With analysis and commentary abounding throughout all major media sources in the West, it is easy to lose track of the Russian perspective of the conflict. Below are several recent articles that appeared in major Russian media sources, showing how the war in Georgia is seen from Moscow.

Russians see United States behind Military Actions

[US Open Source Center, August 12]

Following US official statements critical of Russia’s disproportionate actions in Georgia and the US airlift of Georgian troops and equipment home from Iraq, Russian officials rebuked the United States for fanning the flames of conflict in the Caucasus. Some Russian officials also suggested that the US Administration was using Georgia for domestic electoral purposes. Media observers went further than official statements, alleging that Georgia was a pawn in a larger US plan to undermine Russia.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin expressed surprise at the “scale of cynicism” on the part of the United States, which in criticizing Russia and transporting Georgian troops from Iraq to Georgia was “passing off white as black and black as white.” He accused US diplomats of maintaining a “Cold War mentality” and viewing Saakashvili as they had Nicaragua’s Somoza: “An SOB, but our SOB” (Channel One, 11 August).

Other officials placed the blame on the United States for both inciting the conflict and impeding its end.

Deputy Chief of the General Staff Anatoliy Nogovitsyn opined: “Everything speaks to the lack of desire of official Tbilisi and Washington to settle the conflict. Otherwise why did US military planes transport 800 (as published) Georgian servicemen with military hardware from Iraq to Georgia?” (Izvestiya, 12 August).

Ambassador to the UN Vitaliy Churkin commented: “We know that Saakashvili has not distinguished himself recently by the appropriateness of his analysis and actions, and we would not like to think that he was given some order from Washington. We would like to hope that, possibly, we were talking about some sort of incorrect interpretation on the part of the president of Georgia of any signals that could have been sent from Washington” (ITAR-TASS, 11 August).

Additionally, some officials speculated that military action in Georgia was being used for domestic electoral purposes in the United States.

Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov called the war in Georgia “part of the Republican Party’s election campaign” (ITAR-TASS, 11 August).

According to mass-circulation daily Komsomolskaya Pravda, Ambassador Churkin called on the United States to “recall its own actions in various countries of the world and not engage in propaganda for the sake of one of the presidential candidates” (12 August).

Meanwhile, members of pro-Kremlin youth groups picketed the US and Georgian Embassies in Moscow, where they called Saakashvili a “puppet of America” and chanted: “America, stop!” and “Bush, don’t light the Caucasus on fire” (Kommersant, 11 August).

Media commentators went beyond the official statements, directly accusing the United States of using Georgia as part of a larger plan to undermine Russia.

Eduard Baltin, former commander of the Baltic fleet, stated that the United States had “decided to conquer the world in a consistent way — economically, informationally, ideologically, and through military operations, most often by others’ hands… The US made (Georgia) into a nuisance-state for Russia” (Gazeta, 12 August).

Sergey Karaganov, a prominent foreign policy analyst who is usually critical of reflexive anti-Americanism, said: “Saakashvili is not an independent figure, and this aggression was done in order to tie Russia’s hands, reduce the effectiveness of her policies, and generally undermine the strengthening of Russia which has occurred in recent years” (Gazeta, 12 August).

An article on nonofficial website Agentsvo Politicheskikh Novostey asserted: “For the first time, the United States decided on a direct military probe of the Russian ’soft underbelly’ in the Caucasus” (11 August).

Russia may be left in proud solitude
[Nezavisimaya Gazeta, August 12]

Recognizing the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia is tantamount to lighting a bonfire in our own backyard, the expert believes.

In an interview with Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Director of the Russian Academy of Sciences Center for International Security and member of the Carnegie Moscow Center Scientific Council Aleksey Arbatov appraises the reasons for the current opposition of Russia and Georgia, and the consequences which it might have for our country.

(Correspondent) Aleksey Vsevolodivoch, if Russia recognizes the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and responds by agreeing to the request to our leadership on joining the Russian Federation, what would be the consequences of this step for our country?

