A Second Hand Conjecture

As the European Union commendably attempts to pull Ukraine closer into the safety of the West, Russia has reportedly earmarked $1 billion to fund suddenly pro-Kremlin Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, against heroically pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko in the 2010 presidential election.

One billion. If true, it seems Russia is ready to make an enormous commitment to the subversion of democracy in her neighbor…and it’s a frighteningly expensive investment to allow to fail.

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Westhawk
“Ukraine is the big prize and thus a dangerous flash point between Russia and the West. For the West, a firm alliance with Ukraine would anchor the containment of Russia. But for Russia, such an alliance would be a step too far. For Russia, winning Ukraine is vital. For the West, winning Ukraine would largely end its problems with Russia. It is for these reasons that the battle over Ukraine is both so tempting and so dangerous.”

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In the wake of a horrific magazine spread depicting Taliban fighters showing off war trophies looted from the bodies of French soldiers, President Sarkozy has been predictably and commendably resolute. France isn’t going to run away for a change.

Unfortunately and just as predictably, that might not be the majority opinion in France. A recent poll found that 55% of the French public wants to pull out. For his own part, Eric de Lavarene, the journalist who published the pictures, grotesquely defended his actions as morally equivalent to reporting as a NATO embed. A statement as contemptible as arguing that a serial murderer is as entitled to his perspective on his crimes being broadcast, as the detectives pursuing him in the cause of self-evident justice.

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Westhawk
“But the NATO ministers, at a rare emergency meeting, failed to agree on any
specific punitive measures, despite pressure from the United States that NATO at
least threaten Russia with unspecified “consequences,” and pleas from the Czech
Republic, Poland and NATO’s Baltic members that it take a tough stand.”

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” (Edmund Burke)

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Instapundit

“German Chancellor Angela Merkel is offering strong support for Georgia, saying the country is on track to become a member of NATO. Merkel flew to the Georgian capital of Tbilisi on Sunday, two days after she met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.”

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Alex Harrowell reminds us that NATO wasn’t always so timorous about conflict risk exposure:

[I]f we assume that Georgia, and specifically Mikhail Saakashvili’s version of it, wasn’t sufficiently responsible (adult, civilised, possibly even white?) to play, how do we explain that Germany got to join in 1955, when a whole great chunk of it was in the other side’s hands? Or Turkey and Greece, who despite being profoundly NATO-integrated regularly use their NATO-standard air defence infrastructure to play cowboys and Indians over the Aegean? One of the reasons for extending membership of NATO, and the EU, has been to reach out first; that it’s better to offer membership, and hope the requirements shape some country’s thinking, than to wait forever for perfection. If this was good enough for Germany, surely it can be good enough for Georgia.
(Fistful of Euros)

A fine and troubling point. If the division of Germany between 1945 and 1955 wasn’t an unresolved ideological version of a “frozen conflict” at perpetual flashpoint risk, then do tell me what it was.

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Estonians and Latvians are apparently buying up all available Georgian wine in a demonstration of national solidarity with the beleaguered republic. Particularly popular is the consumer label Old Tbilisi (order here).

Sandra Saakashvili, First Lady of Georgia, is weathering the storm with her children in Ukraine, as the guest of Kateryna Yushchenko. Foreign Notes wonders what effect the Georgian experience at the hands of Russia is having on public attitudes toward NATO membership there. Public sentiment was opposed to Ukrainian entrance prior to the war. An essential question for a number of countries really.

Why wait on the West BTW, why not establish an Eastern European NATO? Get everyone on board, you might even have a more formidable fighting force against Russia.

Meanwhile, Estonians have arrived to put their lives on the line in Georgia. Their outfits will hopefully stand out in identifying them as humanitarian workers at distance. Perhaps it will dissuade a Russian (or worse, separatist) sniper.

