Bloodless Coup in Georgia? 11/22/03--Following Georgia.

dlowan wrote:

My apologies if you already said this...but what do you think the EU should do? What would the line in the sand look like?

Wasn't directed at me, but is a good opportunity for me to throw in my two cents....

I think the first thing the west should do is bring Ukraine into NATO and the EU as fast as humanly possible. Russia clearly wants to conquer Ukraine as well as Georgia, and will do so at the first chance they get. But since they have not invaded Ukraine yet, it is a lot less risky for the West to get there and set up defenses than it is with Georgia where there is open conflict with Russia. And once we are there the Russian invasion can be deterred in the first place.

I also think NATO needs to establish a very strong military presence on the Ukraine/Poland/Baltics front (sort of like the military presence in West Germany during the first cold war). This has two purposes. First, it deters Russian attack, and it is pretty clear that Russia will conquer them if we give them a chance. Second, it sends a message to Russia that so long as they are acting like a Stalinist threat to the free world, they will be treated accordingly.

It is probably a bad idea to station nuclear missiles in Ukraine. What is the flight time from Ukraine to Moscow for a ballistic missile? 90 seconds? That would definitely provoke them. But lots of tanks and stuff should deter a Russian invasion without causing a Russian "Cuban Missile Crisis".

And finally, if Georgia survives Russia's invasion, they should be fast-tracked into NATO as well. I agree with nimh that in exchange for NATO protection they should first agree not to pursue any more conflict over the territory Russia is illegally occupying.

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orralloy said...

Quote:

And finally, if Georgia survives Russia's invasion, they should be fast-tracked into NATO as well. I agree with nimh that in exchange for NATO protection they should first agree not to pursue any more conflict over the territory Russia is illegally occupying.

Do you honestly think Georgia will go for that?
Thats like saying (if we werent already a member), that we could join the UN as long as we didnt fight Canada over the fact that they invaded Montana.

That wouldnt fly here and I seriously doubt it will fly in Georgia.

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old europe wrote:

I've read contradicting reports from German correspondents in Georgia on that account. Apparently, Russian troops and tanks were still moving towards Tbilisi. Later, they seem to have stopped about 50k outside of the capital.

One correspondent has been following that tank brigade (which included South Ossetian militia), but couldn't get any comment of it when contacting superiors in Moscow. Apparently, the convoy was not supposed to be moving towards Tbilisi. The Russian Army issued a statement saying "There are no Russian troops moving towards Tbilisi".

Later the convoy stopped, apparently waiting for orders from Moscow.

sozobe wrote:

The AP article says:

Quote:
Russian at first denied that tanks were even in Gori but video footage proved otherwise.

About 50 Russian tanks entered Gori in the morning, according to Lomaia. The city of 50,000 lies 15 miles south of South Ossetia, where much of the fighting has taken place.

It's hard to know for sure, and OE might disagree. But judging on the track record for the Russian military in this region I see this all as evidence that Russia was gambling at least in part on a strategy around creating faits accomplis.

I.e., I think the Russians have several parallel strategies, pushing one as far as it goes and if it doesnt work, still having pushed the others, etc. I think a primary strategy was probably having the Russian troops that are already in Georgia create as many fait accomplis as it could while the fog of war allowed for it. Hence troops moving into or attacking strategically important places (Gori, the highway to Tblisi), while the officials in Moscow deny this is even taking place.

They can get away with this as long as only the local residents notice it and the Georgian government makes accusations about it. But as soon as the international press or foreign politicians verify such troop movements, it's all just disowned as a mistake and a misunderstanding, and the troops in question stop in their tracks or turn back.

And again, I mean judging on earlier, smaller-scale manouvres (eg the operations with which Russia helped Abkhazia and South-Ossetia secede in the first place, or Chechnyan operations), I think Russia could have made a reasonable gamble that this kind of thing might work. Fog of war, isolated locations, lack of international press, international indifference or reluctance to get involved, etc. Deny it while you're doing it, and assume that nobody will be willing to act to reverse it once you've done it.