(Arbatov) If Russia recognizes the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Georgia will say that this is an act of annexation. And Georgia’s path to NATO would be open. They would make an exception for it, and say that Georgia had been subjected to aggression, that its territorial integrity ha been violated. Georgia would become a member of NATO, and foreign troops would be stationed on its territory. Aside from all else, Georgia would provide comprehensive support to terrorists, separatists, and extremists in the North Caucasus. To take South Ossetia and Abkhazia into our complement would be tantamount to lighting a bonfire in our own backyard. Furthermore, it is entirely probable that the CIS states would not support Russia. Therefore, before taking such a step, Russia must hold consultations with the CIS leaders. And if we are to act in such a capacity, then we must act collectively - at least within the scope of the CIS. If Russia finds itself in solitude on such an important territorial question, this means that the CIS would also be split. And there would also be a schism in the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization), because China does not really share such a position. Therefore, in politics, it is very important to know one’s measure. Humanitarian aid, stopping a humanitarian catastrophe, squeezing Georgian troops out of South Ossetia - all this was done within the scope of international law and Russian obligations, and it is unlikely that anyone can reproach Russia for this today. But if Russia continues to inflict strikes on Georgian territory, on Georgian facilities, on population centers, and opts for recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, then here we may lose the moral supremacy that we have today. At least we may lose it within the scope of the post-Soviet area.

(Correspondent) What steps must we take in the direction of normalizing relations?

(Arbatov) It is very important to actively create collective positions within the scope of international cooperation. Because to find ourselves in solitude today - even in proud solitude - would be very undesirable for Russia. As for the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, it is difficult to imagine how and when their return to the complement of Georgia would take place after all that has happened. But in any case, we cannot allow any hasty, emotional, decisions. It is hard for us to influence NATO, it is hard for us to influence the European Union, but we do have a number of forums - the CIS, SCO, BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) - where the ministers of foreign affairs meet. So that here too, it would not be a bad idea to discuss such problems. Because, despite all of our present economic growth and increasingly strong international positions, there is not one country - not even the US - that can throw down a challenge to the whole world. Russia should not follow the bad example of America.

(Correspondent) Could Russia have prevented the conflict? Why did its peacekeeping mission end in war?

(Arbatov) It seems to me that Russia interpreted its role as mediator incorrectly. Simply to carry papers and to hand packets from one side to another - that is a rather passive role. I think that, in these 16 years, Russia could have played a more active role. It had huge influence on Georgia, and even more on South Ossetia. If Russia had itself worked out a packet of agreements aimed at regulating the conflict, and had forced the parties to sign this packet, then, perhaps, the tragedy would not have happened. For example, in the late 70’s, the Americans were also mediators in the Near East between Egypt and Israel. And they forced both parties in the conflict to sign the Camp David agreements. And since that time, there has been peace in the Sinai Peninsula. It is this sort of a mission that Russia did not fulfill.

(Correspondent) Instead, they gave out passports and made ambiguous statements in parliament. That is, in fulfilling the peacekeeping function, Russia openly supported one of the parties in the conflict.

(Arbatov) That is correct. After all, Russia, in fulfilling its middleman function in the political plane and its peacekeeping function in the military plane, of course, was not an equidistant party. But this was also associated with the general policy of Georgia. Georgia took a rather hostile position in regard to Russia, and in 1999 it withdrew from the CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization) and later filed application to NATO. Yes, Russia was formally a mediator, but of course, in fact it could not treat both sides the same. The matter lies elsewhere. Russia must, after all, have foreseen that the situation would ultimately explode and that the consequences of that explosion would be very serious- in any case. Russia had to be the leading party. Not in the sense of a host on KVN (”Club of the Happy and Witty,” a televised game show - translator’s note ), who jokes and lets the
parties have their say, but in the sense of a squadron commander, when one airplane leads others behind it. It is such a role that Russia should have played. But, evidently, there were reasons why it did not assume such a position.

(Correspondent) What reasons?

(Arbatov) We can only surmise. For example, lack of coordinated actions of the authorities. The only legitimate platform, after all, should have relied on the principle of territorial integrity of Georgia, as well as of all the CIS countries. And Russia must be the guarantor of territorial integrity of Georgia. Russia acknowledged this in principle, but acknowledged it only from time to time, and often as a mere formality. Yet any agreement can - and must! - rely specifically on this principle. Having proclaimed this, we could have defended the special status of South Ossetia de-facto and de-jure. Evidently, within the power structures, they were not able to coordinate such a platform and packet.

(Correspondent) What may be the consequences of the war for Russia?

