that set the Russian invasion into motion.

Russia has been angry over Georgia's close links with Washington, and has been determined to stop the admission to NATO of its former vassal, which is located on strategic energy and transportation routes to Central Asia.

The Russian actions against Georgia "seemed designed to provoke a Georgian over-reaction," said a senior U.S. official. "We have always counseled restraint to the Georgians."

Some experts, however, wondered whether the administration might have inadvertently sent Saakashvili mixed messages that would have led him to believe he could count on U.S. support if he got into trouble.

Bush lavished praise on the U.S.-educated Georgian leader as a "beacon of democracy." He gave military training and equipment to Georgia, which supplied the third-largest contingent to the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, and had promised NATO membership, they said. He visited the country in 2005 and addressed a huge crowd from the same podium as Saakashvili.

"The Russians have clearly overreacted but President Saakashvili . . . for some reason seems to think he has a hall pass from this administration," said former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. [Snip]

A "parade" of U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, visited Tbilisi to urge Saakashvili to avoid giving the Kremlin to act, a State Department officials said.

At the same time, U.S. officials said that they believed they had an understanding with Russia that any response to Georgian military action would be limited to South Ossetia.

"We knew they were going to go crack heads. We told them again and again not to do this," the State Department official said. "We thought we had an understanding with the Russians that any response would be South Ossetia-focused. Clearly it's not."

It's also clear that the timing of the actual Russian invasion was not anticipated. That was a major Intelligence failure for the United States.

One problem in under-estimating the Russian response, another U.S. official said, was "a dearth of intelligence assets in the region."

U.S. "national technical means," the official name for spy satellites and other technology, are "pretty well consumed by Iraq, Afghanistan and now Pakistan," the official said, and there was only limited monitoring of Russian military movements toward the Georgian border.

Additionally, the United States had lost access to vital information when Russia dropped out of the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty in December to protest U.S. plans to build missile defense sites in Europe.

Under the treaty, Russia had been required to exchange reports on troop, armor and aircraft deployments with the United States and other members on a monthly basis. But once Russia dropped out, that information was no longer available.

"I wouldn't say we were blind," the official said. "I would say that we mostly were focused elsewhere, unlike during the Cold War, when we'd see a single Soviet armor battalion move. So, yes, the size and scope of the Russian move has come as something of a surprise."

So the U.S. has inadequate human intelligence sources in Georgia and the technical Intelligence assets (spy sattellites, etc.) were focused elsewhere, even as they were supposedly warning the Shakasvili that the Russians were trying to provoke a reason to invade! Then the Bush administration's insistence on placing missile defense sites in Eastern Europe led Russia to stop cooperating in reporting troop movements. How do you say it? Bush/Cheney failed in both the Intelligence functions and in the diplomatic functions! Then when the Russians did attack - and exceeded the understanding the Bush administration thought it had with them, the Bush administration was paralyzed. The only action they took was to weakly state:

"Russia has invaded a sovereign neighboring state and threatens a democratic government elected by its people," President Bush proclaimed whined after returning from China. "Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century."

"These actions jeopardize Russia's relations with the United States and Europe," Bush said. "It's time for Russia to be true to its word to act to end this crisis."

While I doubt that the Bush people could have stopped the Russian take-over of South Ossetia and Abkhazskay, their ham-handed handling of the entire Eastern European vs. Russia situation clearly made things worse then they had to be. Then when the shit hit the fan, they did literally nothing to try to reduce the carnage.

Russia has now made its point. The US and NATO have very little power in the nations of the old Soviet Union, what the Russians now call the "Near Abroad." A win for the Bush administration would have been to create a situation in which the Russians would not as easily eliminated all ambiguity on that subject. Instead the Bush administration is now shown to have tacitly approved the Russian military invasion of South Ossetia and Georgia.

Between the clear military weakness that has resulted from having all the American troops tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the clear foreign policy incompetence of the White House, how many other nations will now perceive the weakness and incompetence of the American government and act on that perception? Iran? Iraq? Pakistan?

Movement conservatism and the Supreme Court appointment of the utter incompetent Bush to the Presidency in 2000 has brought America to this new low.

More on South Ossetia and the Russia - Georgia crisis

Mark Kleiman relays some information from his co-blogger, Jonathon Kulik, currently in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia.

