Subject: A Response to Professor Hahn/ JRL #172 [re: Russo-Georgian War]
Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2008
From: "Bob Hamilton" <BHamilton@csis.org>
In his JRL post of 19 September, Professor Gordon Hahn disputed several of my main points in my analysis of the causes and the conduct of the August war between Russia and Georgia. While his post was certainly better researched and argued than several previous posts painting Georgia as the aggressor and Russia as the protector of its “citizens” in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Hahn’s contribution nevertheless contains multiple oversights and factual errors, and it misrepresents some of the key arguments I made in my post.
“Reckless” U.S. Assistance
Hahn maintains that U.S. assistance to Georgia while not as reckless as maintained by some observers still contained “an element of recklessness”, since the counter-insurgency training provided to the Georgians, which Hahn rightly notes included sniper training, could have been used against separatists in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. As I have previously stated on multiple occasions, the catalyst for U.S. assistance to Georgia was the problem of the Pankisi Gorge, where Chechen fighters were resting and recuperating before returning to Chechnya to fight*. This situation was the source of serious tension between Russia and Georgia, and in 2002 the U.S. made the decision to train and equip Georgia to deal with this problem in an attempt to defuse this situation. Far from being reckless, this program was benign in its intentions and limited in its scope; these were, respectively, to lessen tensions between Russia and Georgia and to train Georgia in only those skills needed to deal with the Pankisi Gorge issue. Even later, when Georgian troops began rotating to Iraq and the U.S. began to train them for that mission, the U.S. deliberately avoided training forces or capabilities that could be seen as provocative vis-à-vis Georgia’s separatist conflicts
Indeed, in an email to JRL of 20 September, Robert Schaefer, who describes himself as one of the principal architects of counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism training for Georgia in 2002, states that “any insinuation that that the training provided to the Georgians was somehow covertly designed to be used against the Abkhaz and South Ossetians is patently false”. He goes on to say that he and his trainers were constantly told “how important it was that we did not give the Russians any reason not to welcome our involvement”. As for Hahn’s assertion that the provision of sniper training constitutes an element of a reckless U.S. policy, Schaefer correctly responds that “every military force in the world must have some well-trained snipers as part of a basic defense force”. Finally, the training program designed by Schaefer’s group and later adapted for subsequent training in Georgia was not designed to provide purely tactical skills it was also heavy on classroom instruction in such subjects as the law of land warfare, rules of engagement and prevention of human rights abuses. Hahn’s characterization of U.S. military assistance to Georgia as reckless stems from his ignorance of the details of that assistance and the role it played in the development of the Georgian Armed Forces.
Georgia the “Aggressor”
Hahn and others of his mindset take an outcome-based view of the problem, reasoning that since Russia and Georgia went to war, U.S. military assistance must have played a major role in preparing the Georgians for that war and encouraging them to go to war. This line of reasoning completely ignores the fact that Russia precipitated this war through a series of steps designed to result either in a de facto annexation of South Ossetia and Abkhazia or to force Georgia to intervene to defend its territorial integrity, giving Russia a pretext to invade Georgia and occupy South Ossetia and Abkhazia militarily (I have outlined these steps in a previous post and choose not to repeat them here). Even the conventional wisdom that Georgia moved first on Tskhinvali and Russia responded later, to which Hahn and those of like mind cling, is being gradually discredited as more facts come to light (more on this later).
Hahn takes me to task for citing as a source the U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi, which he claims “was getting its information from Tbilisi”. The contention that a U.S. Embassy simply regurgitates the information provided it by the host nation government is ludicrous. Embassies have multiple sources of information both classified and unclassified - and their job is to fuse these into an accurate picture for U.S. policy-makers. The U.S. Embassy official that I interviewed had access to every bit of information the Embassy collected, and the picture he paints is one of a series of South Ossetian and Russian steps in early August designed to prepare for and precipitate this war. These steps included shelling of Georgian villages with large caliber artillery (prohibited in the conflict zone under the cease fire agreement); the announcement of a general mobilization by the South Ossetian government; the evacuation of civilians; and the introduction into South Ossetia of “volunteers” (Russian paramilitaries) equipped with tanks and armored vehicles. All of these steps, which together clearly show preparation for war and which were unprecedented even in violence-prone South Ossetia, were taken prior to Russian troops crossing through the Roki Tunnel the act the Georgian side has said caused it to move on Tskhinvali. It should be noted that these steps have also been catalogued by several journalists; the most comprehensive account is provided by Michael J. Totten in his article of August 26th.