(Arbatov) The moral ones, of course, are very difficult. For the first time in hundreds of years, Russia and Georgia are at war with each other. The political consequences will depend on Russia. If it clearly maintains the line of an operation on compulsion to peace and announces that it strives to restore the status-quo, which would push out the Georgian troops, but does not go any farther, and then sits all the parties down at the negotiating table — then, I think, in the long term plane this would be to Russia’s benefit. Russia’s prestige would greatly increase in the surrounding world. But if it sets the goal of changing the regime, then the consequences would be bad for Russia. A change of regime is a matter for the Georgian people. Already now, we see that Russia has been left in the minority in the Security Council. Even China has taken a neutral position. So that Russia must keep this in mind. It will be left in the minority in the surrounding world. And no one will support us, because many of the CIS countries have similar problems. Russia may lose its moral high ground if there are casualties among the civilian population of Georgia. For now, society supports the position of Russia. Despite all the tragedy of losses among the peacekeepers, they only draw us closer together and do not evoke dissatisfaction. But if this entire incident turns into a new and difficult war, the situation will change.

(Correspondent) Would a mixed complement of peacekeeping forces help to avoid war?

(Arbatov) Yes, the Georgians would probably not dare to attack a West European or American peacekeeping contingent. But Russia considers this region to be a zone of its own vital interests, and since the Dagomysskiy agreements provided for the presence of only Russia as the third party, Russia believes that it does not have any grounds to hand the region over to international oversight.

(Correspondent) As a result, Russia was not able to keep the region from war.

(Arbatov) No, it was not.

(Correspondent) And that means its calculation was bad. Or it was absent altogether.

(Arbatov) Yes, it turns out that the peacekeeping operation failed. But first and foremost -because of the criminal folly of Saakashvili and those around him. Now, Russia is restoring the status-quo.

(Correspondent) What may be the consequences of the conflict for Georgia?

(Arbatov) I am not ruling out the possibility that Georgia will have to say good-bye to its aspirations to Ossetia after these barbaric actions. They should have thought of that beforehand. Perhaps Georgia thought that they would very quickly resolve everything with their war. Such a variant always looks good on paper, but in fact turns out to be exactly the opposite. I am not ruling out the possibility that a peaceful mutually acceptable regulation will ultimately be adopted, but, after all that has happened, it is hard for me to imagine that South Ossetia would agree to remain in Georgia.

Why is Russia not believed?

Aleksandr Golts

Yezhednevnyy Zhurnal, August 12

In addition to the reports from South Ossetia where the Georgian forces would appear to be leaving their positions, Russian television channels are full of indignant commentaries. They are indignant about the reaction of Western politicians and media to the new Caucasian war. The latter are ignoring the obvious fact that it was not Russia but Saakashvili who violated all the accords and subjected Tskhinvali to barbaric shelling over a period of twenty-four hours. “It is possible to argue endlessly about who shot first,” a high-ranking spokesman for the US administration who held a briefing for American journalists said, dismissing the main Russian argument. Another point is being highlighted - the disproportionate use of military force by Russia - first and foremost, the airstrikes deep into Georgian territory. The American president is threatening that the consequences of the new Caucasus campaign will have the most serious effect on relations between Russia and the outside world. The foreign policy departments of other countries of the West and representatives of the EU and NATO have spoken in more or less the same tenor. While diplomats try to avoid the word “aggression”, it is heard quite frequently on the leading world television channels. If only because the lion’s share of the time in the broadcasts is granted to Mikheil Saakashvili, who expounds the Georgian version of events in excellent English.

As for Russian television, it usually mumbles: “the swine are slandering us”. And Mikhail Leontyev explains what is occurring as a world anti-Russian conspiracy, within the framework of which Mikheil Saakashvili is simply performing tasks for “the Washington obkom (Oblast Committee)”. And this obkom’s propaganda department is itself providing the news coverage.

If we do not accept the paranoiac viewpoint of a world conspiracy, then a simple question needs to be answered. Why, in a situation where Moscow and Tbilisi are providing two directly opposing versions of what is occurring, and when the arguments of both sides have clear defects, is Georgia for some reason being believed?

