Kurt Bassuener September 21st, 2008

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin today met with French Prime Minister Francois Fillon, and was adamant that only the “states” of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, together with Russia, would determine Russian force levels in the two breakaway regions of Georgia.

“As you know, we recognised South Ossetia’s and Abkhazia’s independence in the same way as many European countries recognized Kosovo’s independence,” he told Russian TV.

“The question of our armed forces’ presence on these territories will be agreed on bilateral basis, in line with international law and on the basis of agreements between Russia and the states in question.”

This was another humiliation for France, as it directly contravened a six-point ceasefire deal hammered out by President Sarkozy between Georgia and Russia. 

As part of the deal Russia agreed that its troops should return to pre-conflict positions.

Moscow has already announced plans to keep about 8,000 troops in the regions - far more than were there previously.

Today South Ossetian forces paraded in captured Georgian military equipment, including US-manufactured Humvees, in commemoration of its independence day.

Aside from Russia, only Nicaragua recognizes South Ossetian or Abkhazian independence.  An effort last month by President Medvedev to get the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which includes Russia, China, and Central Asian states to endorse Russia’s action did not achieve the desired result for Russia.  Even Belarus, which was chastised by Russian diplomats for being insufficiently supportive of Moscow’s invasion, has yet to recognize the two regions as independent, though it claims it intends to do so.  One wonders where Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who just hosted a pair of Russian Tupolev “Blackjack” bombers, and Cuban leader Raul Castro are on this…

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Eric Witte August 11th, 2008

Proposals for stronger western action to defend Georgia from Russia’s invasion have tended to be short on specifics.  For example, Bill Kristol asks in yesterday’s New York Times:

Shouldn’t we therefore now insist that normal relations with Russia are impossible as long as the aggression continues, strongly reiterate our commitment to the territorial integrity of Georgia and Ukraine, and offer emergency military aid to Georgia?

The first proposal is a given - as long as the attack continues, western relations with Russia will be anything but normal.  That seems like weak motivation for Putin to call an end to the war while such tantalizing goals remain within his grasp. 

The second action is only a verbal commitment absent other actions.  As I wrote earlier, at least with regard to Ukraine, it could actually be helpful in defining its sovereignty as a red line for the West.  But I’m not sure it does anything for Georgia at this point. 

The third proposal - emergency military aid - is more concrete when it comes to doing something to defend Georgia now, but Russia has moved swiftly and controls Georgia’s airspace.  How would emergency military aid even be delivered?  Would Georgia still have a functioning military by the time it got there?  Then, of course, there’s the question of how Russia would respond.

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Eric Witte August 11th, 2008

Over at the European Council on Foreign Relations, Andrew Wilson mourns the European Union’s disunity over Georgia prior to the outbreak of war. 

I think Wilson strikes the right balance in attributing the eruption of fighting to a mix of Mikheil Saakashvili’s blundering and Russia’s provocation:

“The South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali is surprisingly close to Tbilisi. But a quick campaign made no sense from Saakashvili’s position of weakness. He may have built up his armed forces with American help since 2004, but his most important assets are moral, although his image as the leader of a beleaguered democracy was already tarnished by his suppression of anti-government demonstrations in Tbilisi last November.

Saakashvili may have thought the Olympics Games would give him cover, especially as Putin was in Beijing and Russia hosts the next Winter Games just over the border in Sochi in 2014. But this only made him look duplicitous, especially as he announced a ceasefire just before launching the invasion.

The Georgian may therefore already be losing the all-important propaganda war. The Russians always thought Saakashvili would be easy to provoke and have been prodding and jabbing since the spring. A minority of Nato states may argue that the conflict increases the case for Georgian membership, but in others, scepticism is more likely to grow.”

But Wilson argues that it’s not only Georgia that has overplayed its hand.  Russia has as well:

“Both sides risk serious collateral damage: the Georgians to their Nato and EU ambitions, the Russians to President Medvedev’s proposals for a new security treaty in Europe and to their relations with the incoming US president. […] Both sides have miscalculated, but, for all the talk of “genocide”, both have incentives to step back from the brink.”

I’m much less optimistic that Russia has miscalculated in this situation.  I don’t see how prospects for a new security treaty in Europe or the vague lure of getting off to a good start with the new U.S. president will be enough to offset Russia’s interest in ousting a pesky pro-western leader on its border, re-asserting control over its “near abroad” and increasing its grip over Europe’s energy supplies.  Regarding the U.S. relationship, Ronald Asmus and Richard Holbrooke may be correct that Russia intends to oust Saakashvili before the American election so that ties can be perceived as being on the mend again by the time of the January 20 presidential inaguration.