Professor Hahn claims that the OSCE military observers dispute the above version of the events of early August. In fact, I can find no such statement by the OSCE. A contact there told me that the organization has been “very tight about reporting what they know about early August.” He attributes this to “a desire not to put out anything that would be politicized one way or the other as efforts are underway to get Russia to pull back and the very real possibility that the OSCE knows less than would be assumed. The OSCE never had any eyes north of Tskhinvali.” Professor Hahn further claims that the Georgians “fired first” and cites a Russian website as his source. As the professor must know if he is an observer of the South Ossetia conflict, exchanges of gunfire and mortar fire between Georgian and Ossetian villages is fairly common, especially in late summer. In the two years I was in Tbilisi it happened at least six times and each time it died down after several days. I never claimed and I do not claim now that the Ossetians were the only ones firing; what I do claim is that there was a pattern of “firsts” (use of large-caliber artillery, evacuation of civilians, introduction of large number of paramilitary forces with Russian equipment) from the Ossetian/Russian side that amounted to an escalation to war in early August.
Even the immediate cause of the war widely held to have been a Georgian move on Tskhinvali is now being questioned by responsible observers. In a 15 September article, the New York Times published cell phone intercepts provided to it by the Georgian government (and described as credible by U.S. intelligence sources) that show Russian armored vehicles moving through the Roki tunnel in the early morning of 7 August, or some 20 hours before the Georgian Army moved into South Ossetia. Russia has not disputed the veracity of the phone intercepts, but has claimed that these movements were part of a normal rotation of its peacekeepers in South Ossetia. Georgia has disputed this claim by reminding Russia that the South Ossetian cease fire agreement requires rotations of peacekeepers to be conducted in daylight and to be preceded by one month notice, neither of which happened in this case. There is other evidence that Russia moved first. On 15 August, Permskiye Novosti (Perm News) quoted a Russian soldier as saying that his unit, Russia’s 58th Army, was in South Ossetia on August 7, and even the Russian Defense Ministry’s Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star) newspaper ran an interview with a captain from the 58th Army who stated that he received an order on August 7 "to move toward Tskhinvali" from positions in North Ossetia. The professor also disputes my account of Georgian troop movements prior to the beginning of the war, writing that “western observers” claim that by the morning of 7 August Georgia “had amassed 12,000 troops on its border to South Ossetia, and 75 tanks and armored personnel carriers were positioned near Gori”. First of all, it worth noting that the Georgian Land Forces Command tank battalion, engineer battalion and artillery brigade are permanently garrisoned in Gori. So the tanks and armored personnel carriers that “were positioned near Gori” had been there for years on the morning of 7 August, 2008. Second, the idea that 12,000 Georgian troops had been “amassed” by then on the border with South Ossetia is at best a wild exaggeration. The total strength of the units permanently garrisoned in Gori (not including bulk of the 1st Brigade, which was in Iraq when the war began) is about 3,500. Even if all of them moved out of their bases prior to 7 August, they would not constitute anything close to a 12,000-man invasion force, especially given the fact that the bulk of these forces are not maneuver forces (i.e. infantry or armor) and are therefore not suitable for seizing and holding ground.
In fact, the two Georgian brigades that moved into South Ossetia first were the 4th Brigade, which is permanently garrisoned in Vaziani, some 90 minutes by car from Gori (and a lot longer by train or armored vehicle); and the 3rd Brigade, which is garrisoned in the western Georgian city of Kutaisi, at least two hours drive and a mountain range away from the conflict zone. It has been verified by the U.S. Embassy that those units did not begin to move toward the conflict zone until 7 August. In fact, the 4th Brigade was being trained by U.S. trainers for its planned Iraq deployment until the morning of 7 August, when the brigade’s leadership told U.S. trainers they were being pulled from training to be sent closer to South Ossetia (see the AP story originally reported on 18 August and picked up in multiple media outlets). The troops deployed to Gori on trucks and buses and their heavy equipment was loaded onto a train a Vaziani, but that train still had not departed by mid-afternoon on the 7th, again according to the U.S. Embassy, which had observers on the spot. In summary, the assertion that the Georgians planned this war and began moving forces into position early is simply false; what movements there were prior to 8 August were made in haste and simply constitute prudent military planning in response to what Georgia perceived as a dramatic escalation of the situation by the other side. The Georgian government found itself reacting to a series of escalatory steps by Russia and its South Ossetian proxies, and its reaction showed the confusion and strain that reigned within the Georgian leadership rather than a calculated plan to use force in South Ossetia. One can debate the military logic in the decisions the Georgian Armed Forces made as the conflict unfolded, but one cannot at least reasonably and responsibly argue that Georgia planned and precipitated this war.
