Not all of the reports are consistent, but they are increasingly consistent: Russian forces have reportedly taken the central Georgian city of Gori, essentially splitting the country in two and occupying the main east-west highway. Russian forces are reported to be in Zugdidi, a larger Georgian town near to Abkhazia. Russian forces have reportedly taken a Georgian military base 20km outside the country’s main port, Poti.
Three days ago I could barely imagine that the Russians would attempt to capture Tbilisi. Now? O Georgia.
Well, although even today’s situation has gone much further than I would have expected it to go some days ago, I would doubt that the Russians will continue towards Tbilisi.
I think Russia will sell their presence – if the reports are true – on Georgian grounds with the creation of a buffer zone between Georgia and the separatist republics.
Going until Tbilisi would really risk forcing reactions from the EU and the US, and I don’t think Russia is risking this.
And very honestly, I hope my analysis is correct!…!
i see no problem with establishing safety zones around Tshinvalli – no cease-fire orders from Sukashvilli to his troops as of yet, as you might have noticed, so why risk recaptured Tshinvalli? It’s better for Ossetian fighters to orchestrate “preventive operations” on a foreign soil than on their own, just like the US does, no?
What reaction from the EU and US, precisely, are the Russians risking? A strongly worded letter? Harsh language from George “Mission Accomplished” Bush? Oh wait, I know, they’ll stop buying Russian oil and natural gas! *snort*
Sorry, couldn’t keep a straight face all the way through that last one.
Hmm. If I take it that Putin gets his ideas on how to behave in someone else’s country from Dubya and the boys it doesn’t give me that warm, fuzzy feeling – they’re an example to be *avoided*, not copied. Who was it who said that the US should ‘throw a small country against the wall’ occasionally? Thomas Friedman? Who’s an idiot?
Incidentally, is this one of those wars between democracies that couldn’t happen? Chalk that one up as busted, then.
As a matter of interest – do the North Ossetians actually want to remain part of Russia? I’m rather intrigued by the Russians’ professed interest in protecting the rights of an ethnic minority here, when they’ve shown less regard for another minority in nearby Chechenya…
No, it’s not one of those wars. The Democratic Peace Theory is not “busted” with the Georgia-Russia war. At least one of the belligerents is not classified as a democracy, which is consistent with the DPT prediction.
@ Doctor Memory
I have no idea what a reaction could be because such a situation is hardly imaginable for me.
Still, until now the story can be turned in favour or against both parties to the conflict. Going until Tbilisi would make it hard for Russia to spin the facts and rumours in its favour. And this would heavily damage its relations with the “West” (whatever this is) and maybe even beyond.
Even Russia is dependent on at least fairly good relations with its neighbours and business partners, no matter how dependent these are on oil and gas.
Damaging these relations would cause not only short term reactions (even if these are just words), but will have a medium and long term impact that is not in the interest of Russia.
I think Russia doesn’t care if they damage relations with the United States. They know that Europe has no stomach for war, and this is their back yard. They feel no more compunctions about invading a small nation in their back yard than the U.S. felt about invading Panama or Grenada in the 1980’s. I think they’ve decided it’s time to teach Georgia (and by extension all the neighboring states in their back yard) a lesson once and for all — elect an anti-Russian demagogue, get slapped against the wall and given a mega-wedgie. My best bet is that they’re going to roll up to Tbilisi, line up all their rockets and artillery with their tanks in front of them, send forward a guy with a loud speaker, and say “Send out Saakashvili — or else.”
And if Saakashvili does not give himself up to the Russians… well, Tbilisi wasn’t all that beautiful a city anyhow, was it? What with all that stunningly sterile Soviet-era architecture clotting the place? I’m sure the rubble will serve quite well as foundations for a new city on that location… just ask the residents of Grozny, which after all is only what, 120 miles away as the crow flies?
This was insanity from day 1. The notion that the U.S. would help Georgia with anything other than a sternly-worded letter was demented, and the notion that a tiny nation like Georgia could take on the Russian bear… just utter madness. The Russians appear to want Saakashvili’s head on a pike. I suspect they aren’t leaving until they have what they want — unconditional surrender by Georgia, and Saakashvili to haul back with them to put on a show trial for “war crimes”.
