From the BBC News site:
France’s anti-immigrant party, the National Front, is selling its headquarters to a Chinese university, according to the party leader. (…) Mr Le Pen, 79, has campaigned to become president several times under the slogan “Keep France for the French”.
One might have expected a bit more chauvinistic heroism, no?
I hadn’t paid much attention to this Reuters report from yesterday: it says that mobile rocket launchers are being ‘given priority’ in the queue of armor moving from Russia into South Ossetia / Georgia. These are Soviet-era weapons which are said to have a range of 35 km. There may be a propaganda angle to this news item, of course.
While I still think we have to make an effort to incorporate the situation into a larger view of things – and I’ll admit that this effort can lead to some fairly strange-sounding statements – it’s dawning on me that there is an appalling local precedent: the 1999-2000 siege of Grozny, in which the city was more or less levelled through use of artillery, including rocket artillery. This has to be seen as a worst case outcome for Tbilisi and Georgia. However, there’s not much doubt that the players involved have form.
One of the least pleasant things about this episode is the lack of any honest attempt on the part of the Russian leadership to give a clear account of its aims and intent.
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.
(Update: Link fixed thanks to an observant commenter.)
It was inevitable: exit stage left the images of death and destruction from Georgia on American television (especially the ones seen frequently on Russia Today), and enter the war’s implications for the Presidential election. Specifically, this detailed statement from John McCain (with a brief preview from The Politico), showing his sense at vindication at his long-time anti-Russia stance (recall his repeated mockery of Bush’s claimed insights into Putin’s soul and his proposal to expel Russia from the G8). His most radical proposal is for a NATO peacekeeping force for Georgia (although the phrasing is a little unclear about who would supply the forces) along with NATO membership for Georgia. If you were trying to find a way to irritate the Russians even more (and understanding this war surely requires some ability to see things from their side), McCain has hit the jackpot. Whether he’s showing much of his supposed foreign policy nous is another story entirely.
Q: Hello Radio Yerevan, was it a good idea to leave Tbilisi on Sunday?
A: In principle, yes. Though it would be better if one of the vehicles in the caravan does not break down after the lunch break in northern Armenia.
Q: Dzien dobry Radio Yerevan, is it a good idea to have local talent repair a broken vehicle?
A: In principle, yes. Though this will mean many people looking over many shoulders, a lack of technical communication, and there are dialectic limits to what can be done on the scene.
Q: Jo napot Radio Yerevan, if the vehicle cannot be repaired on the spot, is it acceptable to have it towed to the mechanic’s garage?
A: In principle, yes, especially if all of the women and children have gone onward in another vehicle. Though it would be better if the tow rope would not break twice on the narrow mountain road. Also, overtaking is generally not recommended at this stage of development.
Q: Dober dan Radio Yerevan, is it permissible to leave the vehicle at the mechanic’s unmarked garage, at an unfindable location in a city you are unfamiliar with?
A: In principle, no. But there are not many other options at this point, are there?
Q: Laba diena Radio Yerevan, is it good doctrine to take a taxi to Yerevan?
A: In principle, no. The people’s transportation should suffice. However, the taxi provided by the people’s representative may be the least aggravating part of the whole journey.
Q: Bari or, Radio Yerevan. What are all these shops doing open after midnight? Is this the new party line?
In principle, no. The party line is to be found in the cafes and the dance clubs. Welcome to Yerevan!
Various sources are reporting that the Russians have rolled out of South Ossetia and into Georgia proper, and are mounting a major attack on the town of Gori. Gori is about 15-20 km south of the South Ossetian border, and about 70-80 km from Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital. Russian forces are also massing along Georgia’s border with Abkhazia, preparing to open a second front there.
The Russians are also sending signals about regime change; Foreign Minister Lavrov said that Russia “no longer sees [Saakashvili] as a partner”. They’re also ostentatiously ignoring Georgia’s request for a cease-fire.
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The war has a retrograde feel says Charlie. I believe* it’s only the third conventional war between two countries since the Gulf war. They were far more common during the cold war era.
The other was the Ethiopia-Eritrea war**, and…Iraq. One hopes retro hasn’t become fashionable following a weakening of the international law. That would be very, very bad.