Having examined the tactical and operational movements of the Georgian military on the eve of the war, it is useful to examine the larger strategic and political-military context surrounding the Georgia-South Ossetia conflict. There are a number of indicators at this level too, which show that Georgia was not preparing for war in South Ossetia and did not wish to bring it on. First, there is the fact that Georgia’s National Military Strategy and Strategic Defense Review both assumed that over the mid-term and long-term the Abkhazia and South Ossetia conflicts would be resolved diplomatically and that Georgian-Russian relations would improve. These assumptions drove plans for a reduction in Georgia’s military forces from 28,666 (already the smallest in the region) to 21,701 by 2012 and 18,755 by 2015. Then there was the fact that in line with its drive for NATO membership Georgia had undertaken fairly comprehensive reforms in its Ministry of Defense. These reforms emphasized developing NATO-compatible forces that could be deployed to contingencies outside of the region, rather than developing heavy, conventional forces of the type most useful in pursuing a military solution to the frozen conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In fact, when the war with Russia began Georgia had 2000 troops serving in Iraq under U.S command and was preparing to send over 400 troops to Afghanistan under Dutch, French and U.S. command hardly the stance of a military planning a major ground assault. Finally, there is the fact that Georgia’s “soft power” approach to South Ossetia emphasizing economic and social development and backed by offers of increasing autonomy (all of which were rejected by the South Ossetian side) - appeared to be working before this summer’s escalation that eventually led to war. Georgia felt that time was on its side in South Ossetia, and therefore had no incentive to destabilize the situation there. Each of these examples alone is instructive, but together they provide compelling proof that at no level tactical, operational or strategic was Georgia planning for war in south Ossetia in 2008.
“Genocidal” Georgia
Professor Hahn also disputes my assertion that the Georgians did not intentionally cause heavy civilian casualties, noting that the internationally accepted casualty figure (from the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights) for Tskhinvali has been raised to 133, which he states is “nearly twice as high as Georgian civilian casualties”. Actually, the Georgian government lists a total of 364 casualties from the war, 194 of which are civilians. These numbers are based upon human remains received by the Georgian Health Ministry, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Defense. Since foreign embassies, international media and NGOs have full access to Georgia and the Georgian government’s institutions and facilities, these numbers must be held to be reasonably accurate. This is in contrast to the figures published by the Russian and South Ossetian governments, which cannot be independently verified and are thus highly suspect. My point was not that Georgian military operations produced no civilian casualties; it was that there was no orchestrated attempt on the part of Georgia to commit “genocide” in South Ossetia. Certainly, civilian casualties occurred on both sides and bad behavior by soldiers occurred on both sides, but I do not believe that either side (Georgian or Russian, in this case) committed “genocide” in the course of the war.
While disputing my numbers on civilian casualties, the Professor is curiously silent on the most egregious human rights abuses that have occurred in the aftermath of this war: the orchestrated ethnic cleansing of Georgian villages in South Ossetia and the Russian-proclaimed “security zone” in Georgia proper. This ethnic cleansing has been documented by multiple sources, most recently by Human Rights Watch (http://www.hrw.org/doc/?t=europe) on 16 and 21 September. Human Rights Watch also notes that there are credible reports of “extrajudicial execution, torture, and other abuse of Georgian military and civilian detainees” by Ossetian forces during and after the war. Professor Hahn lectures that “there are very few good guys in this part of the world”; that may be true, but some have clearly behaved worse than others in this conflict. Given this, it is the height of cynicism for the Russian/Ossetian side to have claimed that Georgia embarked upon a campaign of “genocide” and “war crimes” in the course of this conflict.
Georgia, the “Un-Democracy”
Professor Hahn’s next target is Georgia’s democratic credentials. In response to my assertion that Georgia’s 2008 presidential and parliamentary elections were regarded as generally free and fair by international observers, he claims that both elections were “badly marred by election irregularities, including falsification, intimidation and vote-buying”, without listing his source for these accusations. He goes on to quote the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, which claims that massive corruption in both elections was ignored by western government and media. In fact, as I argued in my previous post, Georgia’s democracy is far from perfect, but the fact remains that every election in Georgia since the Rose Revolution has been an improvement over its predecessor. The OSCE observer delegation head, Joao Soares, said of the parliamentary elections, “These elections were not perfect” adding that despite this, “concrete and substantial progress” had been made (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7415241.stm). This assessment was echoed by the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, which states, “Overall, these elections clearly offered an opportunity for the Georgian people to choose their representatives from amongst a wide array of choices. The authorities and other political stakeholders made efforts to conduct these elections in line with OSCE and Council of Europe commitments. The International Election Observation Mission (IEOM) identified a number of problems which made this implementation uneven and incomplete.” (http://www.osce.org/documents/odihr/2008/05/31268_en.pdf).