In my view, the decisive role was played by the bombing of other regions of Georgia. It is not difficult to understand the logic of our generals - according to all the rules of military science, the opponent needs to be rid of reserves and he should not be allowed to reinforce his reserves of military hardware. So Russian military aircraft struck at military bases and the aerodrome run-ways. However, our air force does not err on the side of high accuracy and hit residential districts instead of military bases. It was not difficult to foresee all this. Perhaps, they should have really weighed up the hypothetical military effect from such bombardment and the quite real propagandist damage. This would only be possible if the aim of the bombardment was not the intimidation of the Georgian population.

Russia’s too extensive military action engendered quite natural questions about what the real aim of this operation was. Okay, if the tasks of the Russian troops are restricted just to “the enforcement of peace” in South Ossetia and the restoration of the dividing line between the sides, as Deputy Chief of General Staff Gen Anatoliy Nogovitsyn stated. But in that case it is not very clear why Moscow is to all intents and purposes supporting Abkhazia, which has opened up a “second front” against Georgia.

And, most importantly, how can it be explained that Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov quite openly stated in a telephone conversation with Condoleezza Rice that “Mikheil Saakashvili must go”. It is very significant that the Americans took an unprecedented step in making public the content of confidential telephone negotiations during a session of the UN Security Council. I think that this means that the current administration no longer intends to have anything serious to do with Russia. And although Lavrov hastened to state that he had been misunderstood, it is quite obvious that Moscow is not being driven only by a desire to establish lasting peace in South Ossetia. There is also its persistent hatred for Saakashvili’s regime, which it seems to have got a chance of destroying. And Moscow cannot conceal it, and this is undermining belief in what it says.

It is also impossible to fail to see that the Russian leaders are ignoring the opportunity to convey their point of view to the world community. Saakashvili really does not leave the American television screens. However, I suspect that if Medvedev decided to talk to foreign journalists, they would of course respond.

And the final and perhaps the most important fact. The fact that the entire world now considers Russia the aggressor is a very important result of all our previous foreign policy. The same policy, which was quite recently being described as successful actions to return Russia to the international arena. Why should our partners who, to put it mildly, have for several years now been convinced of the inadequacy of the Kremlin leaders, suddenly trust Moscow in a critical situation. Remember the promises to aim missiles at Poland, the Czech Republic and Ukraine, as a response to the deployment of American air defense systems and the expansion of NATO. Remember of the nonsense about the asymmetrical but appropriate Russian response, about strategic bomber flights to Cuba, about the deployment of Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad Oblast. Remember Vladimir Putin’s historic speech in Munich.

America is unlikely to feel any particular trust in Moscow since a high-ranking employee of the Russian Foreign Ministry quite recently predicted an unforeseen crisis, and promised to cross America off Russia’s list of partners. Should Britain trust Russia? After the polonium row, the episode with the spy stone and the virtual closure of the British Council - that is quite difficult. Afterall, each of these episodes was accompanied by endless lies from the mouths of Russian official spokesmen. The current diplomatic defeat (we can only hope that it will not lead to Russia’s complete diplomatic isolation) convincingly demonstrates the effectiveness and success of our foreign policy.

When we say Saakashvili, we mean McCain

Sergei Markov

Izvestia

The political mechanism that led to war in South Ossetia has now become more or less clear. The chief initiator of this plan is Dick Cheney. He is the vice president of the United States, but that is only his state office; he also has a political office - as the de facto leader of the neo-conservatives (neo-cons), a fairly radical idea-driven political faction within the Republican Party. This faction has taken the key positions within the Bush administration and largely controls President Bush’s foreign and domestic policy-making. The neo-cons initiated the war in Iraq and are trying to launch a war in Iran. The neo-cons have moved into John McCain’s campaign team and are trying to retain power over American foreign policy by bringing McCain to power.

But McCain has been trailing behind Barack Obama - so McCain’s campaign strategists face the task of turning the election campaign around in their candidate’s favor. Judging by opinion polls, American voters see Obama as the better candidate on most positions: the economy and healthcare (the biggest campaign issues), education, migration problems, and so on. There is only one issue on which McCain is substantially ahead of Obama (55% to 24%): the question of who would make a better Commander- in-Chief for the US Armed Forces. American voters prefer McCain in that role because he is a former officer, a Vietnam War hero, and the son and grandson of US Navy admirals.

Therefore, neo-con leaders have decided to focus on getting Americans to vote for a presidential candidate as potential Commander-in-Chief, rather than potential rescuer of the US economy (Obama’s position).