That's partly why it's important that prominent foreign politicians are in Tblisi, that American planes will be flying in there - to keep as many lines as possible open, make the information lines short.

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mysteryman wrote:

Do you honestly think Georgia will go for that?
Thats like saying (if we werent already a member), that we could join the UN as long as we didnt fight Canada over the fact that they invaded Montana.

That wouldnt fly here and I seriously doubt it will fly in Georgia.

If Canada were 60 times as large, wealthy and well-armed as you as well as relatively prone to resentful military action in neighbouring countries, and the UN were the only organisation in the world capable of ever defending you against it, I think you'd consider it... :wink:

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OK, appreciating further details, thanks.

Still confused on some points.

Will cogitate and go back to watching/ reading for a bit.

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nimh wrote:

old europe wrote:
I've read contradicting reports from German correspondents in Georgia on that account. Apparently, Russian troops and tanks were still moving towards Tbilisi. Later, they seem to have stopped about 50k outside of the capital.

One correspondent has been following that tank brigade (which included South Ossetian militia), but couldn't get any comment of it when contacting superiors in Moscow. Apparently, the convoy was not supposed to be moving towards Tbilisi. The Russian Army issued a statement saying "There are no Russian troops moving towards Tbilisi".

Later the convoy stopped, apparently waiting for orders from Moscow.

sozobe wrote:
The AP article says:

Quote:
Russian at first denied that tanks were even in Gori but video footage proved otherwise.

About 50 Russian tanks entered Gori in the morning, according to Lomaia. The city of 50,000 lies 15 miles south of South Ossetia, where much of the fighting has taken place.

It's hard to know for sure, and OE might disagree. But judging on the track record for the Russian military in this region I see this all as evidence that Russia was gambling at least in part on a strategy around creating faits accomplis.

I.e., I think the Russians have several parallel strategies, pushing one as far as it goes and if it doesnt work, still having pushed the others, etc. I think a primary strategy was probably having the Russian troops that are already in Georgia create as many fait accomplis as it could while the fog of war allowed for it. Hence troops moving into or attacking strategically important places (Gori, the highway to Tblisi), while the officials in Moscow deny this is even taking place.

They can get away with this as long as only the local residents notice it and the Georgian government makes accusations about it. But as soon as the international press or foreign politicians verify such troop movements, it's all just disowned as a mistake and a misunderstanding, and the troops in question stop in their tracks or turn back.

And again, I mean judging on earlier, smaller-scale manouvres (eg the operations with which Russia helped Abkhazia and South-Ossetia secede in the first place, or Chechnyan operations), I think Russia could have made a reasonable gamble that this kind of thing might work. Fog of war, isolated locations, lack of international press, international indifference or reluctance to get involved, etc. Deny it while you're doing it, and assume that nobody will be willing to act to reverse it once you've done it.

That's partly why it's important that prominent foreign politicians are in Tblisi, that American planes will be flying in there - to keep as many lines as possible open, make the information lines short.

Instinctively, I agree with the assessment that Russia's strategy was to use an occasion to claim that Georgia triggered a crises, send troops into the country, interrupt any kind of link to the outside world, and create facts before the West even notices or manages to verify claims made by either side.

Not unreasonable. We've seen an immense propaganda effort on both sides. Russia has shut down Georgian TV stations, and hackers have attacked (and mostly shut down) Georgian websites. Pravda reported that the Georgian side was supported by Israeli advisers, and the Russian government news agency Ria Novosti reported that thousands of Eastern European mercenaries were fighting on Georgia's side - led by 1,000 American military experts.

Georgia, on the other side, has promptly shut down any Russian TV channels, as far as that was possible. On the internet, website ending in ".ru" couldn't be reached. Saakashvili was even using Poland's Lech Kaczynski's official website to spread the Georgian version of events, after the official Georgian websites had gone down, and after the initial Russian attacks on Georgian infrastructure, even telephone connections in many areas went down.

