Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Newsvine
Facebook
Google
Yahoo
TechnoratiGeorgia: Background to War
Perhaps the most ironic statement yet in the war of words over Russia's military intervention in Georgia was John McCain's assertion that "I'm interested in good relations between the United States and Russia, but in the 21st century, nations don't invade other nations." Too bad no one told the Bush administration that before it went into Iraq.
With the situation changing by the hour, it's hard to give an up-to-date analysis of the war in Georgia. But it is possible to talk a bit about the roots of the conflict, and what might be done going forward.
As Michael Dobbs has noted in the Washington Post, the conflict is best seen "against the background of the complicated ethnic politics of the Caucasus, a part of the world where historical grudges run deep, and the oppressed can become the oppressor in the blink of an eye." The war started when Georgia invaded South Ossetia, a semi-autonomous region that Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has promised to bring back under full Georgian control. The Russian response has been disproportionate, to put it mildly, but Moscow didn't fire the first shots. Georgia is sort of an "empire within an empire," trying to consolidate control of South Ossetia and Abkhazia against their will, even as the Putin/Mededev regime in Russia tries to weaken Georgia in hopes of forcing it to dump Saakashvili and install a pro-Russian leader.
Then there's the broader context. The United States has been arming and training Georgia's armed forces throughout the Bush years under the guise of fighting terrorism, but it's fair to say that a stronger motive may be the fact that the critical Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline -- an outlet for oil from Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan that bypasses Russian territory -- runs smack through Georgian territory.
U.S. military ties to countries on or near Russia's borders have caused alarm in Moscow -- much as it would in Washington if Russia was arming Canada and Mexico. Provocative acts by the U.S. since the end of the Cold War have included the expansion of NATO up to Russia's western borders; the creation of U.S. military bases in Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and other former Soviet Republics along Russia's southern flank; U.S. support for Kosovo's independence over Moscow's objections; and the current plans to station a U.S. missile defense system in Central Europe. The Bush administration's push to add Georgia and the Ukraine to NATO as well would leave a situation in which U.S. military forces or U.S.-armed and trained forces were encircling Russia.
It should be noted that among the biggest boosters of Georgian membership in NATO are John McCain and his chief foreign policy advisor Randy Scheunemann, a leading player in the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq who was a paid lobbyist for the Saakashvili government as recently as last March.
These U.S. actions toward Russia don't justify Moscow's invasion of Georgia, but they are certainly contributing factors. And if Saakashvili didn't feel that he was the darling of Washington, he might not have been so quick to invade South Ossetia in the first place, and this war might not have happened.
As veteran defense correspondent Fred Kaplan of Slate has noted, the best thing the U.S. can do going forward is to build better relations with Russia by holding regular summits -- as was done during the Cold War -- and remove irritants to U.S.-Russian relations by pledging that Georgia will not be allowed to join NATO, and that the U.S. will not place missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic. While neo-conservatives may shout "appeasement" and argue that Russia is being "rewarded" for invading Georgia, the alternatives are slim and none. Even Charles Krauthammer, a hawk among hawks, has written "Let's be real. There's nothing to be done militarily" in Georgia. His alternatives -- kicking Russia out of the G-8 group of industrial nations, boycotting the 2014 Olympics in Russia, and opposing Russian entry into the World Trade Organization -- are significant, but Moscow can handle them if it thinks the alternative is caving in to the West on issues that it views as central to its security. So, the alternative is diplomacy, not cranking up the rhetoric and starting a new Cold War (which, thankfully, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has said the U.S. should not do).
William D. Hartung is the director of the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation.
28 Comments so far
Show AllSo many excellent comments on this article! It helps to have had a few days to gather more information from many sources and to have (a little) time to put it in perspective.
Almost none of these comments could be considered the "Knee-Jerk" variety.
Thanks to all of you!
jimmyjazz August 15th, 2008 4:50 pm."Of course, Bush's foreign policy has been pretty successful for the people it was supposed to benefit. Not perfect, but quite good overall."
I couldn't agree more. Irag was meant to be dismantled as a society, and a threat to Israel. To that end, Irag is a resounding success, not for us tax payers, and our soldier grunts, but for AIPAC and the neocons.
Iran would have been another success, had it not been for Adm. Fallon and other true patriots in the military and in our civil society.
Georgian soldiers are trained and armed by us and Israel. The war they started is the latest attempt to empower them (and their sometime allies the oil companies, at great cost to you and I.
Thank goodness their time is running out.