Here the contrast with Russia’s presidential elections is stark. Whereas in Georgia there were observers from 63 international organizations (see http://www.cec.gov.ge), with the total number of international observers exceeding 1800, Russia’s international observation of Russia’s presidential election came primarily from organizations such as the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, since the restrictions placed on the OSCE by the Russian government caused the organization to decline to participate in the monitoring mission. The lone major western organization to participate was the Council of Europe (PACE), which characterized the elections as neither free nor fair. Freedom House echoed this assessment in its 2008 volume of Nations in Transit, writing that “The State Duma elections were neither free nor fair, setting the stage for similarly controlled presidential elections in 2008”. As do many apologists for Russia and its actions, Professor Hahn nitpicks Georgia’s uneven but sincere democratic transition process while ignoring the slide into autocracy going on in Russia.
Russia, Georgia and NATO
Perhaps Professor Hahn’s most telling assertion is that since Russia used Georgia’s separatist conflicts to attempt to dissuade Georgia from its drive to join NATO, “expanding NATO without Russia was a mistake”. There are two major flaws in this argument. First, the truth is that NATO has never closed its doors to Russia and has extended Russia status and privileges far beyond those extended to other former Soviet or Warsaw Pact countries, as have other Western institutions. As Denis McShane notes in Newsweek (in its 15 September print version), “Russian M.P.s sit on the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and Russian generals have observer status at NATO headquarters in Brussels.” He further writes that “Russia has been brought into the G7. The Council of Europe has opened its doors to Russia even if the Duma refuses to recognize the European Court of Human Rights.” Russia’s problems with NATO have more to do with its own slide into authoritarianism and the resultant need for the regime there to paint a picture of a Russia isolated and threatened by the West (in order to justify its suppression of internal dissent) than with any actual actions on NATO’s part.
Secondly, by what right does Russia assert a veto on the aspirations of any state, whether in the “Near Abroad” or not, to choose the organizations in which it pursues membership? Is the professor giving his backing to the recently-espoused Medvedev Doctrine, which asserts Russia’s right in contravention of international law in almost every conceivable manner to intervene to protect the lives and dignity of its citizens (which it defines as anyone to whom it has issued a Russian passport, and these have been issued very liberally in the “Near Abroad”) wherever they live? If Georgia or Ukraine, or Azerbaijan for that matter meet the objective criteria for NATO membership, why should Russia’s veto consign their 60 million inhabitants to a future of international limbo, living outside the confines of the organizations that have brought peace, security and stability to hundreds of millions of people? In fact, if Russia changes course and pursues the necessary reforms required for membership in western organizations (admittedly, a dim hope at the current moment), and is willing to join without insisting on dominating these organizations, there is no reason why its 140-plus million people should not be allowed the fruits of membership, either.
Summary
In summary, U.S. assistance and engagement in Georgia was far from the reckless series of programs that some observers claim; it was instead designed initially to remove a point of contention in the Russia-Georgia relationship and later to train those skills needed in multi-national operations like Iraq, all the while being carefully crafted to avoid provoking Russia or emboldening Georgia. Second, the August war in Georgia was brought on by a series of provocations and escalations by Russia and its proxies to include introduction of Russian paramilitary forces and later Russian Army troops into South Ossetia and not by on over-armed and irresponsible Georgian government. Third, the conduct of the war disproves the wild Russian and Ossetian allegations of “genocide” and “war crimes” on the part of Georgia, while making it clear that ethnic cleansing of Georgians in Russian-controlled areas did occur. Fourth, Georgia is an emerging democracy worth of continued Western mentorship and support. And finally, giving Russia a veto over NATO accession for Georgia or any other country in the region that meets the objective criteria for membership is a bankrupt and ultimately dangerous policy, since it will discourage true reform in Russia and encourage increasingly aggressive and irresponsible Russian behavior.
* - Professor Hahn believes the language I used in my last post, when I said Russia “claimed” that Chechen fighters were in Pankisi, reflects my anti-Russian bias. He notes that the presence of Chechens in Pankisi in the early part of this decade is widely accepted, which it is. My use of the word “claim” was not meant to dispute this, but was instead meant to illustrate the fact that this was a contentious issue between Russia and Georgia.
LTC Robert E. Hamilton
U.S. Army Fellow
Center for Strategic and International Studies
(202) 775-3288.