On August 8, as the world watched the Olympic Opening Ceremonies in Beijing, China, Russian tanks rumbled into the former Soviet Republic of Georgia in Central Asia, breaking that tiny country beneath the behemoth that is Russia.
However, to understand the full story behind this situation, a brief history listen is required. Georgia is a Central Asian country wedged between the Black and Caspian Seas that borders Turkey, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Russian Empire annexed Georgia and the controversial provinces, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, in the early and mid 1800s. Amidst the chaos that World War I brought to Russia, Georgia gained independence from Russia in 1918. However, in 1921 the Soviet Red Army invaded and retook Georgia, making it a Soviet Republic. Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin later ordered Abkhazia to consolidate with Georgia in 1931. Later, in 1991, as the Soviet Union was dissolving, Georgia voted to leave the USSR by popular referendum (a vote of the people). With the yoke of the strict Communist system gone, nationalism drove Ossetians and Abkhazians to fight for Independence from Georgia. Georgian forces were forced out of both regions in 1992 although most of the world, including the West, continued to recognize them as part of Georgia while the provinces wished for a return to Russia. Tensions remained high throughout the 1990s and early 2000s as peace talks often break down and small conflicts erupt. However, into this picture came a resurgent Russia. Under President Vladimir Putin, Russia took a nationalistic and authoritarian turn as high oil prices pour billions into the Russian treasury and Putin begins to modernize the military, decaying since the fall of the Soviet Union. Russian policy is bolder, as Russian bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons begin to make Cold War era practice runs in the direction of Europe and Japan as well American military targets throughout Asia and Europe. Wishing to restore Russia to its former Soviet glory, Putin laid claim to “all former Soviet property” as well as taking strategic positions to aid pro-Moscow factions, in this case extending Russian citizenship to Ossetians and Abkhazians, as well as curbing civil liberties and silencing dissent--the Russian government was accused of involvement in the fatal radiation poisoning of a critical journalist in Britain as well as the dioxin poisoning of a Ukrainian Presidential candidate critical of Moscow.
Back to 2008, tensions between South Ossetia and Georgia escalate through the year, and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Putin, now Prime Minister, reserve the right to defend “Russians” in the provinces, who had been given citizenship by Russia. Tensions boil over in early August, with each side claiming the other fired first. On August 6, Georgian troops entered South Ossetia and made large gains. In response, the Russians move their military to the defense of South Ossetia. The Georgian Army was quickly overwhelmed and in retreat. Abkhazians, seeing their chance, engage Georgian troops on their border in combat, and Russia expands their military action to aid Abkhazia. The Georgian President, Mikheil Saakashvili, declared a state of emergency and of war with war with Russia. Georgia called up all her reserves and pulled it’s entire contingent out of Iraq.
By Sunday, August 10, Georgian troops submitted to the Russian demand of withdrawal from South Ossetia and called for a ceasefire. The Russians rejected their request and that of the Western world including President Bush, the Presidential candidates, and Pope Benedict XVI for a cease to hostilities. Going beyond their original demands, the Russian Army invaded Georgia proper, taking the city of Gori, just south of South Ossetia. On Monday, August 11, Russia invaded Georgian controlled territory from Abkhazia, opening a second front in the war while Russian troops used the central city of Gori to take crucial highways, dividing Georgia in two as Georgian troops retreat to defensive positions around the capital city of Tbilisi.
Russia maintains that she has not started or intends to start an offensive despite Russian troops occupying Gori, the Senaki Georgian Army base, invading with their Black Sea fleet, and using air dominance to target radar stations and infrastructure around the Georgian capital, allegedly including a civilian airport. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin maintains that Russia is in the right, accusing Georgia of genocide while the Georgian government accuses the Russian Army of ethnic cleansing of ethnic Georgians within the provinces. The Russian aggression has been criticized by many Western leaders. Particular disgust and worry has come from Eastern European countries that were in the Soviet sphere of influence during the Cold War. Ukraine has reserved the right to bar the Russian Navy from returning to their Crimean bases due to their deployment to Georgia--the Russian Navy has a lease on those bases until 2017. Meanwhile, Poland and the three Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, condemned Russia and urge NATO and the West to take a firmer stance. The Presidents of those four nations are planning to travel to Georgia to stand with the Georgian President while French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
My Take
It is interesting to note that this come amid efforts by Georgia and the Ukraine to enter NATO, and that Georgia provides a pipeline for oil for Western Europe, bypassing Russia--the largest supplier of oil and natural gas to Europe. Also, Georgia was a rumored sight of radar bases for the proposed missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. Coincidence?