What a great and important article by Hartung! He has hit the nail on the head as have most of the respondants that have preceded my note - - I'd write more, but to do so would just be a repetition of the true background behind this Caucasus mess which the MSM have found it convenient to ignore in the light of what has been fed to them by the cabal inside the Beltway.
Jaded Prole
Thanks, reasonable analysis, but "Poland and Czech Republic driven by IRRESPONSIBLE hatred of Russia"! ? Where have you been?
How they direct that energy is another matter of course.
Thanks for the link, tetti_tatti, though he's a conservative, Buchanan makes the case better than most liberals.
dager, sheep are not allowed to wander from the flock, what are you doing here, so far away from freerepublic.com?
Let a true conservative teach you a thing or two about dictators and empires:
Blowback From Bear-Baiting
by Patrick J. Buchanan
http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=13305
Fidel is a dictator, why would any one listen to what he said. Those who think Cuba is so great should live there and try to protest the goverment and see how quick you are thrown in jail or shot. Fidel is pro-Russian and will always be, they kept his goverment going for all those years. Russia is imperlistic, always has and always will be, just need to contain them because if allowed they would conquer all of europe.
God help us.
We have reached a stage where a CNN talking head...get ready...
was telestrating the likely path of Russian ICBMs to hit the US, as opposed to Iranian ICBMs, illustrating the need for the missile defense system we just signed on with Poland.
And what does Bush do? He tells the already retreating Russians (from Georgia territory) that they must leave. What does Russia do? They effectively tell Bush to fek off and they stop leaving. The idiot takes away their "face saving" by telling them they must leave! So instead of looking like they're bowing to Bush's demands, they stop leaving. These people (Bush and Cheney) are leading us into at a minimum Cold War II and in the worst case nuclear war! Please. We must impeach them. For humanity's sake.
I am not a Cassandra. Can we not all see the path we're on?!!!
The thing people fail to realize is Saakashvili was set up. No way he goes into S. Ossetia without a promise of US support, which never came, forcing him to retreat.
So what was the purpose?. It is the first small step towards positioning for another World War. The media was obviously told to make Russia look like a bad guy, and Russia is certainly not an innocent lamb. This is also happening in China over Tibet and the Olympics, not to mention Zimbabwe and Sudan and elsewhere.
Now, the UN is unable to take any action in these hot spots since Russia and China both have veto power.
You will start hearing more and more of a need for a League of Democracies which will use NATO as it's military arm. The war over Kosovo under Clinton was a test of NATO in action. I do not think Obama or his adviser Brzezinski see a need for such a League, perhaps believing in NATO's right to act unilaterally. But McCain has mentioned it.
The Globalists want a 3rd World War to get people to go for the One World Government that will replace the UN as it is currently structured, and it wont happen this year I do not think, but between now and 2012, the war will be on. Whether it will be a real one or just an Orwellian Oceania alternating between wars with East Asia and Euorasia fought in Africa and South Asia, and dropping the occasional missile on the proles at home to remind them we are at war, or something much greater that includes nuclear weapons, is anyones guess.
These people who rule us are psychopaths and are descendants of the same people who manufactured WW I and WW II. What we call insane is normal for them. They will be safe in their underground cities if things get too hot (no, not from CO2).
McLame says that he speaks for all Americans that "we are all Georgians". He sure as fuck doesn't speak for me. I'm in Russia's corner.
Well, Bill, you're leaving out the attack on Yugoslavia by Clinton, and the encouragement of its dismemberment. You may have forgotten, but the Russians certainly haven't.
This is the second commentary I just read at CD where the writer used the example of Iraq to illustrate the hypocrisy of John McCain's comment that countries cannot be allowed to invade other countries BS. Yeah, that is true, Iraq is an example of where the US government allowed itself to invade another country, but what about Yugoslavia, where many liberals cheered on the invasion of one part of Yugoslavia by the US! Isn't that even more hypocritical than John McCain's ridiculousness? Some of these same liberals are those who will now be disparaging the hypocrisy of John McCain's comment!
I sent this comment to Al Jazeera but it is sufficiently relevant to the present article.
The Russian reaction to Georgia's invasion of Sth Ossetia must be understood in terms of the breakdown of the international order (IO) as expressed in the UN Charter. This order mostly held up in the cold war years for the best interests of both sides. Since the breakup of the USSR though, this order has been seen by the USA as a hindrance to its goal of total world control. Total world control includes the redrawing of national boundaries to the convenience of the US and is exemplified by the dissolution of Yugoslavia followed by the formal recognition of Kossovo's separation from Serbia. Similar US supported separatist plans are underway in Bolivia. But once the IO is undermined any other country has no legal obligation to not engage in the same practices when they see it as in their national interests, as Russia sees it in Sth Ossetia. The coming years will see a rapid intensification of separatist conflicts with the US supporting some and opposing others according to its interests.
riddimboy: "Whats truly amazing is the consistent and persistant failures of Bush foreign policy."