Anyone who looks at a map can see that Tskhinvali is pressed right up against the border with Georgia proper. This means that its only reasonable for Russia to create a buffer zone. Gori, a military staging site, is a city which would have to be pacified to assure defense of South Ossetia. The western media doesnt know or care about this fact. Western reporting is so biased its absolutely disgusting. If thousands of US citizens were killed by a genocidal warlord, we would conquer WHOLE countries to have our revenge, even some which had nothing to do with the attack – just to display our collective phallus. Oh, gosh, didnt that happen? Saakashvili needs to put on trial, that is if he can hold together his obviously fracturing personality long enough. This guy is several cards short of a deck – I’m convinced. The Bush administration is also nuts – lets be honest here – Bush says “dont overthrow the Georgian government”, but what kind of government could maintain itself after such a huge blunder, and why would the US want this reckless person and his cronies running the precious “ally” country. Notice who condoleeza cant stop saying “territorial integrity” when it comes to Georgia, but never uses the phrase when discussing Serbia.
About North Ossetia, Paul. It can never leave Russia (s protection) and must always remain loyal. Russia gave North Ossetia part of Ingushetia’s ancient territory – If the Russian ‘peacekeepers’ ever disappeared, Ingushetians would storm in and even claim part of the North Ossetian capital. lol. One has to give the Russians 10 points for coming up with this still-useful dastardly maneuver a whole half century ago.
The Russians are still ‘targeting military bases’ in ‘support’ of the fighting in South Ossetia. But they’ve brought Abkhazia directly into play, which was as far as I can tell was completely unprovoked. They’ve also brought in an army that’s easily big enough to conquer the whole of Georgia (or at least all the towns and cities). They may not be going all the way, but the list of limited objectives they might plausibly claim to be aiming for is shrinking fast. At the moment the options look something like this:
1. ‘Liberate’ formerly Georgian-controlled areas of South Ossetia, plus the Kodori Gorge, let local separatists take charge, and pretend not to notice when local anti-Georgian militias go do a bit of ethnic cleansing (or watch as local Georgians ‘voluntarily’ flee the disputed areas.)
2. Punitive strike on Georgian ‘military’
infrastructure across the country (resembling NATO bombing of Serbia, but with ground support), just to cripple Georgia’s ability to fight back in any future scuffle.
3. Tanks roll into Tbilisi, force Saakashvili to resign so opposition take over (who are less nationalist/more pro-Russian)?
4. Full-on military occupation of main Georgian cities, not leaving until a true puppet government has been put in place. Puppet government signs ‘treaty’ with Russia in which it drops all claim to Abkhazia and South Ossetia and recognises independence of both; it also sells anything oil- or gas-related in sight to Gazprom/Rosneft. South Ossetia signs ‘treaty of union’ with Russia soon after and is formally annexed.
5. Chechnya-style barbarism.
6. Putin laughs maniacally and reveals he is vampire Stalin, proclaiming the rebirth of the Soviet Union as well. He annexes the whole of Georgia and deports most of the population to Siberia for disloyalty. Gori is systematically razed in revenge for all the beatings Stalin took as a kid. (OK, maybe not THAT far…)
I really hope the Russians don’t go too far down this list, but we just can’t tell right now, because they haven’t yet shown any particular signs of restraint. One thing is clear, though: Moscow is *not* going to settle for status quo ante. If that’s all they wanted, they could have stopped a couple of days ago having bloodied Georgia’s nose. Even if the Russians are only going for 1. or 2., it will still probably cost hundreds or thousands more Georgian lives, create tens of thousands (at least) of long-term IDPs, and cripple Georgia’s economy for years afterwards.
My bet is on #3, they seem rather peeved with Saakashvili and there’s nothing to stop them from simply rolling up to the portals of Tbilisi and demanding, “Surrender unconditionally and send us Saakashvili… or else.” Certainly stern letters from the U.S. don’t seem to be doing much to stop tanks. Then they take him back to Russia and put him on trial for “genocide” against those poor innocent South Ossetians, withdraw back to South Ossetia… and, incidentally, put every other former Soviet republic on notice that they’re next if they peeve off the Russian bear.