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Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves says the West must act fast:

“They should take Ukraine immediately into NATO, and what is left of Georgia,” he told Reuters by telephone, adding that a decision this year not to give the two countries a road map to membership had persuaded Russia it had free hand in the region.
(Reuters)

If only it could be done, especially for Ukraine. The crisis there is building and more strategically vital, as Victor Yushchenko has followed through on the threat to restrict Russia’s use of the Black Sea Fleet at Sevastopol.

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I’m doing this for my own benefit, as I’ve not followed the goings on in the Republic of Georgia, except to note when it’s in the news, not our Georgia.

April 18, 2008

Georgia sought the backing of NATO and the European Union on Friday after Russia stepped up pressure by announcing intensified ties with two separatist Georgian regions.

Georgia’s Vice Prime Minister Giorgi Baramidze called Russia’s action “very, very, very dangerous.”

“It is a decisive moment,” said Georgia’s Vice Prime Minister Giorgi Baramidze. “Russia has crossed the red line and Europe and the Euro-Atlantic community must react.”

April 22, 2008

Georgia has asked the U.N. Security Council to discuss Russia’s “military aggression” after saying a Russian jet shot down one of its unmanned spy planes.

“We call upon the United Nations to address this direct military aggression against Georgia and to fully exploit its own means and capabilities in order to keep the situation from further escalation,” Georgia’s U.N. Ambassador Irakli Alasania told reporters Monday.

To bolster its case, the Georgian air force released a video that it says shows a twin-tailed Russian MiG-29 shooting down a Georgian unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV, over the separatist region of Abkhazia on Sunday.

April 23, 2008

Tensions have been escalating between Georgia’s pro-Western government and Russia, which is providing assistance to Abkhazia and another breakaway region, South Ossetia.

Georgian forces fought separatists in Abkhazia before the ceasefire was negotiated more than a decade ago.

Last week, Moscow formalized relations with the territories and withdrew trade sanctions while expanding “trade, economic, social, scientific and technical, information, cultural, and educational” contacts with them, Russia’s Itar-Tass news agency reported.

April 29, 2008

Russia is increasing the number of its troops near the region of Abkhazia amid simmering tensions between Russia and Georgia, the Defense Ministry announced Tuesday.

Georgians protest outside the Russian Embassy in Tbilisi on April 25, 2008.

A statement posted on the ministry’s Web site said the increase of what it called peacekeepers was in response to a Georgian troop buildup.

“Georgia is increasing its group of forces in close vicinity to the conflict zones,” and there have been “threats to use military force and provocations on behalf of Georgian authorities,” the statement said, according to a CNN translation.

July 4, 2008

Georgia and its breakaway region of South Ossetia offered differing accounts Friday of a shooting that highlights continued tension between them amid Georgia’s NATO ambitions.
South Ossetians stand in the street during a night of shelling in Tskhinvali.

South Ossetians stand in the street during a night of shelling in Tskhinvali.

South Ossetia said shootings Thursday night in the regional capital of Tskhinvali and surrounding areas killed two people and wounded 11 in what a South Ossetian government spokeswoman called a Georgian “military provocation,” according to a report on Russia’s state Interfax news agency.

A Georgian defense official, however, denied that Georgian troops even fired a shot, though they were fired upon, and said the incident is part of ongoing provocation by South Ossetian separatists.

August 2, 2008

Six people were killed and 13 wounded in the shelling of South Ossetia by Georgian forces, South Ossetian officials said Saturday, according to Russia’s Interfax news agency.

Officials of the breakaway Georgian region said the shelling was part of a Georgian military operation, Interfax reported.

Georgia initially suggested Russian peacekeepers were to blame, drawing heated denials from the Russian Defense Ministry, which called the allegation “dirty informational provocation.”

Later, however, Mamuka Kurashvili, the commander of Georgian peacekeeping operations, told reporters that four people were wounded when several Georgian villages were fired upon from South Ossetia, and Georgia “had to return fire.”

August 7, 2008

Georgia’s president on Thursday ordered his country’s forces to cease fire in South Ossetia, the separatist region where days of sporadic clashes have raised fears of full-scale war.