Wilson calls on the EU to work with NATO, the OSCE, UN and U.S. to push for a truly international peacekeeping force.  From the context, he seems to mean that this force would replace the Russian-led “peacekeeping missions” in the two disputed regions.  From Moscow’s position of power right now, I find it hard to imagine any such concession. 

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Kurt Bassuener August 11th, 2008

Al Jazeera English just reported that Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili just signed a ceasefire agreement with the French and Finnish Foreign Ministers, Bernard Kouchner and Alexander Stubb.  It has reportedly already been rejected by Russia.  The two men are now touring bomb damage in Gori on live TV with their Georgian counterpart.  They reportedly had to duck and cover from a Russian bombing sortie.

How much traction he will get with it is far from clear.  This action by Russia, while given a pretext by the Tskhinvali operation by the Georgians, was clearly in the works for some time, given the weight of force applied and the wide spread area of operations.  As Eric Witte noted earlier, the Russian government has been open about the desire to see Saakashvili ousted.  Vitali Churkin, the Russian UN Ambassador, said the following yesterday in a sharp exchange with US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad:

Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador, accused Moscow of seeking “regime change” in Georgia and resisting attempts to make peace after days of deadly fighting.

“Is your government’s objective regime change in Georgia, the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Georgia?” Khalilzad asked Vitaly Churkin, the Russian ambassador.

Churkin said “regime change is an American expression. We do not use such an expression”.

But he added: “But sometimes there are occasions, and we know from history, that there are different leaders who come to power, either democratically or semi-democratically, and they become an obstacle.”

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Putin, who is clearly and literally calling the shots, has only upsides from this increasingly ambitious attack within Georgia.  He bet - correctly - that there would be no active military response from the outside (and none is foreseeable).  He managed to paint Saakashvili as rash and irresponsible.  He is betting that ultimately Georgian domestic support for the government will wane as Russia continues its assault.  And he’s betting that this war will not only reduce the likelihood of Georgia getting into NATO, but reduce NATO and American credibility in Russia’s “near abroad” and beyond.  The US and NATO may come to be seen as an unreliable ally.

Georgians have asked what their troop deployment to Iraq got them, now that the US is not intervening in Georgia.  This is a fair and understandable question.   The term “ally” has been devalued in the past seven years through the Bush administration’s “with us or against us” approach, and expectation that NATO applicants should send troops to Afghanistan and Iraq - the latter a war none of these countries had a voice in choosing.  Allies are supposed to consult and listen to each other, and take each other’s interests into account before engaging in a conflict.  It is doubtful that Saakashvili did so before he sent troops into Tskhinvali.  Neither Tblisi or Washington had apparently planned for this eventuality, despite it being foreseeable. 

All the opprobrium of the international community has not made a dent in Russia’s plan to crush Georgia. 

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Eric Witte August 11th, 2008

As Russia

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pushes its ground forces into central Georgia, it’s not clear what its ultimate goals are.  According to Washington, Russia has made clear that it seeks to remove Mikheil Saakashvili.  Will Moscow stop there?  There’s a distinct danger that Vladimir Putin (and it seems fairly clear in all of this that from his prime minister’s perch, he’s still calling the shots) could try to move beyond sidelining the pro-western leadership of Georgia and look for a reason to turn on Ukraine.  For the West so far, it’s not clear what exactly can be done about Georgia without risking war with Russia.  The U.S. may try to fly back the 2,000 Georgian troops in Iraq, but what difference would that make - assuming Russia even allows the transport flight to land?  Russia will have 2,000 more targets: not much more than a speed bump. 

Looking past Georgia, perhaps NATO should think ahead and establish a clear red line with regard to Ukraine.  That way, it is Russia that would have to actively risk militarily provoking the West in order to expand the war into Ukraine, not the West having to decide following a potential Russian assault on Ukraine whether it wants to actively risk war with Russia.  

This wouldn’t do anything for Georgia, but could help to avoid worst-case scenarios. 

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Kurt Bassuener August 10th, 2008

The conflict that began in the Georgian breakaway enclave of South Ossetia on August 7 shows no sign of ending, with Russian aircraft bombarding targets well outside the conflict zone - outside the capital, in the Black Sea port of Poti, and in the city immediately south of South Ossetia, Gori, which had been a staging area for the Georgian effort to re-establish sovereignty over South Ossetia’s capital, Tskhinvali.  Some of the best reporting comes from Al Jazeera English’s Jonah Hull, who has been in the conflict zone since before Saakashvili’s effort to retake South Ossetia, by interviewing refugees moving into North Ossetia, in Russia.  His footage of civilian casualties in Gori yesterday was bracing.