South Ossetia is an analyst's or commentator's minefield. About 10 people in the world outside of Georgia or Russia really understand it. Abkhazia is sexy — S.O. was the ugly stepsister.

The South Ossetian forces (under Russian command) hit Georgian villages in So. Ossetia, and the Georgian army responded. It had been going on for a few days/weeks/years, depending on how you look at it.

Administratively (at least until last week), South Ossetia was a patchwork quilt of Tskhinvali-, Georgian-, and Georgian-backed-proxy-Ossetian-controlled villages. The peacekeepers are a four-party (Georgia, Russia, South O, North O) operation, under an OSCE mandate. It's hard to tell the difference between Russian "peacekeepers," Russian Army, and So. Ossetian army. The Tskhinvali security forces are largely regular Russian Army (not mercenaries), wearing S.O. uniforms.

And it only gets more complicated. Many yakkers refer to the S. Ossetians as "ethnic Russians." They're not; they are Ossetians (an Iranic ethnos), Georgians, and mixed families. The residents of Tskhinvali-controlled S.O. have been given Russian passports, and most call Putin "our president." Russia has de facto annexed S.O., while Tskhinvali maintains that it's independent.

This is the second time I have heard about the Russians providing Russian passports to residents of South Ossetia. (I can't find the first one.)But it appears that Russia was annexing South Ossetia anyway, even as the South Ossetian government claimed to be an independent government.

The map of Georgia shows South Ossetia (in green) as almost at the center of Georgia. For Russia to control South Ossetia would mean that Geographically Georgia has indefensible borders. It would (will?)severely limit Georgia as an independent nation. This has to be at least part of the calculation going on the the minds of the leadership of both Georgia and of Russia.

South Ossetia - some background, with links

So what is happening in Georgia and South Ossetia? The (London) Times OnLine provides a brief analysis of the historical roots of the current conflict. The TimesOnLine analysis goes back to the first effort of South Ossetia to break free from Georgia in 1918 - 1920 between the end of the Russian Empire and the rise of the Soviet Union. The second time was as the Soviet Union was collapsing beginning in 1989. After the collapse of the USSR, Georgia was recognized as an independent nation by other nations, based on the borders of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic in membership of the USSR. South Ossetia again asserted its Independence in 1989 and has refused to acknowledge that it is part of Georgia.

Russia recognized the independence of South Ossetia in 1991 and has kept troops inside South Ossetia as part of the peacekeeping forces to prevent combat. Russia rejects Georgia's domination of South Ossetia and is acting to protect its client state. Russia had warned that if Georgia attacked South Ossetia, they would defend there client state. The Georgians, egged on by the Bush administration and an offer to join NATO, considered the Russian threat to be a bluff.

When the Georgians attacked South Ossetia, they learned it was not a bluff.

Ian Welsh offers a more recent history at Firedoglake of the immediate actions that have led to the current conflict. Ian points out that Georgia is a small state next to the much larger Russia and is dependent on Russia economically. Georgia is deep inside Russia's sphere of influence. Second, NATO is not going to send troops to fight for Georgia against Russian troops. The distance is much too great. While some might think that Russia will not fight NATO if NATO sends troops to Georgia, NATO surely will not fight Russia in Georgia. Saying anything else is merely a NATO bluff, and Russia will very probably call that bluff. NATO will not back it up.

The Guardian offers a brief history of Ossetia. Here is a key part of it:

The Ossetians are descendants of a tribe called the Alans. Like the Georgians, the Ossetians are orthodox Christians, but they have their own language. In Soviet times the Ossetians had an autonomous region within Georgia. The Georgians say the Ossetians cooperated with the Bolsheviks and tended to be more pro-Soviet. Their ethnic kin live across the border in the Russian region of North Ossetia, so they feel more drawn to Russia than to Georgia - and many have Russian passports.

Abkhazia on the Black Sea coast also had autonomy within Georgia during Soviet times. Because of its sub-tropical climate, it was the playground of Soviet leaders and is popular with Russian tourists today. It has a mixed population of Abkhazis, Mingrelians, Greeks, Armenians, Russians and Georgians, and a small but significant Muslim minority. Thousands of ethnic Georgians fled their homes in Abkhazia during the civil war at the beginning of the 1990s and now live as refugees in Tbilisi and Moscow.