No kidding. I haven't like Fareed Zakaria or Newsweek for a very long time, but after his cover story in the lastest issue I probably won't waste my time reading a word from either one of them ever again.
OK, I'll admit it: I already haven't read a word from either of them in about a year. :)
Of course, Bush's foreign policy has been pretty successful for the people it was supposed to benefit. Not perfect, but quite good overall.
Back when the Berlin wall fell and the Warsaw pact began to disintegrate, the first President Bush wisely in general restrained the triumphalist Cold Warriors who wanted to go fishing in troubled waters. The right wing of the GOP and the neo-con think tankers all derided him as a wimp, rather than acknowledging the long term virtues of such realism.
The same dynamic emerged during the Clinton years while the Soviet Union itself unraveled. Bill Clinton assured Yeltsin, for instance, that Russia did not have to fear an eastward expansion of NATO. Jesse Helms and the neo-con cabal making up the Project for a New American Century similarly castigated Bill for being weak and wimpish, dithering around while there were all those golden geopolitical openings to exploit.
Enter George W. Bush. The right wing outsiders suddenly assumed outright control of the US foreign policy establishment, and pressed their longstanding agendas as only true believers could. 9/11 and the fear mongering campaign to fight a global war on terrorism effectively silenced whatever principled domestic political opposition might have otherwise arisen to restrain unilateral militarist expansion by Uncle Sam abroad.
Bush/Cheney flat out reversed Clinton's NATO promises and invited both Georgia and the Ukraine (former components of the USSR itself) into the big tent, along with several newly non-Communist states that were formerly part of the Warsaw pact. The Bushies junked the ABM treaty so that missle installations could be positioned on eastern European soil over Russian protest. When Putin declared that US support for Kosovo's independence from Serbia would cause Russia to respond with support for Ossetian separatists in Georgia, Bush/Cheney/Condi ignored Putin's threat.
Georgia's nationalist leader Shaakashvili, with one eye on the clock ticking towards Little George's departure from the world stage in January 2009, figured it was now or never, use it or lose it. He attacked south Ossetia while Putie was away at the Beijing Olympics, gambling on a fiat accompli. Putin never blinked, and countered big time.
Oops! Very big hat. Not nearly enough cattle.
My point is, that even assuming the Dems sweep this gang of thieves and rascals out of the federal executive branch next spring, these guys are not going to just vanish. They won't miss a beat, instantly assailing an Obama administration from their right wing media bastions for being a weakling appeaser every time the Democrats fail to stay bellicose enough against the big bad Russian bear and those jihadist evildoers lurking everywhere.
That's why the conventional partisan beltway wisdom cautioning Obama to tack consistently back towards the center and center right to gain short term electoral advantage is such dangerous strategic advice in the long term, even if he wins.
Unless Bush's PNAC legacy is openly repudiated by Obama the candidate, and then emphatically rejected in November by American voters, a post-Bush Democratic administration is simply setting itself up for a big world of hurt: more threatening, anti-American geopolitical gamesmanship abroad, coupled with an incessant barrage of right wing propaganda at home, accusing the Democratic White House of wimpish weakness ever time the blowback hits.
Bill from Saginaw
In July when KARL ROVE was "out of the country" and "unable" to appear before Congress---bang, he was in former Soviet Georgia. McCain's main policy advisor has old links there too. What made Georgia imagine that Russia would stand quietly by? Who benefits? At last only the senile McCain who I suppose will be our best commander in the new cold war being heated up....NADER. NADER. NADER.
canuckchuck 2:21pm.....there is not a thin dime's difference between a NeoCon Zionist and a facsist.
As usual, Fidel's analysis is on the mark:
"The government of Georgia would never have launched its armed forces against the capital of the Autonomous Republic of South Ossetia in the dawn of August 8, engaged in what it called the re-establishing of constitutional order, without previous coordination with Bush who, in April in Bucharest, committed to support President Saakashvili for Georgia's admission to NATO; that is like plunging a sharpened dagger deep into Russia's heart. Many European member states of that military organization are seriously concerned about the irresponsible manipulation of the nationalities issue, fraught with potential conflict, which within Britain itself might result in the disintegration of the United Kingdom. This is how Yugoslavia was dismantled: Tito's efforts to avoid that proved useless after his death.