---

However, the 'confusion' in the Russian Army seems to have been reported by two correspondents of German national TV. One correspondent was talking to Putin's speaker in Moscow, and received the answer that no instructions to break the ceasefire had been issued. The other one was following the tank convoy on the ground, and received, from the acting head of the Russian General Staff, the answer that there were no troop movements towards Tbilisi taking place.

Suspicious.

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A moment for reflection on the growing dependence of Europe (and other areas as well) on Russian controlled sources of energy, petroleum and natural gas.

It is fairly clear that the present regime in Russia aims at the partial restoration of its former position in the Caucasus - particularly those regions involving control of pipelines.

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This TNR post chimes in as response to Cyclo's criticism of Bush's "hollow words":

Quote:

Still a Georgian

When John McCain declared, "We are all Georgians now," Matthew Yglesias called it "mawkish sentimentality." I called it a perfectly appropriate way to express solidarity with the victim of aggression.

Now Mikhail Saakashvili has expressed his wish that Americans move from words to deeds. Yglesias sees this as proof he was right: Saakashvili expects us to back up our words with deeds. In fact it proves the opposite -- he understands perfectly well that words are different than deeds. Would Georgia prefer that the U.S. take stronger measures? Of course. But they'll take expressions of solidarity over nothing. Words are meaningful. If the world leaders are declaring Russia to be the aggressor and expressing their solidarity with Georgia, Russia is constrained in a way they wouldn't be if the rest of the world was mumbling equivocally.

--Jonathan Chait

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@nimh,

Nimh My wifes uncle has the status/title of Honorary Consul for Abkhazia in the UK, so I would expect him to reflect whatever political view is current with leaders in Abkazia, however I have met him (only once for a couple of hours) and he seems a genuinly intelligent man.

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@nimh,

Quote:

Nimh wrote:

Quote:
Cycloptichorn wrote:

I can't believe that the two of you would be impressed by Bush's speech. It essentially does nothing to punish Russia and there is no credible threat of force by the US. Pretty, hollow words. I have a hard time seeing them make a difference.

It's odd that, as a biting critic of the neocon black/white policies, you seem to have bought into an underlying assumption of theirs yourself. What I mean is the assumption that the only meaningful offense involves threatening military action, and everything else is just "hollow words". Right?

No, Bush did not make a "threat of force" - he didnt threaten to go bomb anyone if X or Y happened. But that doesnt mean that his words were meaningless. Both in his choice of words and in the practical set of actions he announces, he sets very clear markers.

Remember, this is a region with a sad history of small countries being surrendered to the regional bully of the day because the other world powers had "other priorities", as you put it. And there's always local complexities and ambiguities to point to as reason not to intervene. Russia could reasonably have gambled that the US and EU would formally protest, but basically stay aloof, making statements that spread the responsibility for the regrettable escalation among all sides, and subsequently accepting any fait accompli the Russians put in place.

If Russia's troops are indeed still proceeding, despite the ceasefire, to take over strategical places inside Georgia proper, it would certainly suggest they were going for quickly establishing faits accomplis which the West would then not have the stomach to try to reverse. Bush is basically doing what he can, short of military manoeuvres, to call them out on that and saying, no game -- sending the message that continuing down that path will lead to escalation. That's an important marker.

Aside from the choice of words, the announcement that US aircraft and naval forces will fly into Georgia, if only to deliver humanitarian supplies, strikes me as a significant step. Russia will then have to choose to let them in, when it was probably counting on being able to isolate and cut off Georgia, or to not let them in, which would provoke a new level of diplomatic crisis, etc. The idea being to make the Russians think, wait a second, this might become a far bigger blow-up than we thought - is that still worth it? Over that tiny country? And choose to take a step back.

That's my take anyway - maybe OE has already given his by now..

The whole point though is that Russia KNOWS that we aren't going to back Georgia up in any significant way, for we simply cannot at this time. We don't have either the troops or the political force internationally to do so. So what exactly did Bush's speech change?

Nothing. People are still (to the best of my knowledge) being killed in the fighting there and it is highly unlikely that Russia will leave any time soon. We certainly aren't going to force them out. Europe will not force them out. There will be no real punishment given against them. It will NOT lead to escalation. So Russia won't be taking any real steps back from Ossetia. Europe will bluster but do nothing, the US the same, and Russia knows it.

