Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2008
From: GORDON HAHN <gordon-hahn@sbcglobal.net>
Subject: Comment on Felgenhauer. [Russian-Georgian war planning]
I would like to respond to Felgenhauer's piece which I responded to earlier but focusing on what was presented in Paul Goble's breakdown of the piece reprinted on JRL last week.
The only potentially damning text in Felgenhauer's piece is the following:
"By August a considerable proportion of Black Sea Fleet ships were ready for a protracted combat voyage, Ground Troops, Airborne Troops, and Marine permanent-readiness units were ready to move, and in the course of the Kavkaz-2008 exercises that ended on 2 August, one week before the war, Air Force, Navy, and Army forces completed their final readiness check in a locality close to the Georgian border. At same time, by early August the Railroad Troops in Abkhazia had completed the repair of the railroad used to move up to the Inguri River tanks, heavy equipment, and supplies for the approximately 10,000-strong grouping that invaded western Georgia without any excuse or formal reason."
First of all, Felgenhauer delivers his information as if it was some kind of secret mobilization for war. In fact, almost all of his details were announced by the Russian Ground Forces on July 15. The announcement included the following: "In connection with the worsening situation in the zones of the Georgian-Abkhaz and Georgian-Ossetian conflicts, issues regarding the participation of the okrug's troops in special peace enforcement operations in zones of armed conflict are being worked on as well. Approximately 8,000 troops have been put in into action for ther exercises." It seems that this was a clear signal being sent to the American-Georgian exercise that began on the same day as the Russian exercies. The Georgian side then began to make provocative statements and undertake even more provocative actions, including calling on the West to stand up to Russia and then firing and digging in fortifications in South Ossetia with American troops still near the region and possibly still on the ground in Georgia. Thus, another interpretation that needs to be tested is that the American-led exercises were seen as an opportunity by Saakashvili to challenge Russian forces and force the issue in South Ossetia with American troops available to step in, even hoping to draw them in on Georgia's side. But he miscalculated American resolve to back his gambit.
Certain other specifics are not documented and seem to be given a spin that when read closely seem to have little substance behind them. For example, one wonders what is so sinister with the fact that, quoting Felgenhauer, "permanent-readiness units were ready to move." What kind of "protracted voyage" is required by the Black Sea Fleet in an operation in which it remained within the Black Sea and and that was unlikely to be long as Russia limited its objectives. And the operation apparently did have limited objectives (Russian army did not seek to take Tbilisi, Georgian casualties and damage was minimal, etc.). Felgenhauer's statement that "in the course of the Kavkaz-2008 exercises that ended on 2 August, one week before the war, Air Force, Navy, and Army forces completed their final readiness check in a locality close to the Georgian border" does not necessarily mean much. The 58th Army is based in Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia - hardly a long distance from South Ossetia - and was moving around obviously during the maneuvers. It is odd that the author knows they were near the border, but cannot tell us exactly where they were. In short, there appears to be some hype here as well as statements lacking documentation. Who would make radical changes to policy based on this? The last six words are of course most revealing, since Felgenhauer appears to be stating that an all night Grad artillery barrage on a residential city and the killing of 18 Russian soldiers is not sufficient cause for Russia to make its incursion.
I have already commented on the shaky grounds under Felgenhauer's analogy with the Dagestan 1999 etc, so I will not do so again here. It is worth reiterating, however, that Russia would have had to have contingency plans for a possible Georgian incursion, especially as Saakashvili was refusing to reject the use of force and was conducting recon flights. Moreover, Georgian troops were now being 'trained and eqipped' by the U.S. and NATO and some 2,000 troops were getting some experience in Iraq. Given the escalation in the tit-for-tat attacks from August 1, the Russians would have been wise to move troops into closer proximity to the breakaway republics, and the military exercises held in the North Caucasus would have given them to cover to do so. Their own satellite images might have tipped them to some of the Georgians' own preparations, providing the motive to be prepared. If so, to do otherwise would have been negligent.