What need was there to light the powder keg of the Caucasus? How often can the jug be taken to the well before it shatters? Russia continues to be a strong nuclear power. It has thousands of such weapons. On the other hand, I must recall that the Western economy illegally siphoned out more than $500 billion from that country. If Russia today is no longer a Communist threat and no longer has more than 400 nuclear launching-pads directly aimed at Europe's military and strategic targets, given that they were dismantled after the demise of the USSR, why the determination to surround it with a nuclear shield? The old continent also needs peace.
The Russian troops stationed in South Ossetia were sent there on an internationally recognized peace mission: they were not shooting wantonly.
Why did Georgia choose August 8th, at the time the Olympic Games were being opened in Beijing, to occupy Tskhinvali, the capital of the Autonomous Republic? On that day, four billion people on the entire planet were watching on television the marvelous spectacle with which China opened those Games. Only the American people could not enjoy a live broadcast of the exciting festival of friendship among all the people of the world that was staged there. The monopoly over the broadcasting rights had been bought by a television channel that had paid $900 million and wanted to earn maximum commercial dividends for every minute of broadcasting time. The rival corporations got even by covering news of the war in the Caucasus, since this was nobody's exclusive. The dangers of a serious conflict were threatening the world.
Bush though, could enjoy the spectacle as an official guest. On Sunday the 10th, two-and-a-half days later, he could still be seen waving flags, pretending to be a champion of peace and preparing to delight in the victories of the excellent American athletes, whom his eyes, accustomed to besmirching everything, were looking upon as the symbol of the power and superiority of his empire. In his moments of leisure, he held long conversations with his officials in Washington, threatened Russia and encouraged the humiliating speeches against that country given by the representative of the United States in the UN Security Council.
Some of the countries that made up the socialist bloc or were part of the USSR itself are today acting as U.S. protectorates. Their governments, driven by a irresponsible hatred of Russia – such as the case of Poland and the Czech Republic – aligned themselves in positions of absolute support for Bush and for the surprise attack on South Ossetia by Saakashvili, an adventurer with a bizarre background who was born under socialism in Tbilisi, capital of the country, graduated as a lawyer from a Kiev university and took postgraduate courses in Strasburg, New York and Washington. He was a practicing lawyer in New York City. He comes off as a Westernized Georgian, greedy and opportunistic. He returned to his country supported by the Yankees and then went fishing in the tempestuous river of the disintegration of the USSR. He was elected president of Georgia in January 2004.
Following the United States and Britain, it is the country with the most soldiers in the Iraqi war adventure; and not exactly out of internationalist sentiment. When Cuba, throughout almost two decades, sent hundreds of thousands of combatants to fight for independence and against colonialism and apartheid in Africa, they were not seeking fuel, raw materials or capital gains: they were volunteers. Thus the steel of our principles was forged. What are Georgian soldiers doing in Iraq if not supporting a war which has cost that people hundreds of thousands of lives and millions of victims? What ideals are they defending there? It is only natural that people from South Ossetia do not wish to be sent as soldiers to fight in Iraq or in other parts of the planet at the behest of imperialism.
Saakashvili, on his own, would never have launched himself into the adventure of sending the Georgian army into South Ossetia, where he would be clashing with Russian troops stationed there as a peace force. A nuclear war is not something to fool around with; and providing cannon fodder to the market cannot be rewarded.
This reflection was already drafted when Bush spoke at 5:30 p.m. Cuban time. But none of what he said changes what we are analyzing here: only that the U.S. government media war is today even much more intense. It is the same prefabricated maneuver that fools no-one.
The Russians have very clearly stated that the withdrawal of the invaders to their positions prior to the conflict is the only decent solution possible. Let's hope that the Olympic Games can continue without being interrupted by a very serious crisis. The women's volleyball match against a good U.S. team was great and the baseball has yet to begin."
Thanks, BryanD! Well said!
The idiot Georgian president has just been forced to sign a ceasefire where he actually says that he invaded South Ossetia because of signals from the West. Is Israel actually west of Georgia? This disastrous debacle for the neocons will reverberate back on the fascist White House as another Staingrad. Ironic that Stalin was from Georgia.
bryanD thank you for your posts, as depressing as they are. Keep them coming, at least until the mushroom clouds don't obliterate us all.
U.S. military ties to countries on or near Russia's borders have caused alarm in Moscow — much as it would in Washington if Russia was arming Canada and Mexico.
Maybe not such a bad idea....
To get a real idea of the actual NEOCON plan in thei own twisted words, try reading PNAC's "Rebuilding Americans Defences" in which the entire stangulation of Russia and any other rival for Global Supremcy and the USA's World Dominance is clearly spelled out.