And this purpose requires a war. One option would be a war in Iran - but the Democrat-controlled Congress would be sure to block that. So the option of a political (or virtual) war has been chosen. It is becoming increasingly clear that the neo-cons in the Cheney-Bush Administration and McCain’s campaign team have decided to arrange a virtual Cold War between the West and Russia, and use this to secure an election campaign breakthrough and McCain’s victory. And this explains the logic behind the war in South Ossetia. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has long had a strong American-trained military, but he took no action because he feared a military response from Russia. On more than one occasion in the past, the Americans have strictly forbidden Saakashvili to start this war - training and equipping the Georgian Armed Forces on the condition that they would not be used in Ossetia or Abkhazia. Clearly, however, there has been a fundamental change in the situation. While visiting Beijing, President George W. Bush said that troops should be moved back to their positions as at August 6 - that is, before the Georgian advance on Tskhinvali. But that is an outright deception. Why tell the whole world on television, when all he’d have to do is pick up the phone and say: “Mr. Saakashvili, stop the war or I’ll cut off all aid to Georgia!”

Thus, it is clear that while the Americans used to forbid Saakashvili to start a war in Ossetia, this time they ordered him to start a war. The goal of this war wasn’t South Ossetia, of course; they don’t give a damn about South Ossetia. The neo-cons who ordered Saakashvili to start the war in Ossetia aimed to provoke Russia into taking military action - then use this to whip up anti-Russian hysteria, producing an imitation Cold War between the West and Russia, and ride this wave to a presidential election win for McCain. So it’s clear why the war started in August 2008: this is the month when the presidential election campaign really gets started in the USA.

Since the war in Ossetia wasn’t initiated by Saakashvili, it’s safe to assume that further anti-Russian acts of provocation will follow from other Washington satellites. These acts of provocation are most likely to be organized by the Russophobic Washington-controlled leadership of Ukraine. It is highly probable that the Ukrainian Armed Forces will be ordered to provoke armed clashes with the Russian Black Sea Fleet. This would be in line with the interests of certain Russophobic politicians in Ukraine who want to see a river of blood separating Russians and Ukrainians. According to the neo-con plan, clashes between Russia and Ukraine should lead to a massive wave of Russophobia in European countries.

The neo-cons will make Saakashvili throw the Georgians into the furnace of McCain’s election campaign, but they seem to be promising that after the victory, the USA will help him establish full control over Abkhazia and Ossetia, and remain in power for a long time as president of Georgia. And Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko will take Ukraine to the brink of a split - apparently in exchange for promises to admit Ukraine into NATO and support widespread repression against Russians in Ukraine.

Some may read this article and call it a conspiracy theory. Yes, there is a conspiracy. It’s a conspiracy by the neo-cons with the aim of retaining their control over the world’s leading country and carrying out their plan to establish global hegemony; they make no secret of this. The neo-cons regard Obama as weak - incapable of establishing American hegemony worldwide, and thus a potential traitor to US national interests. So anything goes in their battle against Obama - up to and including a Cold War with a nuclear-armed Russia. Everyone remembers the huge international media campaign launched by the neo-cons in the lead-up to the war in Iraq. Now the neo-cons are launching a similar campaign against Russia in the international media and the United Nations. The aim of the media campaign surrounding South Ossetia is to start a new pseudo-Cold War with Russia.

The European Union is our potential ally in this political battle, since it has no interest in a new Cold War with Russia or a victory for the miltarist neo-cons; President McCain would mean a de facto third term for Bush. Another potential ally for Russia is public opinion in the United States; most American voters hate the neo-cons and their high-risk military adventures, and want them out of power. Dick Cheney is America’s most hated politician. Thousands of Ossetians, along with dozens of Russians and Georgians, have already sacrificed their lives on the altar of McCain’s election campaign - following hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. We must not allow Cheney and McCain to kill thousands more Ukrainians and Russians. Europe must use its combined efforts to stop the mad neo-cons and prevent them from plunging our continent into a new Cold War.

Everyone has been asking why the war started on the first day of the Olympic Games. There’s a simple explanation for that. The order to start the war didn’t come from Saakashvili, whose attitude to China is neutral or positive. It came from Cheney and the neo-cons, who hate China: thus, they also disrupted the media’s celebration of the Beijing Olympics.