And yeah, this is a bit out of the Sudentland playbook, in that the main reason the Russians care about South Ossetia is that it makes a convenient invasion corridor to whack the Georgians around if they get uppity again. But I doubt that they’re really interested in occupying the rest of Georgia. Let’s face it, it’s a dump, full of old Soviet grey buildings and a decaying infrastructure that Saakashvili utterly ignored while spending 50% of the national budget on the military. The only thing of any value there is the pipeline, and they can effectively control that by threatening Georgia with another invasion if Georgia doesn’t behave the way Russia likes. As long as there’s a government reasonably friendly to Russia there (and I suspect we’ll see one shortly :-), why would they *want* the place?
Badtux, I think they want to keep Georgia out of the west’s hands. The west already said that Georgia can join NATO ‘eventually’, and I don’t believe even regime change can result in a state and people which support Moscow rather than Washington. Therefore, strategically, it should be Putin’s goal to tie Georgia into permanent and unfair treaties and reduce the Kartvelian’s control over all the other ethnic groups living in Georgia, the Ajarians, the Mingrelians, the Gurians, the Svanetians, the Georgian Armenians, etc. Whether it will or won’t, I dont know, but if it wants to press its advantage, Russia should immediately take Tblisi – fast – before the west can come to a consensus on any harsh approach.
Russia really should take some steps to guarantee the Russia, Armenia, Iran ‘passsage’ through Georgia. This would allow it more leverage over events occurring in the middle east, and give it a way to keep Azerbaijan looking more over its shoulder. The West’s problem is that it continues to treat Russia antagonistically long after the fall of the Soviets. There was no particular reason to ‘encircle’ and consistently antagonize Russia. There was no justification at all.
Bush is out of it – even now, he has used every opportunity at the olympics to criticize China. Having lived with Chinese for a long time – I know, this peaves them – Bush was invited as ‘honored guest’ to the ‘sacred olympics’ and they will NOT forget his continuous stream of insults against China. He apparently knowns nothing about the Chinese mentality.
Doctor Memory
The idea that Russia could use its gas imports to Europe for leverage is both common and not based on reality. Let’s consider for the moment the, unrealistic, scenario where Russia simply stops exporting gas and oil to EU/USA. It would hurt, but say in Finland where I live and 100% of natural gas used is imported from Russia, it would simply mean higher energy prices and higher usage of coal. We’d rather not, for reasons economical and ecological, but we can live with that.
EU would retaliate by stopping exports to Russia. Like food, for starters. Russia is heavily dependant on imports, and would face both much higher import prices due to lower supply and much lower revenues, due to having no place to sell the gas, to pay for them at the same time. I highly doubt Putin’s regime could live through that.
“Reuters correspondents in the key road junction of Gori, on the main east-west highway across Georgia, said there were no Russian forces in the largely deserted town, though Moscow’s warplanes were bombing artillery positions around the town.
Georgian government officials claimed on Monday evening that Moscow had seized Gori, cutting the country in half and that Russian troops were advancing on Tbilisi to overthrow Saakashvili’s government”
Reuters
Sorry, Colin, but the Russians _have_ actually shown restraint. Especially when compared to some of their previous military actions in the region. They’re treating this as a conventional war, not as an anti-insurgency action, and the difference is clear enough.
(Or possibly, their PR section is doing better work presenting this conflict in that light. Still an improvement.)
So, it’s option one – moderated version, because predictions of Yugoslav-style “ethnic cleansing” are somewhat off the mark. By now, all those who wanted to escape the battle zone have already done so; with hundred thousand refugees, I’d imagine that there aren’t many potential victims left near the battlefields.
Moreover, just two hours ago, Medvedev already declared that the Russian operation has reached its goals and is about to end.