I think not. Tensions have escalated and eased for over 15 years in Georgia, but Russia is ready with a full invasion force of tens of thousands of men, hundreds of tanks, and precise air strikes NOW. This an obviously planned act of Russia flexing its reconstituted strength over its old sphere of dominance, peeved by Eastern expansion of NATO and the European Union into said sphere and NATO’s 1999 intervention in Kosovo, stripping that province from Serbia--an old Russian ally.
It is foolish to think that Russia ever had designs simply to aid “Russians” in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. One must only look at the history with dealing with states that begin to lean Western. Consider the Soviet invasions of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. As well as the historical echo of another authoritarian regime: Hitler’s Germany initially demanded the absorption of Sudetenland Germans before taking all of Czechoslovakia in 1938. Is Georgia marked by Russia for absorption? Will merely a blatantly pro-Moscow government be installed? No proof exists for either scenario, but Putin had ominous words directed at the pro-America Georgian President Saakashvili, alluding to the fate of the Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein: "Of course, Saddam Hussein ought to have been hanged for destroying several Shiite villages," Putin said in Moscow. "And the incumbent Georgian leaders who razed ten Ossetian villages at once, who ran elderly people and children with tanks, who burned civilian alive in their sheds — these leaders must be taken under protection." Will another name be added to the list of people whose blood is already allegedly on Putin’s hands?
Verily, Russia stands most to gain from the annexation or at least the deposing of the current government. Greater control of European oil, denting U.S. plans for a defensive missile shield, regaining an old friend, insulating Georgia from NATO and EU expansion, a re-assertion of Russian power for the world to see, and, perhaps most importantly, the harming of American clout in foreign affairs. The United States left the Cold War the greatest power in the history of the world. No country had the ability to project power as the U.S. could. Grateful for aid in rolling back Communism by pressuring the Soviets, Eastern Europe has been especially loyal to the U.S., siding with the U.S. and supporting it when Western Europe has been skeptical. If Georgia, a de facto ally of the United States, is overrun by Russia and bent to Moscow’s desired position, what does that say of the U.S.? Its word? Its ability to protect other nations? If Russia sees the U.S. sit and don’t back up its talk, what do you think will be Russia’s designs for the former Soviet states not yet in NATO’s protective embrace? What will other countries, China in Asia, and others think of American threats? The deck is stacked in Russia’s favor. Russia holds a veto vote in the UN Security Council. The U.S. and NATO will not intervene and risk nuclear war. Russia can get away with whatever it wants in Georgia bar some “super solution,” but none existed in 1956 and 1968, and none exists now.
Although Georgia is essentially doomed militarily and has little hope of aid in that respect, there are measures that can be taken by the U.S. and the West. The immediate acceptance of the Ukraine into NATO would remove another target out of Russia’s reach, limiting their military scope and forcing Russia to take a new approach to its foreign policy. Baring Russia out of the WTO, GATT, and removal from the G-8 would isolate Russia in trade. Additionally, a heightened drive for energy independence: offshore drilling, exploration in natural gas rich Scandinavia, alternative fuels like hydrogen, nuclear power, wind power, and even properly inflating tires. In time, Russia’s great hold on the West, energy, will be diminished. Russia wants to return to the glory of the Soviet Empire. It will take the Cold War cooperation of America and the West to stop them.
Election ’08
Barack Obama has mostly echoed calls by the UN, the EU, NATO, and President Bush in calling for an immediate ceasefire as well as a return to diplomacy. John McCain has been more direct and forceful in his rhetoric against Russia, calling on the West to use leverage against Russia such as acceptance into international organizations as well as diplomatic pressure, saying "We must remind Russia's leaders that the benefits they enjoy from being part of the civilized world require their respect for the values, stability and peace of that world." When the Obama campaign called his remarks needlessly belligerent, McCain declared Obama’s policy tantamount to appeasement. This crisis provides the candidates with a genuine foreign policy test, something that debate points can’t cover.
More pictures are available here.
Links
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080811/ap_on_re_eu/georgia_south_ossetia
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/08/11/georgia.russia/index.html
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/08/10/2330218.htm
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080812/ap_on_re_eu/un_georgia_russia;_ylt=AlsrDrovDM7jxiIHeSLf3yp0bBAF
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080810/ap_on_re_eu/ukraine_russia_georgia;_ylt=AujWN3X6J0shGynjcB3O4OV0bBAF
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080811/ap_on_re_eu/eastern_europe_russia_georgia;_ylt=Atq9qa8kSFp2U0VpT6sParJ0bBAF
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/47174.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20080811/wl_mcclatchy/3015456
http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20080809/pl_politico/12409
1 comment:
Bravo, bravo.
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