Georgia tries out the Bush war doctrine, loses badly

Gary Brecher

eXiled

There are two basic facts to keep in mind about the smokin’ little war in Ossetia:

1. The Georgians started it.

2. They lost.

If you want to get all serious and actually study up on Ossetia, North and South, and Georgia and the whole eternal gang war that they call the Caucasus, you can check out a column I did on that school-hostage splatter in Beslan, North Ossetia, a few years back.

South Ossetia is a little apple-shaped blob dangling from Russian territory down into Georgia, and most of it has been under control of South Ossetian irregulars backed by Russian “peacekeepers” for the last few years.

The Georgians didn’t like that. You don’t give up territory in that part of the world, ever. The Georgians have always been fierce people, good fighters, not the forgiving type. In fact, I can’t resist a little bit of history here: remember when the Mongols wiped out Baghdad in 1258, the biggest slaughter in any of their conquests? Well, the most enthusiastic choppers and burners in the whole massacre were the Georgian Christian troops in Hulagu Khan’s army. They wore out their hacking arms on those Baghdadi civilians. Nobody knows how many people were killed, but it was at least 200,000 a pretty big number in the days before antibiotics made life cheap.

So: hard people on every side in that part of the world. No quarter asked or given. No good guys. Especially not the Georgians. They have a rep as good people, one on one, but you don’t want to mess with them, and you especially don’t want to try to take land from them.

The Georgians bided their time, then went on the offensive, Caucasian style, by pretending to make peace and all the time planning a sneak attack on South Ossetia. They just signed a treaty granting autonomy to South Ossetia this week, and then they attacked. Georgian MLRS units barraged Tskhinvali, the capital city of South Ossetia; Georgian troops swarmed over Ossetian roadblocks; and all in all, it was a great, whiz-bang start, but like Petraeus asked about Iraq way back in 2003, what’s
the ending to this story? As in: How do you invade territory that the Russians have staked out for protection without thinking about how they’ll react?

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili just didn’t think it through. One reason he overplayed his hand is that he got lucky the last time he had to deal with a breakaway region: Ajara, a tiny little strip of Black Sea coast in southern Georgia. It declared itself an “autonomous” republic, preserving its sacred basket-weaving traditions or whatever. You just have to accept that people in the Caucasus are insane that way; they’d die to keep from saying hello to the people over the next hill, and they’re never going to change. The Ajarans aren’t even ethnically different from Georgians; they’re Georgian too. But they claim difference by being Muslims. And being different means they have to have their own Lego parliament and Tonka-Toy army and all the rest of that crap, and their leader, a wack job named Abashidze, volunteered them to fight to the death for their independence. Except he was such a nut, and so corrupt, and the Ajarans were so similar to the Georgians, and their little “country” was so tiny and ridiculous, that for once sanity prevailed and the Ajarans refused to fight, let themselves get reabsorbed by that Colossus to the North, mighty Georgia.

Well, like I’ve said before, there’s nothing as dangerous as victory. Makes people crazy. Saakashvili started thinking he could gobble up any secessionist region like, say, South Ossetia. But there are big differences he was forgetting like the fact that South Ossetia isn’t Georgian, has a border with Russia, and is linked up with North Ossetia just across that border. The road from Russia to South Ossetia is pretty fragile as a line of supply; it goes through the Roki Tunnel, a mountain tunnel at an altitude of 10,000 feet. I have to wonder why the Georgian air force and it’s a good one by all accounts didn’t have as its first mission in the war the total zapping of the South Ossetian exit of that tunnel. Or if you don’t trust the flyboys, send in your special forces with a few backpacks full of explosives. There are a lot of ways to cripple a tunnel. Hell, do it low-tech: Drive a fuel truck in there, with a car following, jackknife the truck halfway through with a remote control or timing fuse truck driver gets out and strolls to the car, one fast U-turn and you’re out and back in Georgia, just in time to see a ball of flame erupt from the tunnel exit. And rebuilding a tunnel way up in the mountains is not an easy or a fast job. Sure, the Russians could resupply by air, but that’s a much, much tougher job and would at least slow down the inevitable. Weird, then, that as far as I know the Georgians didn’t even try to blast that tunnel. I don’t go in for this kind of long-distance micromanaging of warfare, because there’s usually a good reason on the ground for tactical decisions; it’s the strategic decisions that are really crazy most of the time. But this one I just don’t get.