President Mikhail Saakashvili announced the order in a television broadcast in which he also urged South Ossetian separatist leaders to enter talks on resolving the conflict.

He proposed that Russia could become a guarantor of wide-ranging autonomy for South Ossetia, if the region remains under Georgian control.

Russia has close ties with the separatist leadership, and Georgian officials have alleged that Moscow is provoking the recent clashes.

August 8, 2008

Intense fighting reportedly raged for a second night in the Georgian separatist region of South Ossetia on Saturday and Georgia’s interior ministry reported air attacks on three military bases and key facilities for shipping oil to the West.

Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said the Vaziani military base on the outskirts of the Georgian capital was bombed by warplanes during the night and that bombs fell in the area of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline.

He also said two other Georgian military bases were hit and that warplanes bombed the Black Sea port city of Poti, which has a sizable oil shipment facility.

Utiashvili said there apparently were significant casualties and damage in the attacks, but that further details would not be known until the morning.

Russia dispatched an armored column into South Ossetia on Friday after Georgia, a staunch U.S. ally, launched a surprise offensive to crush separatists. Witnesses said hundreds of civilians were killed.

August 9, 2008

Russian forces launched an airstrike against a military airfield near the Tbilisi International Airport early Sunday, despite international calls for Russia to stand down from the escalating conflict, Georgian officials told CNN.

The attack near the Georgian capital city came after a day of intense fighting in the former Soviet republic, with dozens of Russian warplanes bombing civilian and military targets in Georgia on Saturday.

As many as 2,000 people had been killed in the capital of separatist Georgian province South Ossetia, according to a Russian ambassador.

“The city of Tskhinvali no longer exists. There is nothing left. It was wiped out by the Georgian military,” the Russian news agency Interfax said, quoting the Russian ambassador to Georgia, Vyacheslav Kovalenko.

August 11, 2008

As fighting continued Sunday between Russia and Georgia over the separatist province of South Ossetia, U.N. officials expressed concern about violence in another Russian-backed breakaway territory in Georgia.

Forces of Abkhazia launched air and artillery strikes on Georgian troops Sunday, intending to drive them out of a small part of Abkhazia that the Georgians controlled, The Associated Press reported.

U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Edmond Mulet said Russian personnel and weapons were part of a military buildup in Abkhazia’s capital, Sukhumi. The Georgian government said 4,000 Russian troops have landed in Abkhazia, according to the AP.

Also Sunday, bombing was reported in the Georgian city of Zugdidi, south of the Abkhaz border, “causing panic among the civilian population,” Mulet said. Information on casualties and who was responsible for the bombing wasn’t available.

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Sorry for my absenteeism on this, guys, but I’ve barely had the time to write on Registan.net about the war in Georgia (seriously, go there for some really in-depth discussions about what is going on), and have simply neglected copying posts over here. I’m sorry. Since I don’t have the time to follow the play-by-play very closely thanks to work, and since in my experience that doesn’t indicate much of use anyway, I’ll summarize my writing on the conflict so far.

For starters, this was a surprise to no one. Weeks before Saakashvili struck Tskhinvali, the South Ossetians were simultaneously shelling Georgian positions while using Russian transports to evacuate thousands of women and children for “summer camp” in North Ossetia right when Russia was massing troops across the border. Coupled with the years of Russian provocations in Abkhazia, including downing of Georgian drones by Russian aircraft, and the repeated military strikes by Russian helicopters on Georgian territory, it should surprise no one that Saakashvili finally reacted.

That being said, Saakashvili obviously miscalculated the extent to which he was being baited by Russia, and his normal brinksmanship sort of telegraphed that he would take decisive action at some point.

At the same time, the ultimate result of this fight will not be the annexation of Georgia by Russia, nor will it be an immediately dramatic reordering of the energy policies of the region. Russia will not touch the BTC pipeline, nor will it occupy Tblisi. They just want Saakashvili gone—the equivalent is how we used to view Fidel Castro… and if the opportunity presented itself we would have tried (and did several times) to kick him out of office without formally occupying the territory.