I'm somewhat of a defeatist on this issue for two reasons:

First, the president of Georgia is a f*cking idiot, and I don't feel any sort of compulsion to 'get his back' on this. Additionally, OUR president is a f*cking idiot, so I don't trust him to get any response correct either. It's not a situation which promotes confidence.

Second, this is what happens when you badly over-extend yourself militarily; you are not able to properly respond to crises. Russia knows this and has taken full advantage of the situation.

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I don't like this new A2K format.

Anyway.....

The 2014 Winter Olympics is supposed to be in Russia right next to Abkhazia where they are ethnically cleansing Georgians?!?

I hope the US boycotts -- not so much as a protest, but because I don't think I would feel morally comfortable with us participating in an Olympics that was nothing more than a smug whitewash of a horrible crime.

I know, it hurts the athletes, but think of the Georgians.....

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What do you guys (specifically nimh and old europe, but anyone can answer of course) think of Georgia joining NATO? This makes sense to me:

hilzoy wrote:

I also think that allowing Georgia to join NATO, under any circumstances that remotely resemble the present, would make people wonder: are the United States and the other NATO countries really willing to go to war to protect Georgia? And the reason it would make people wonder is that it is not, in fact, even the least bit clear that we would, still less that we should. And that means that admitting Georgia to NATO would badly damage NATO's status as a credible defensive alliance.

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/08/nato.html

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The new iron curtain forming? (Let's get Ukraine into NATO ASAP.)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

US, Poland agree to missile defense deal

By VANESSA GERA and MONIKA SCISLOWSKA

WARSAW, Poland (AP) -- Poland and the United States reached an agreement Thursday that will see a battery of American missiles established inside Poland, a plan that has infuriated Russia and raised the specter of an escalation of tension with the region's communist-era master.

The deal, which was to be signed later Thursday in Warsaw by Poland and the United States, includes what Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk called a "mutual commitment" between the two nations -- beyond that of NATO -- to come to each other's assistance in case of danger.

That was an obvious reference to the force and ferocity with which Russia rolled into Georgia in recent days, taking the key city of Gori and apparently burning and destroying Georgian military outposts and airfields.

Tusk said that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization would be too slow in coming to Poland's defense if Poland were threatened and that the bloc would take "days, weeks to start that machinery."

"Poland and the Poles do not want to be in alliances in which assistance comes at some point later -- it is no good when assistance comes to dead people. Poland wants to be in alliances where assistance comes in the very first hours of -- knock on wood -- any possible conflict," Tusk said.

"This is a step toward real security for Poland in the future," he added.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hdNtXPW9-1UZEmhgLC5VZ3dDa25wD92I7FKG1

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@oralloy,

Russia threatens Georgia, but Georgia threatens Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Russia looks like a crocodile to Georgia, but Georgia looks to Russia like the cats’ paw of the West. One party has all the hard power it could want, the other all the soft. And now, while the world was looking elsewhere, the frozen conflict between them has thawed and cracked. It will take a great deal of care and attention even to put things back to where they were before.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/weekinreview/10traub.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin

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@Ramafuchs,

There are umpteen citizens in USA who speak better English and share my views.

Was the Goergian attack last Thursday a set-up, organized in Washington? Unfortunately for Bush, the wily Russian prime minister is considerably brighter than anyone in the current administration. Bush's plan will undoubtedly backfire and disrupt the geopolitical balance of power. The world might get that breather from the US after all.