Most likely the Georgians just thought the Russians wouldn’t react. They were doing something they learned from Bush and Cheney: sticking to best-case scenarios, positive thinking. The Georgian plan was classic shock and awe with no hard, grown-up thinking about the long term. Their shiny new army would go in, zap the South Ossetians while they were on a peace hangover (the worst kind), and then, uh, they’d be welcomed as liberators? Sure, just like we were in Iraq. Man, you pay a price for believing in Bush. The Georgians did. They thought he’d help. And I just saw the little creep on TV, sitting in the stands watching the U.S.-China basketball game. I didn’t even recognize Bush at first; I just wondered why they kept doing close-ups of this guy who looked like Hank Hill’s legless dad up in the stands. Then they said it was the prez. They talk about people “growing in office”; well, he shrunk.

And the more he shrinks, the more you pay for believing in him. The Georgians were naive because they were so happy to get out from the Soviets, the Russians’ old enemy, the United States, must be paradise. So they did their apple-polishing best to be the perfect, obedient little ally. Then we’d let them into NATO and carpet-bomb them with SUVs and iPods.

Their part of the deal was simple: They sent troops to Iraq. First a contingent of 850, then, surprisingly, 2,000 men. When you consider the population of Georgia is less than 5 million, that’s a lot of troops. In fact, Georgia is the third-biggest contributor to the “Coalition of the Willing,” after the United States and Britain.

You might be thinking, Wow, not a good time to have so many of your best troops in Iraq, huh? Well, that’s true, and it goes for a lot of countries like us, for instance but at least we’re not facing a Russian invasion. The Georgians are so panicked they just announced they’re sending half their Iraqi force home, and could the USAF please give them a lift?

We’ll probably give them a ride, but that’s about all we can do. We’ve already done plenty, not because we love Georgians but to counterbalance the Russian influence down where the new oil pipeline is staked out. The biggest American aid project was the GTEP, “Georgia Train and Equip” project ($64 million). It featured 200 Special Forces instructors teaching fine Georgia boys all the lessons the U.S. Army has learned recently. Now here’s the joke. We were stressing counterinsurgency skills: small-unit cohesion, marksmanship, intelligence. The idea was to keep Georgia safe from Chechens or other Muslim loonies infiltrating through the Pankisi Gorge in northeast Georgia. And we did a good job. The Georgian Army pacified the Pankisi in classic
Green Beret style. The punch line is, the Georgians got so cocky from that success, and from their lovefest with the Bushies in D.C., that they thought they could take on anybody. What they’re in the process of finding out is that a light-infantry counterinsurgency force like the one we gave them isn’t much use when a gigantic Russian armored force has just rolled across your border.

The American military’s response so far has been all talk, and pretty damn stupid talk at that. A Pentagon spokesperson called Russia’s response “disproportionate.” What the hell are they talking about? They’ve been watching too many cop shows. Cops have this doctrine of “minimum necessary force,” not that they actually operate that way unless there are video cameras around. Armies never, ever had that policy, because it’s a good way to get your troops killed needlessly. The whole idea in war is to fight as unfairly and disproportionately as possible. If you’ve got it, you use it.

If you want a translation, luckily I speak fluent Pentagon. So what “disproportionate” means is well, imagine that you’re watching some little hanger-on who tags along with you get his ass whipped by a bully, and you say, “That’s inappropriate!” I mean, instead of actually helping him. That’s what “disproportionate” means from the Pentagon: “We’re not going to lift a finger to help you, but hey, we’re with you in spirit, little buddy!”

The quickest way to see who’s winning in any war is to see who asks first for a ceasefire. And this time it was the Georgians. Once it was clear the Russians were going to back the South Ossetians, the war was over. Even Georgians were saying, “To fight Russia by ourselves is insane.” Which means they thought Russia wouldn’t back its allies. Not a bad bet; Russia has a long, unpredictable history of screwing its allies but not all the time. The Georgians should know better than anybody that once in a while, the Russians actually come through, because it was Russian troops who saved Georgia from a Persian invasion in 1805, at the battle of Zagam. Of course the Russians had let the Persians sack Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital, just 10 years earlier without helping. That’s the thing: The bastards are unpredictable. You can’t even count on them to betray their friends (though it’s the safer bet, most of the time, sort of like 6:5 odds).