It is also important to note that Russia’s financial markets are not doing well right now. They have been steadily sinking since outright hostilities broke out, and they can be expected to sink further the longer conflict continues. So don’t expect anything long term from the Russian military—war is not as profitable for them as it is for us. If they do drag this war out much longer, they lose big time—financially, militarily, and internationally. Which they might do, because one should never underestimate Russian hubris.

Believe it or not, Russia actually is responsive to global opinion. Just not in the way we like to think. A key part of Russia’s geopolitical strategy is to breed European dependence on Russia energy, a goal they have largely achieved. At the same time, that isn’t permanent, and if Russia pushes too far Europe could panic, actually bother to come up with a unified energy policy, and diversify its supplies. Russia does not want that. But they do want to dictate terms along their southern flank.

Russia also has a compelling interest in preventing Georgian ascension into NATO. It has been interesting to see how much diplomatic activity has been in Brussels, rather than Tblisi, Tskhinvali, or Moscow. They are keenly aware of their audience here, and given the fact that they’ve made their point—NATO’s stipulation that Georgia solve its “frozen conflicts” is clearly still valid—they have little reason to occupy the capital and provoke a global response.

Questions remain. Did NATO’s stipulation, along with years of American support, funding, and supply, create the conditions for this war? Right now, it looks like it did (so what culpability does the West have?). Does this war conclusively prove that Russia is politically rotten, and that Medvedev is worse than a paper tiger since it’s all been about Putin? Quite possibly. Does this mean that Caspian energy will no longer flow according to Western interests? Almost definitely. Can this mean, since Russia stands a serious chance of overstepping its bounds and provoking a counter-movement from the international community, that the U.S. might in all of this emerge the actual winner? A remote possibility.

More ominously, what happens to Georgia? Saakashvili is finished, but there is no one to replace him. As the electoral crisis last year demonstrated, even when he voluntarily resigns and holds fair and open elections, he remains the only real leader the Georgians have. Alas, he is finished now. What, or more importantly who, comes next? It will almost certainly be one of the many opposition leaders, all of whom share varying degrees of warmth toward Russia. The winner of that political fight—which will be metaphorically if not physically bloody—will determine the ultimate result of this war. So in that sense, Russia is taking just as big a gamble here as Saakashvili did.

But basically, it is all very fluid, and there are too many variables to conclusively discuss what the war will really mean. Which is a cop-out in a way, but it is all one should feel comfortable saying.

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McQ, Dale and I discuss the Russian campaign against Georgia over South Ossetia.

Generally I feel that our support should belong to Georgia. However, Georgia has severely miscalculated in this matter, and frankly our options are limited. At best, we get a negotiated settlement with Russia that retains Georgian sovereignty with the loss of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The US and NATO allowed to save face with some show of protecting Georgian airspace after the fact, with Russia suffering a black eye in international opinion. Maybe.

I am not sure I agree with Lee that we may get Nato peacekeepers in South Ossetia and this turns out negatively in the short term for Russia, but we can hope.

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When it seemed like escalation was the modal reality, outcomes looked bleak for Georgia. Dynamics change. Thus Georgia’s ceasefire in South Ossetia cannot be a bad thing under the circumstances. By putting up an initial fight, they drew the attention of the world and now in can come the international community, which is as firmly opposed to Russia’s behavior on an issue since the Afghanistan invasion in 1979.

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Always demanding when they need you, useless and even obstructionist when you actually need them. Our friend Geoff Morrell can serve as something of a personification of that characteristic in fact:

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said the Georgians had requested U.S. help in moving their troops. But he said the Pentagon was looking for a way to assist without appearing to support Georgian military operations against the Russians.
(Los Angeles Times)

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James Traub has written a magnificent survey of the events leading up to the current war in Georgia, and the personal contest between Mikheil Saakashvili and Putin.