*Clashes between India and Pakistan and Ecuador and Peru didn’t involve declarations of war, although his war may still turn out to be as brief, we can hope, though maybe with a bigger death toll. The Armenia-Azerbaijan war went on after the Gulf war, but started as a conflict within the Soviet Union in the late 80s.
** So two out of three wars involves countries recently separated, which gives them a slightly retro civil war feel, which I suppose is a hopeful thought.
James Sherr writes in today’s Telegraph:
… Russia is exasperated with the West and also contemptuous of it. In the Georgian conflict, as in the more subtle variants of energy diplomacy, Russians have shown a harshly utilitarian asperity in connecting means and ends. In exchange, we appear to present an unfocused commitment to values and process. Our democracy agenda has earned the resentment not only of Russia’s elite but of the ordinary people who are delighted to see Georgia being taught a lesson. Our divisions arouse derision.
I suspect that this kind of writing will seem alarmist in hindsight. For a while now, I’ve had the view that it’s probably better not to talk up Russia and Russian strength. From the playground perspective, that kind of talk only encourages the bully. More importantly, it gets things out of proportion, and lack of proportion surely belongs to the psychology of escalation.
There’s a distinct retrograde character to this week’s events. This makes following the news exciting, but nonetheless I don’t think we’re seeing the beginning of a return to the state of affairs pre-1989. For a start, with communism, for decades, there was the fear that maybe, just maybe, the reds might be outproducing us. In other words, whether or not communism was ethically sound, it worked. (And there’s more than a hint of this mentality with respect to China today.) I tend to believe that if you follow this road assiduously you get to a situation where – through reference to some sort of biological analogy – ‘strength’ or ‘fitness’ is given as the highest purpose of a nation. This bad.
Luckily, we don’t need to go there: communism (at least, communism as practised by the Russians) turned out not to work. The consequences are still with Russia today, and can be seen at various levels and in various applications, including military applications. For example, shells fired from a Leopard 2 will likely pass clean through the hull of a T-80, but not vice versa. (Korolev’s rocket designs were good, admittedly.) It’s only because military investment was such a high priority in the USSR that we see today’s Russia in possession of a variety of functional materiel.
Now that we can measure it,* we find that Russia’s GDP is approximately equal to that of Portugal Brazil (which is not to knock Brazil). Much of Russia’s wealth comes from resource extraction: in other words, Russia is not making stuff. Is it thinking stuff instead? Well, is there a nascent biotech or semiconductor industry in Russia today? (Or is there maybe some other, more esoteric kind of activity that hasn’t yet permeated popular consciousness?) How are Russian universities doing?
Russia is fairly populous, although no one would call it densely populated. However, its population is shrinking; in part, because it is not a healthy country.
So we’re left with territory – Russia borders a lot of places – and with its military, which still has some potency. Put those two together, and maybe it’s not surprising that some Russian tanks will pop across the border from time to time. Or at least, they’ll want to.
One thing I found hard to understand about the last few days was the BTC pipeline bombing. I don’t think that anyone doubts that the Russian air force could hit it eventually, if they chose, but what would be the point? There’s no short term strategic consequence: nothing exclusively depends on that particular piece of infrastructure. So unless the Russians bombed it every day – which in itself would delay a profitable peace – they’d only see the thing rebuilt. If on the other hand, they wanted the pipeline – preciousss – for themselves, they’d have to invade (and take any further consequences). This possibility must be on people’s minds, but it seems less likely today than it did yesterday. My suspicion is that the Russians simply missed the pipeline, and then, having thought things through, decided not to have another go.
My geostrategic recommendation, for what little it’s worth: have strong words with the Ukrainians so that the Russians are allowed to take their boats home unmolested. Negotiate the introduction of a UN monitoring force to be stationed somewhere in the vicinity of South Ossetia. Continue to reduce dependency on oil and gas. And wait. Looking back, one lesson is this: if the Georgians had been militarily competent, they could have made this particular excursion punishingly difficult. The terrain favours defence. Whatever training and equipping may have been going on, it was obviously not up to scratch: we’ve just seen a failure of basic, local deterrence.
*Probably not a straightforward job
I’m writing this in advance, so things may change during the night, but my better half’s foundation made evacuation mandatory Saturday afternoon, so off we go. We’re on our way to Yerevan to see if things subside reasonably quickly. I hope so, as I really like Tbilisi and was enjoying settling in there. One way or another, we’ll be going back to a very different environment.