From: Ronald Asmus <RAsmus@gmfus.org>
Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:52:52 -0400
Subject: RE: GEORGIA'S MURKY MOTIVES/ Der Spiegel/ JRL#58
[Ronald D. Asmus, a deputy assistant secretary of state in the Clinton administration, is executive director of the Brussels-based Transatlantic Center of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.]
I believe it is a fabrication. I am writing a book on the origins of the war. While I have not finished my research and I do not exclude the possibility of surprises, it does not fit the existing pattern of evidence at all.
I have broken down the Georgian decision-making process and the orders that were given on that critical day in some detail. There were oral, not written, orders given by the President. The Georgians were too unprepared, disorganized and disorganized and acting in an ad hoc fashion for more than that. They never expected to fight in South Ossetia.
The orders that Saakashvilli actually gave were also much more narrow and specific. They were to stop the Russian forces coming down the road from Java to Tskhinvali as well as down from the Roki tunnel; to suppress the shelling of Georgian positions and villages from Ossetian artillery from the surrounding areas; and to minimize causalities. They were not "to take" Tskhinvali let alone to conquer South Ossetia.
The reasons why Georgian forces entered and initially took Tskhinvali was driven as much by tactical military considerations than political objectives. Georgian forces were being shelled and shot at from positions in Tskhinvali and they responded to suppress that fire. Going through Tskhinvali was the shortest route to get to the endangered Georgian villages north of the city which was what they were trying to defend as well as to create a corridor to help evacuate citizens if necessary.
To be sure, Tskinvali was a key "center of gravity." As they entered Tskhinvali, Georgian forces initially tried to pass through to the villages and positions north of the city. However, they encountered more fighting than expected which led them to pull more forces into the city, a tactical mistake that made it easier for the Russians to eventually enter the town from the north.
General Mamuka Kurshvilli's comments on "restoring constitutional order in the whole region" were a self-inflicted wound. As he has testified to before the independent parliamentary commission, they were the unauthorized statements by a General in the field who was not part of the chain of command or involved in the key debates or decisions back in Tbilisi. They were made when the General was leaving South Ossetia to return to a Georgian military headquarter where he was subsequently briefed and made commander of an ad hoc task force given the mission of re-entering Tbilisi. But when he made the statement he was actually not in the loop on what national command authorities were thinking.
The statement was certainly a public relations disaster as it echoed around the world and was read with horror on their blackberries and computer screens of Georgia's friends and allies. But Kurashvili's remarks were just that - the unauthorized remarks of a General in the field who misspoke after he found himself with a microphone in his face. They had no real operational meaning.
That conclusion is reinforced when one examines the actual operational plan the Georgians did put together at the last second and how they sought to implement it. But more on that when my book comes out.