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Wu Wei believes Russia is now targeting the Nabucco gas pipeline in Georgia…while the Russian NATO envoy argues that strategic objectives are restricted to a South Ossetia protection and warns NATO to stay out. And now Iran gets into the ceasefire call game.

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Posted first to Registan.net, your one-stop shop for all things Central Asia, this is a tangent to a really excellent theme I’ve been tracking the past few weeks—the flow of press releases masquerading as journalism from Afghanistan to our largest publications. Check it out if you like this.

It appears NATO is feeling “battle fatigue” after six years of combat. I feel for them, I really do—and it would be impossible for me to criticize the stance since I have never been in combat. But why, then, is the notion that Afghans just might be too exhausted to fight any more so alien to western thinking? That some may not be as actively battling off Taliban and associated militants with sleepless fervor as they could because they’re just too exhausted?

The most battle-hardened U.S. troops in Afghanistan will have been there for a total of perhaps five years (this is an educated guess; it could be either more or less). After so much time fearing for one’s life, feeling utterly fatigued is perfectly natural. And the political desire to end the expense of such a sustained conflict is also perfectly natural and understandable.

Most Afghans, however, cannot remember a time without warfare. With a median age of only 17.6 years, the vast majority of Afghans simply were not alive during a period without active warfare in their country—warfare that will, in about 19 months, reach its 30th anniversary.

I would say the Afghans are rather more resilient than we are. But NATO’s fecklessness certainly doesn’t help. The revelation that German special forces allowed the Baghlan bomber to escape because they were not authorized to use lethal force—they were only permitted to capture him, not kill him—drives this point further home. Many NATO countries are simply not acting as if they want to win. Only five of the 26 countries currently operating in Afghanistan—the U.S., the UK, Canada, Denmark, and Netherlands—can behave like a normal army. The rest have their operations crippled by restrictive caveats, some of which now can be shown to be actively aiding the insurgency.

The threat to the international relief workers and the ISAF soldiers stationed in the north may now be even greater than it was before. Warned of ISAF’s activities and intent on taking revenge, the man and his network are active once again. Over 2,500 Germans are stationed between Faryab and Badakhshan, along with Hungarian, Norwegian and Swedish troops.

The case has caused disquiet at the headquarters of the ISAF peacekeeping force in Kabul. The current strategy for fighting the enemy is to buy as many Taliban sympathizers as possible, to at least win them over for a while — and to “eliminate” the hardliners through targeted assassinations.

It doesn’t have to be this way. The German KSK is actually a highly respected, highly capable force. They were able to track the bomber down, observe him for weeks without him realizing it, and even close almost to capture before they were discovered. But they were just not permitted to behave like any other SOF or even police unit would: kill a dangerous man if he looks ready to escape.

And this strategy of purchasing Taliban sympathizers is the height of folly: it is precisely what the British tried during their disastrous invasion in 1838. When the money ran out some years later, those Afghans they had bribed didn’t walk home thankful to have received British gold, they rose up in murderous fury at the foreign invader who now didn’t even have money to placate their wounded pride. Refusing to fight while spreading Euros like Nutella on toast might work for a little bit. But, as Der Spiegel has documented, it will also fatally undermine what had been one of the great successes of the war.

I’m sure hanging out in Feyzabad and getting fat is really tiring, but honestly, bitte, stop undermining everyone else.

This Topic Continues:

• Germany and Afghanistan
• “The Germans Have to Learn How to Kill“
• About the Baghlan Bombing
• Disassembling the Baghlan Bombing

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Russia’s fears of NATO expansion reaching right to her western border with Ukraine, have provoked a new round of saber rattling from the Kremlin. Here’s Putin’s ominous quote, after he had just met with Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko: “It’s frightening not just to talk about, but even to think about, that in response to such deployment, the possibility of such deployments – and one can’t theoretically exclude these deployments – that Russia will have to point its warheads at Ukrainian territory.”

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