Mike Whitney

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@nimh,

Saakashvili would be wise to recall the fate of the first post-Soviet Georgian president, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, also a darling of the US (in 1978 US Congress nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize). He rode to victory on a wave of nationalism in 1990, declaring independence for Georgia and officially recognising the "Chechen Republic of Ichkeria". But South Ossetia wanted no part of the fiery Gamsakhurdia's chauvinistic vision and declared its own "independence". Engulfed by a wave of disgust a short two years later, abandoned by his US friends, he fled to his beloved Ichkeria. He snuck back into western Georgia, looking for support in restive Abkhazia, but his uprising collapsed, prompting Abkhazia to secede. He died in 1993, leaving the two secessionist provinces as a legacy, and was buried in Chechnya. Saakashvili rehabilitated him in 2004 and had his remains interred in Mtatsminda Pantheon with other Georgian "heroes". Truth really is stranger than fiction in Georgia. Now the burning question is: will history repeat itself?
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2008/910/in1.htm

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@dadpad,

dadpad wrote:

Nimh My wifes uncle has the status/title of Honorary Consul for Abkhazia in the UK, so I would expect him to reflect whatever political view is current with leaders in Abkazia, however I have met him (only once for a couple of hours) and he seems a genuinly intelligent man.

I'm sure he is! And again, I meant no disrespect. But obviously, he will recount the events as they look like to his perspective, and he would even if he were not an Honorary Consul (I assume most Abkhazians agree with him). That's why I thought it necessary to add context.

I see it as if, say, a Bosnian Serb posts his account of the Bosnian war (and there are, if that doesnt go without saying, of course many intelligent and kind-hearted Bosnian Serbs, also among those who stayed on their "ethnic" side after civil war broke out). I mean, he lives there, I dont, so who am I to criticize him? But at the same time I would feel compelled to tell the part of the story I feel he's not telling, and contextualise perspectives like here with the Kodori Valley being "liberated" if I feel they are counterfactual.

I dont think I even would if there were, like, Bosniaks, or in this case Georgians, here to tell their (counter)side, but there arent. And since 99.9% of Westerners wont have even heard of the Kodori Valley, I thought someone had to bring the related info... but in no way, if it came across at all that way, was it an attempt to stop you from posting or say the man is bad or something!

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@sozobe,

God, I hate the steps you have to go through now just to quote somebody properly.

Anyway:

Sozobe wrote:

What do you guys (specifically nimh and old europe, but anyone can answer of course) think of Georgia joining NATO?

I agree and disagree with Hilzoy.

I agree that NATO should not take in Georgia if it isnt willing to protect Georgia if it is attacked. That would challenge its credibility.

That said, the idea behind NATO is of course that once a country is in NATO (and therewith has the formal guarantee that the US and allies will militarily support it in case of an attack), nobody will attack it anymore. It is primarily a tool of deterrence. And as such it has functioned very well.

Where I diverge sharply from Hilzoy is the question what that means. I believe NATO should accept Georgia ASAP, because I believe the West should intervene if Georgia proper is again attacked.

Admittedly I would add the caveat I mentioned before. Namely that this should only happen under the condition that as the price for the military protection that membership offers (which is, after all, a really big deal), Georgia should accept that South-Ossetia and Abkhazia are de facto independent states now. Give them a kind of autonomy that makes them independent in all but name, for example. Even if this may, looking back at how things came to where they are now, well be unfair - just ask the 100,000s of Georgian refugees from Abkhazia. Because including Georgia in NATO while it still keeps open the option of taking back these provinces by force is irresponsible, yes.

I have no idea whether Georgia would agree to this condition. Rationally speaking I'd say it should, considering the existential threat from the new Russia they'd be facing for decades on their own, but that's just ratio. But if it would, then yes, include it in NATO and do it fast.

Why? My gut instinct on this general subject is roughly Oralloy's ("Let's get Ukraine into NATO ASAP"). But it's also more than just gut instinct. If Georgia would accept de facto independence for South-Ossetia and Abkhazia, and Russia would still launch a military attack on Georgia, then hell, Europe and the US better get involved. Because a Russia that would invade neighbouring countries wantonly (and in this case, that's what it would be) would pose an existential threat to Europe too.

Realistic? No idea. But what we should not do is just accept that as small and far away country, Georgia is inevitably doomed to be potential collateral damage, because if Russia does choose to occupy it, well, we're not going to do anything about it anyway. It's not Kuwait, basically. Not just would that be criminal, but also very dangerous. Russia may be a lot bigger than Serbia or Iraq and therefore a less appetising opponent to take on, but it's also, well, a lot bigger and a lot closer than Iraq. You dont want to nod and wink at any shift by this country to occupying neighbouring countries again.