Wikipedia offers an excellent discussion of South Ossetia. Go read it. The people of South Ossetia do not hold any love or respect for Georgia as a nation.

The CIA world Factbook: Georgia provides some background like population and economy, but nothing that provided any real insight to me about the current problems between Georgia and Russia. Even the map provides very little detail.

From what I have heard and read (but cannot find documentation for) Georgia itself has been a propaganda battleground between the U.S. and Russia since the collapse of the USSR, but especially since the Bush administration has begun trying to sell its commitment to spreading "democracy." I haven't found a good description of the competing moves by the US/NATO and Russia through Georgia. It is generally clear, though, that the US/NATO has been trying to push greater democracy and membership in the European Union to as many of the USSR's old client states as possible, this at the expense of Russia. Russia has been resisting those encroachments on the previous client states it still considers part of its hegemony (much as the US considers South and Latin America to be part of its hegemony.) It is similarly clear that the Russians have seen the breakaway South Ossetia as a tool to keep Georgia off balance and to interfere with Georgia's flirtation with NATO and the European Union. It is also clear that Georgia is not in any position militarily to fight with Russia.

The combat in Georgia and South Ossetia with the Russian military is ongoing. There is no sense in me trying to compete here with breaking news on that subject. This material is intended as background. According to Wikipedia,

"The current authorized strength of the GAF structures is 32,650 personnel, including 18,993 in the Land Forces, 2,091 in the Air Force, 1350 in the Navy, 9,196 in administration staff and central structures. The Georgian Parliament aims to increase the strength of the ground forces. At the end of 2010 the GAF will consist of 75.000 men;forming 5th and 6th brigades. Reserves will be total 120.000 men." [Snip]

The strength of Land Forces is 26,739 from which 2,215 are officers, 24,508 NCOs (contracting) and 16 civilians.

Wikipedia describes the military forces of Russia as

The Ground Forces included an estimated total 395,000 including est. 190,000 conscripts and 35,000 personnel of the Airborne Forces (VDV) in 2006.[42] This can be compared to an estimated 670,000, with 210,000 conscripts, in 1995–96 (also an IISS estimate). These numbers should be treated with caution, however, due to the difficulty for those outside Russia to make accurate assessments, and confusion even within the General Staff on the numbers of conscripts within the force.

The personnel difference alone makes any war between Russia and Georgia a very uneven combat, one Georgia will not win. It is clear that the government of Georgia believed that Russia would be intimidated by international public opinion and US/NATO rhetoric, so they would NOT be willing to attack Georgia. But the US/NATO were bluffing, and Russia has now called their bluff. Georgia has been caught in the backwash.

I wonder if, when Bush looked into the eyes of the ex-KGB agent Putin and saw his soul, Bush saw and recognized this part of Putin's Russian soul?

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Check my sources to see if I have properly summarized what they had to say, and if you have any corrections or additional sources, leave a reference in comments. I'm just trying to understand what is going on.

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Addendum 1 Aug 11, 2008 8:51 am CDT
Glenn Greenwald interviewed Professor Charles King of Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service on the situation in Georgia yesterday, and has posted a transcript (Watch a 15 second ad to see it) of the very illuminating interview at Salon.

To summarize only a few significant points, it appears that the Georgian leadership looked back at a cased 13 years ago in which the Croatian military was given the green light by the U.S. to use it's US trained troops in a fast operation to remove a Serbian entity controlling a part of Croatian territory. The operation was completed rapidly and effectively, removing the Serbians and leading to the Dayton Agreements shortly thereafter.

With that as a template and the belief that the U.S. would step in to protect a nascent democracy if the Russians attempted to counter the military action, Georgia attempted to conduct a military action that would be over so quickly that the Russians would not be able to stop them.

The Georgian military operation did not work as expected, the difficulties the Russians were expected to face getting troops into South Ossetia were instead quickly overcome, and the Georgians grossly misunderstood how much influence the Americans and world opinion would have on the Russian leadership.

It appears now that the Russians are taking this opportunity to clean up the problem they have had in the Caucus Mountains with Georgia and to provide a demonstration to other recalcitrant ex-Soviet Union states that Russia remains in charge in that region.

There is a great deal more history and analysis in the transcript. It is well worth reading.