Subject: Subject: RE: GEORGIA'S MURKY MOTIVES/ Der Spiegle/JRL#58
Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2009
From: "Blank, Stephen J Dr CIV USA TRADOC" <Stephen.Blank@us.army.mil>
[Stephen Blank is a professor at the US Army War College. The views expressed this article do not in any way represent the views of the US Army, Defense Department or the US Government.]
I'm not here to defend Saakashvili's rashness but this is a tendentious and one-sided report. According to student papers here at the Army War College, Russia in fact had pre-positioned logistics in Abkhazia and forces beyond the Roki tunnel and thus in South Ossetia which legally was and is (except for Moscow) part of Georgia. Those facts are matters of public record. Therefore restoring Georgian constitutional order there as a phrase proves nothing other than Georgia sought to do what Russia had done in Chechnya and or which both states had a perfectly legal right to do at the time The wisdom of such moves is another question). There is little doubt in my mind, based on the available evidence and the size, scale, speed, and scope of the Russian attack that Moscow orchestrated this war to overthrow the Georgian government seize its territories, prevent its entry onto a NATO membership track, and assert its prerogative throughout the CIS.
Furthermore Moscow has unilaterally violated all the agreements made to the EU and President Sarkozy in August, and the Helsinki Treaty's relevant articles on the forcible redrawing of signatories' boundaries. In other words we are dealing with a prima facie case of Russian aggression. The EU's account appears to be driven by key members' animus towards Saakashvili and desire to curry favor with Moscow but it should not be taken as an objective account of the truth.