This time, the Russians came through. For lots of reasons, starting with the fact that Bush is weak and they know it; that the United States is all tied up in that crap Iraq War; and most of all, because Kosovo just declared independence from Serbia, an old Russian ally. It’s tit-for-tat time, with Kosovo as the tit and South Ossetia as the tat. The way Putin sees it, if we can mess with his allies and let little ethnic enclaves like Kosovo declare independence, then the Russians can do the same with our allies, especially naive, idiotic allies like Georgia. It’s a pawn exchange, if that. If it signals anything bigger, it’s the fact that the United States is weaker than it was 10 years ago and Russia is much, much stronger than it was in Yeltsin’s time. But anybody with sense knew all that already.

Luckily, South Ossetia doesn’t matter that much. I’m just being honest here. In a year, nobody will care much who runs that little glob of territory. What’s more serious is that another, bigger and more strategic chunk of Georgia called Abkhazia, on the Black Sea, is taking the opportunity to boot out the last Georgian troops on its territory. Georgia may lose almost all its coastline, but then the Georgians were always an inland people anyway, living along river valleys, not great sailors.

Even so, the great Russian-Ossetian land grab will make great material for another few centuries of gloating, ballads, blood oaths, revenge and counter-grabs. In this part of the world, there’s always something to avenge.

The second Georgian war: preliminary conclusions
Andrei Illarionov

Yezhednevny Zhurnal1

1. The war against Georgia was a brilliant provocation carefully planned and successfully carried out by the Russian leadership. The campaign was practically identical to the plan carried out in another theatre at another time — [Chechen warlord Shamil] Basaev’s attack into Dagestan and the beginning of the second Chechen war in 1999.

2. In the new situation that has taken shape following the war, Georgians may find a legitimate reason to recognise Georgia’s de facto loss of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

3. The military losses of Georgia are greater than those of Russia. At the same time, however, the financial, foreign policy, and moral losses of Russia are much more significant than those of Georgia.

4. The Russian leadership did not achieve its main goal — the ouster of [Georgian President] Mikheil Saakashvili, change of the political regime in Georgia, and Georgia’s rejection of membership in NATO. Rather, the opposite has happened.

5. The international community regards Russia as the aggressor that brought its forces into the territory of another member state of the United Nations. The international community regards Georgia as the victim of aggression.

6. Russia has found itself in almost total isolation in foreign policy terms. Only Cuba supported Russia’s intervention in Georgia. Neither Iran, nor Venezuela or Uzbekistan, not even Belarus said a word in Russia’s support.

7. The G8 has, in effect, become the G7. The series of foreign policy defeats of the Russian leadership, beginning with the Rose Revolution in Georgia in 2003 and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004, and including the NATO summit in Bucharest in April 2008, was now followed by yet another fiasco.

8. The Russian leadership succeeded in something that the rest of the world did not (want to) believe: The resurgence of fear of the “Russian bear”. This fear and — be it temporary — sense of powerlessness is something that the world will not forget for a long time.

9. Russians with no access to sources for news other than the official, found themselves in total isolation in terms of information. The degree of manipulation of public opinion, and the speed with which the society was brought to mass hysteria, are clear evidence of the regime’s “achievements,” and pose an undeniable and unprecedented danger to the Russian society.

10. The institutional catastrophe, about which I have had to speak about many times before, is happening before our very own eyes. Its main — albeit not the only — victim will be the Russian people.

11. The war helped reveal the true faces of some so-called liberals and democrats, who previously had condemned the “imperial syndrome,” but when it manifested itself, quickly caved in to the regime, calling for an attack on Tbilisi and for the reinforcement of Russia’s defence and law enforcement agencies.

12. The only political institution, members of which were capable of formulating differing opinions regarding the war (including those, with whom I do not agree in principle) and discussing them, was the National Assembly. In effect, the National Assembly proved — in a moment of crisis — that it is better able than any other institution to function as a proto-parliament.

13. The war confirmed once more the validity of the most important principles of conduct of morally conscious Russian citizens in relation to the present regime:–do not believe,–do not fear,–do not beg,–do not cooperate.