It reads like a modern day "Mien Kampt" and clearly demonstrates the USA's Neocon Imperial aspirations....
Whats truly amazing is the consistent and persistant failures of Bush foreign policy. Watching Sakaashvili tearing up and throwing a hissy fit while Rice smacked his ass and made him sign the ceasefire is one for the books !! What next ? An impending attack on Iran ? Bring it on !
The result of Geogia's failed attempt to re-annex South Ossetia does nothing to really change the already existing energy equation: Europe and the US need Russia's energy and other natural resources, but Russia doesn't really need them for anything of import. Russia ranks right behind Saudi Arabia in oil exports, and surpasses Saudi in natgas exports. Those Russian oil exports account for about 16.5% of global net exports, much of it going to Europe. Russia has the greatest reserves of natgas on the planet, double those of #2 Iran and exports 6.6 Trillion cubic feet, also more than anyone else. For example, Germany gets 36% of its natgas from Russia.*** Russia has also acquired all of Turmenistan's natgas production and is attempting to do the same in Khazakstan, too. If it forms a natgas organization like OPEC, as seems very likely, it's top two members would be countries that haven't experienced good relations with the West for a long time.
Of course, over time geopolitics centered around hydrocarbons must morph as the hydrocarbons are used and become ever scarcer and expensive. But for the next generation--20-25 years--energy geopolitics will be the main driver of events. I expect very soon we will see Russia demand rubles as payment for its resources, not dollars or euros. Thus we understand the threats to toss Russia from the G-8, WTO or whatever are worthless.
*** Please see this link for more data and discussion. The chart revealing how much % of domestic natgas use of particular countries comes from Russia is very enlightening. http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/Russia/NaturalGas.html
The war in Georgia was brought to you by the same people who
attacked the USS Liberty, bombed Lebanon for over a month in 2006, and who have ignored numerous longstanding UN Security Council resolutions for 4 decades. Do you have a clue?? I will help you.......who thinks that Hezbollah has NO right to negotiate 1701, yet thinks it has the right to negotiate 242 and 338???? Can you spell Khazar??
The US humiliated Russia in so many ways when we helped arrange the theft of it's national assets and resources by Zionist oligarchs in the '90's. It would be difficult to expect Russia, strengthened economically with much increased oil revenues, to have much patience with any further intervention around their borders.
"Don't piss down my back and tell me it's rainin'"
Using a former Soviet Union nation as a protege to raise Hell was not good now was it? Is "The West" sorry for pulling a fast one against Russia? They better be..
the american delusion of world supremacy is quickly crumbling like a sugar cube in a hot cup of tea
too bad....so sad
at best, the american military has proven beyond doubt that it is not up to the illusionary platitudes bestowed upon it by a runaway military, neocon madmen, knaves and fools in the body politic and an otherwise largely bored american public
america can only attack defenseless countries like iraq, afghanistan and panama - and they do not do that well as we have seen
they can slaughter but they cannot build anything of value
the military budgets have ruined the economy, social fabric, moral compass and humanity that may have been at hand at one time - long ago, if it ever did exist
the republic is now an imperial bully murderous and torturous with no regard for any other point of view other than a cadre of crazy evil men the likes of bush and cheney who see the world as a cradle of death and destruction
these men live in the shadows, they have to, pulling the strings of war and death like machiavellian psychos
in the end, though, they have, for the moment, secured the oil fields which i believe is their goal. good for them
they don't give a shit about life, liberty, human dignity or anything as foolish and faggish as those concepts
they have taken away our freedoms in order to preserve them - huh
now the big russian bear has stood up and taken a dramatic stance to the pressure being exerted against them by the nwo/rothschild bank/globalist cabal
they have also indicted that they are not interested in fighting conventionally against the americans - they have their nuclear missiles at defcon 5 and are ready to use them
it is so ironic that the public,so suseptible to homeland security color coded "threat levels" from ghosts who live in caves - fail to appreciate when we are at the edge of a nuclear conflict, as we are at this moment, the sheeple aren't even aware of their peril
the globalists have pushed the big russian bear into a corner and they re not going to take it anymore
having a fool like bush at the helm in this perilous moment speaks volumes about the decay of the empire and its unpreparedness for the russian reality check
bush is a coward, he is a drunk, drug addicted, brain lesioned psychophant
cheney chertoff rice and co are beneath contempt
bush has bragged about and now has brought us to the brink of what might well be the "last war" - which was what ww1 was supposed to be
funny, turns out the russians are the good guys and the americans are the evil nihilistic merchants of death
how does that jive with john wayne movies