The conflict has now expanded to Georgia’s other separatist area, Abkhazia, which has called for UN military observers to leave, and has mobilized its armed forces to approach its self-declared borders and itself declared a state of war, citing an “obligation” to support South Ossetia.  Georgia claims thousands Russian troops have landed in Abkhazia, and the Russian Black Sea Fleet, based at Sevastopol in Ukraine’s Crimea, is establishing a blockade off the Georgian coast - though Moscow denies this is the case.

Georgia is calling for a ceasefire, but Russia has not yet taken them up on it, apparently aiming to secure both South Ossetia and Abkhazia.  Georgia declares that is is withdrawing its forces from Tskhinvali, but Russia disputes this - a

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BBC correspondent claimed that there was still some combat going on.  US Ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad claimed that Russian forces were preventing the withdrawal of the Georgian troops.  Russia is demanding a unilateral withdrawal of Georgian forces from South Ossetia and a signed agreemement with South Ossetia of non-aggression as conditions for a cease fire.  Russian UN Ambassador Vitali Churkin was in rare form in the UNSC today, asking whether 2000 civilian casualties and tens of thousands of refugees constituted a genocide, and mused whether the Georgians thought Russian peacekeepers in a pre-conflict joint force would have “run away” like those in Srebrenica…

In his speech to announce a state of war yesterday, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili called on the West to assist Georgia with acts, not words, and repeatedly cited Georgian democracy and international values.  Russia, too, is citing international standards, claiming this operation is “peace enforcement” and ”humanitarian intervention,” using terms to mimic those employed in 1999 with regard to the NATO operation in Kosovo.  Vitali Churkin made this link directly in rebutting Khalilzad’s criticism of attacks outside the conflict zone, citing bombing of Belgrade in 1999.

Russia seems to have been waiting for a pretext to “teach Georgia a lesson” for some time, annoyed by its persistent efforts to get into NATO and the EU, and citing Kosovo as a precedent for its intervention.  Prime Minister Putin is firmly in charge, arriving directly in North Ossetia from the Olympics in Beijing to command the operation.  He may even be aiming to get Saakashvili ousted from within.  That does not look in the immediate offing. 

But what does seem clear is that Saakashvili dramatically miscalculated his position when he attempted to seize Tskhinvali, and gave Russia the rope to hang him with.  His calls for international support are being met only in the diplomatic realm, but it is hard to see what else he could have expected when picking a fight with his much stronger and increasingly assertive neighbor.  Far from drawing closer to the EU and NATO, the war that Georgia has stumbled into makes these goals that much less likely.

Yet without a doubt, calling the Russian military action “disproportionate” is accurate.  Putin senses there is no external will to resist his drive, and he’s certainly correct.  But the Russian war in Georgia may have the opposite consequence than Putin intended, convincing other neighbors of the need to get into binding arrangements with the West, rather than deterring them.

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Eric Witte March 3rd, 2008

In a profile appearing in today’s Financial Times, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso is quoted as saying, “Because of my own experience in Portugal, to me Europe means, above all, freedom - but also an ideal of solidarity.”

Russians who oppose Vladimir Putin and his anointed successor Dmitri Medvedev might be excused for doubting Barroso’s commitment to solidarity in the name of their freedom.  As a delegation from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe noted, problems with candidate registration cast doubt on how free Sunday’s elections were, and vast media and other state support for Medvedev calls into question their fairness.  Today, as riot police cracked down on opposition protestors in Moscow, one man told the Associated Press: “Fifteen years ago I wouldn’t have thought that my children would be growing up in a country that reminds me so much of the Soviet Union.”  Ukrainians may well also have been recalling Soviet days under Moscow’s rule today, as Russian gas monopoly Gazprom slashed deliveries to Ukraine by a full quarter within hours of Medvedev’s victory.  This surely grabbed the attention of Brussels, recalling disruptions in Russian gas supplies to the EU at the beginning of 2006.

Whether the Gazprom disruption was intended as a shot across the bow or not, when the European Commission released a statement from Barroso today (link not yet available), he congratulated Medvedev on his election but made no reference to its democratic deficit.  For Barroso, Europe may mean freedom, but Russia - and its authoritarian leaders - increasingly mean energy.  

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