… and meanwhile, Saakashvili refuses to admit defeat, screaming that “Georgia will never surrender!” and asking military help from… [dramatic pause]… Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Now, I don’t mean to belittle our southern neighbours, but if the Georgian president is screaming _them_ for help, he has reached an entirely new level of being ridiculous and desperate.
Sort of reminds me of the Falklands conflict, when the Argentine junta was ready to grasp every straw possible.
Cheers,
J. J.
Just had to disapprove a comment. There are many places on the web where commenters can fantasize about Group X killing as many as possible of Group Y; this is not one of them.
Also, just released four comments from the spam-trap. Easy on the URLs, people.
Doug M.
Pingback: Democracy, Prosperity and Peace « The 8th Circle
Pingback: Jon Worth » The meaning of NATO, and revising my position on Georgia
@Jussi: Russia has finally shown some restraint, but it wasn’t looking like it a couple of days ago – their actions were consistent with a full-scale invasion, even if there were other more likely options.
Also, I think you misunderstand the term ‘ethnic cleansing’ – it doesn’t require genocide. Genocide is about killing people, ethnic cleansing is more about clearing them out of a given territory so that it is homogeneously populated with ‘your people’. The separatists want ethnic Georgians to leave all the disputed areas, and I suspect most Georgians have indeed left the disputed areas in the last few days, and even surrounding areas which were previously not disputed. Will they be able to return when the fighting stops? Will their former homes eventually be rebuilt, and then inhabited by Abkhaz and Ossetians? Then it is fair to say that these areas are being ethnically cleansed – one ethnic group is replacing another by coercive means.
I’m not saying Russia particularly wants to ethnically cleanse these places either – but it is enough that Moscow doesn’t care if ethnic cleansing takes place, and will protect local separatist forces from any repercussions.
Russia seems to be indulging in a fair amount of number 2. as well. There are still Russian tanks patrolling Poti and Gori, dealing with ‘hotbeds of resistance’. Huh? Nobody disputes Georgian sovereignty over these towns, not even the separatists. The only reason is to conduct punitive operations against the Georgian military to rule out any repeat performance on their part.
None of this is to excuse the actions of the Georgian government, by the way. There’s no sign they showed any restraint either. They should have known Russia would react to any move on South Ossetia, and now ordinary people in the region are paying the price – a few with their lives, but many thousands with their homes destroyed and nowhere to live. The Georgian military has a share of the direct blame in the scale of destruction as well, especially in Tskhinvali.
ethnic cleansing is more about clearing them out of a given territory so that it is homogeneously populated with ‘your people’.
Just like what Saakashvili tried on Friday — he clearly intended to make all Ossetians flee — why he was indiscriminately and disproportionate bombed capital of S. Ossetia, while leaving tunnel open?
Pingback: Democratic Peace Theory and the Georgian-Russian War « The 8th Circle
The silence from the leadership of the EU is mind boggling to me! (exception France)
I think Russia got what it wanted from this war. Georgia became a very dangerous place for a very long time and this will jeopardize future energy investments in that region.
Ekonomix
http://turkeconomy.blogspot.com
The Russian invasion of Georgia will accelerate the admission of the Ukraine to NATO.
Then the next time Putin wants to invade one of the former soviet republics (oh wait, he’s already planning it) Russian armed forces will have a bit of fight on their hands, unlike the Georgian incursion.
Mutual defense treaties aren’t worth much when you launch an offensive with armor and artillery and thus start the war. The people you have a treaty with say “sorry, we didn’t sign up to support you in that situation” and that’s that. Georgia started this war, and got whupped. End of story.
Treaties, in general, are complied with only insofar as it is in the best interests of the parties involved. Otherwise they get torn up and/or ignored. Tell me about how it’s in the best interests of France or Germany to go to war against Russia. It is to laugh. France sends NATO forces to fight the Taliban because the costs are slight and it makes sure they have support from the U.S. if their own interests are ever threatened. But the Taliban is not armed with nuclear weapons, and the Taliban doesn’t control the gas supply to much of Europe…
ths wbst t brng, pls dlt t. Pnt Bttr jlly TM!!!!!!!!
Pingback: Warrock hacks