Date: Sun, 24 Aug 2008
From: "Joera Mulders" <joeramulders@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Felgenhauer [re: Russia-Georgia war, war planning]
Currently, the biggest threat to a viable solution for the Georgian conflict is the blame game, consisting of theories trying to single out one party responsible for the provocations leading to Saakashvili's order to attack the city of Tskhinvali. Multiple parties have played negative roles in the runup to the night of the 7th of August, but now it is time to put the genie back into the bottle. A local conflict that caused a diplomatic row of almost global proportions should again be approached as a microconflict. The solution will be found in mediation between South Ossetian, Abkhazian and Georgian sides, with international help, but without drawing international partners into a conflict with each other.
In this light I would like make a few comments on Pavel Felgenhauer's elaborate attempt to convince his readers of a pervasive Russian intent behind the outburst of violence.
Of course Felgenhauer is right when he says that a Russian incursion into Georgia was planned in advance. It's called a contingency plan. Russia should have had such a plan from the moment it sent its peacekeepers into the region in the early nineties. Perhaps in those years such an operation would have been too much to ask from the Russian military.
This year the Russian military trained its contingency plan during the Kavkaz-2008 exercise. "One week before the war, Air Force, Navy, and Army forces completed their final readiness check in a locality close to the Georgian border", Felgenhauer writes. What he doesn't mention is that during the same period the Georgian military trained to liberate a city occupied by enemy combatants in a NATO "immediate response" exercise.
I doubt we should blame either military for being prepared. The timing of political decisions tells us much more. A short five hours after Saakashvili's eloquent 7:10 PM call for dialogue and peace, the Georgian Ministry of Defense declared that a military operation was underway to restore constitutional order in the breakaway republic of South Ossetia. In effect this meant the indiscriminate shelling of a city with thousands of civilians present.
Felgenhauer's colleague Aleksandr Golts concludes it took Russian forces 13 to 14 hours to reach the area of the fighting. On Wednesday the 21th it took the ICRC 7 hours drive from Vladikavkaz to Tskhinvali. How to explain the delay? Felgenhauer reports "monstrous jams" and "obsolete and decrepit Russian equipment breaking down". He is most likely right, but what about additional delay in decision-making?
At Russia's request, the Security Council held consultations at 11 pm followed by an open meeting at 1:15 am with Georgia attending. The Council members were unable to come to a consensus. Perhaps Russia did search for a diplomatic solution before deploying its troops. Medvedev was probably not surprised by the Georgian assault, but at that moment he still had different options on the table, one of which was asking the international community to restrain Tbilisi. Unlike in September 2006 when both EU representative Peter Semneby and his US counterpart Daniel Fried publicly reprimanded Georgia for its provocations, this time there was no timely international call for restraint.
In those first 13 to 14 hours, while the Russian army was stuck in "monstrous jams", it was the Ossetian militia and volunteers from the North Caucasus who fought off the Georgian army. It's not fully clear why Felgenhauer writes about "Saakashvili's unexpectedly powerful assault" and "the instantaneous routing of Ossetian formations". Army Capt. Jeff Barta, who helped train a Georgian brigade for peacekeeping service in Iraq, told AP that "The Georgians weren't ready for combat", although "they do not lack 'warrior spirit.'"
Such an assessment better fits the picture of the army's withdrawal after Russian troops secured Tskhinvali. Not only was military equipment left behind, so was the population. A vacuum took shape in which HRW had to ask the Russian military to provide security to the population. Of course the Russian army is not the ideal actor to fulfill such a function, but who else was there except the Ossetian militia and volunteers from the North Caucasus?
Let us now move our focus to the western part of Georgia, or if you wish the area in and around Abkhazia. Felgenhauer writes about "a long-planned operation to 'clear' the upper part of the Kodori Gorge". Again, such an operation must have been planned, but I suggest we have a short look at the interactive map on the UNOMIG website, where we may read that since 1994 one of the tasks of the UN mission has been to "monitor the withdrawal of Georgian troops from the Kodori valley to places beyond the boundaries of Abkhazia (Georgia)". Indiscriminate violence should have been avoided, but "clearing" the Kodori Valley has not been an entirely illegitimate operation.
UNOMIG's interactive map shows us more. The cities of Senaki and Poti are not deep in Georgia proper. Both border on the Restricted Weapons Zone agreed upon in 1994 in SC resolution 937. Yes, Russia's incursion into these cities violated the mentioned agreement, but how disproportionate is it to destroy heavy military equipment amassed on the border of the RWZ by a country that just broke a cease-fire agreement using multiple rocket launchers to assault a city with civilians present? I am not arguing that Russia's reaction has been proportionate. I am only saying that Felgenhauer's piece does not provide us with sufficient information to fairly asses that question.
Lastly, when Felgenhauer wrote his piece, published on the 14th by Novaya Gazeta, he could not have known that a week later the Financial Times would print an interview with Georgian deputy defense minister Batu Kutelia in which the latter stressed that "Georgia did not believe Russia would respond to its offensive in South Ossetia and was completely unprepared for the counterattack". Perhaps Felgenhauer has better sources of information than Georgia's deputy defense minister; perhaps he is just guessing.
Let me end with a note of harmony. I fully agree with Felgenhauer that foreign peacekeeping contingents should be moved into Georgia as soon as possible. I also agree with him that these international peacekeeping forces should include a Russian contingent. The Ossetian population will simply not accept otherwise. A double ring of peacekeepers, with an international force commanded by a large European nation with strong economic ties with Russia on the Georgian side and the Russians on the Ossetian and Abkhazian sides, can do the job. As soon as the international community can decide upon such a mission, international peacekeepers may replace the Russian forces where they should not be, for example in Poti. The ball is now in our court.
But do we care enough about stability in the Caucasus to send our peacekeepers to that region? And how can we encourage such a decision? By uniting against Russia, or by cooperating with Russia?