It can be argued that the Russians, having stated in their new foreign policy doctrine that they place the UN and international law above all, might have done better to make a noisy announcement at the UN. Then again, if the Russians were making the kind of preparations on a scale Felgenhauer is claiming, U.S. satellites would have even more easily caught those than the Russians would have seen the Georgian preparations. Why did the U.S. not intervene by calling a UN meeting or demanding that one side or both back off?
Those who are willing to immediately regard Felgenhauer's article as documented proof of Russia's guilt for the whole affair, might want to take a look at the end of Brian Whitmore's RFERL article, which like Goble's, was distributing Felgenhauer's article in order to shape public opinion and policymaking in DC. To feign balance, he noted at the end of the article another observer's query as to why on the eve of such a major gambit by Moscow, Medvedev would be in Samara (or Saratov?), Putin would be in China, and commander of the 58th army that led the invasion was on vacation? A Russian paper recently added that Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev was also not in Moscow. This is a curious way to run a war. Email command and control?
I continue to be astonished how many Western scholars are prepared to believe only one side of the story and refuse to consider other points of view and other possibilities. Numerous security scholars who never heard of Ossetia before are demanding a rush to judgement and sharp changes in Western policy toward Russia without a careful weighing of the facts. Just as Western media and government have bought Saakashvili's line - hook, line and sinker - and ignored the victims of Tskhinvali, they have advertised every piece of anti-Russian analysis and rushed to Tbilisi offering all manner of new military assistance.
Even if Russia planned an attack and staged a provocation, it might be worth considering fo at least a few seconds on mainastram media and in the corridors of power that Saakashvili and the West provoked Russia with misguided plans to expand NATO along Russia's entire western and perhaps southern border. The European security settlement made at the end of the Cold War was broken by the West in the mid-1990s and for fifteen years it has willfully expanded the military alliance and taken numerous other steps ignoring Russian concerns and interests. If the West could break that settlement, if the West can intervene with humanitarian operations against sovereign states or agree to the break up of sovereign states when it deems it is in its interests, then why cannot Russia?
The expansion of NATO is especially pernicious because it is forcing states with major 'stateness problems' to make a decisioeither to be left outside of the 'security zone' or by entering it to risk provoking greater secessionist tendencies and reliance on Russia among pro-Russian populations (Ossetians, Abkhaz, Russians in eastern Ukraine and Crimea). Russia is using this to block expansion of NATO. Moscow knows the alliance rightly is reluctant to take in states with 'stateness problems' and built in potential for conflict with foreign states, especially Russia.
It's a Catch-22 for everybody and it has been since the idea of expanding NATO without Russia emerged. Once expansion began it could not end until it reached Russia's entire western border. Who should be left in the no man's land if the alliance stopped before that? And where would steps left out turn? This is the very dilemma that is being forced upon the peoples within Georgia and Ukraine. As a reuslt, the West and Russia are exacerbating interethnic tensions in these states, turning Oset against Georgian, Georgian against Oset, Ukrainian against Russian, Russian against Georgian, etc. It is simply painful to hear these villagers talk about how Oset, Georgian, and Russian lived side by side...until now. This was the kind of disaster NATO expansion was bound to lead to sooner or later, as I have been arguing for well over a decade.
Western pundits and policymakers can keep searching and propagating supposed smoking guns supposedly proving that Russia alone is to blame. They might even find their smoking gun, but that will hardly be the point. The question is: Who loaded the gun? Here there is enough blame to go around for everyone.
Dr. Gordon M. Hahn - Senior Researcher, Monterey Terrorism Research and Education Program and Visiting Assistant Professor, Graduate School of International Policy Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies, Monterey, California; Senior Researcher, Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies (CETIS), Akribis Group; and Analyst/Consultant, Russia Other Points of View – Russia Media Watch, www.russiaotherpointsofview.com. Dr Hahn is author of two well-received books, Russia’s Islamic Threat (Yale University Press, 2007) and Russia’s Revolution From Above (Transaction, 2002), and numerous articles on Russian politics.