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@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn

Missing in your treatment of the issue: the fate of the Georgians.

Also missing: the strategical consequences for NATO, the EU and especially the East-European member states of both alliances, of letting Russia occupy a neighbouring country without retaliation.

Those are real costs. Costs arguably no smaller than having to extend your stretched capacities now.

That's one point. The other point seems to be, but I may be misinterpreting, that your argument about stretched capacities keeps coming back to: we have no troops available to intervene militarily, ergo, we cant do anything.

What about all your criticisms of the Republicans, over Iraq in the run-up to the war there for example, about how they fail to see the range of options between doing nothing and going to war? If you could come up with a dozen ways in which the West could have responded to Iraq that fell short of invading the country but would still have substantive effect, why are you unable to imagine any such steps now?

IMO, Bush's speech told the Russians that the administration would not do what you seem to propose: shrug and resign itself to not being able to do anything against the Russians anyway, and surrender the Georgians along with Saakashvili even if the Russian army would move on to Tblisi. Instead, his speech told the Russians that it would retaliate, in an unidentified range of serious ways. Now this may seem an obvious point, but it isn't at all in this region, historically speaking. Putin/Medvedev may well have reasonably gambled that they could get away with occupying Georgia, or enough of it to establish some vassal regime in Saakashvili's place, as long as they presented the West with the fait accompli. That the US and EU would file some pro forma protests but otherwise draw their hands from the situation, calling all sides to cease and be reasonable and leave it at that (kind of what Obama did in first instance).

By responding soon and forcefully and unambiguously siding with Georgia, Bush gave the Russians good reasons to reconsider whether going any further than just "keeping" South-Ossetia (and I'm sure there are competing factions within the Russian government fighting over how far to go) is really worth the diplomatic/economic/etc firestorm Bush implicitly promises.

Now you say that the Russians are sure to just shrug at Bush's speech, because they know he's unable to ignite any retaliatory firestorm anyway. While I agree that Bush stands weaker than Clinton did in terms of international diplomacy, I still dont get your black and white thinking on this. It seems to assume that if Bush cant credibly threaten to go to war about this, the Russians have no reason to think twice about anything, because then any threat of retaliation is just "hollow words". That suggests that you see only the threat of going to war as a credible retaliation, and any threat short of that as "hollow words", which is weird to me considering your criticisms of Republicans about the same way of thinking.

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@Ramafuchs,

Quoting Eric Walberg in Al-Ahram, Ramafuchs wrote:

Saakashvili would be wise to recall the fate of the first post-Soviet Georgian president, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, also a darling of the US (in 1978 US Congress nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize).

This is a weird sentence, which bodes ill for the credibility of the author. Yes, Gamsakhurdia was a disastrous president, and his presidency carries as much blame for how this whole mess in Abkhazia and South-Ossetia started as any Russian action. But what is this weird connection that "president Zviad Gamsakhurdia [was] also a darling of the US" because "in 1978 US Congress nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize"?

In 1978, obviously, Gamsakhurdia was not President and had not done any of the wrongs described here: in 1978 he was a dissident and a writer and academic. You can look up the details on Wikipedia: for over twenty years, working underground, he'd been reporting human rights abuses and corruption, publishing in samizdat. The Soviet dictatorship forcibly confined him to a mental hospital and then, in the seventies, sentenced him to three years of hard labour and internal exile. That's when the US Congress nominated him for the Noble Prize.

How does lauding a dissident poet who is acutely at risk of persecution in the seventies make the US complicit in the disastrous President the man would turn out to be fifteen years down the line, after the collapse of the Soviet Union? Please.

-----------------------------------

PS -- not sure how many people read this (especially with the new, small scrolling boxes which I'm sure many havent turned off yet), but if any of you got this far, maybe consider voting for the first post of this thread with a thumbs up... that might give it a better chance of being found!

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Bloodless Coup in Georgia? 11/22/03--Following Georgia.

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