On the plus side: they intimidated Georgia and gave the US a (temporary) black eye.
On the minus side: they just managed to tick off everyone and now have a border with a heavily armed enemy who is getting training and support from the US. With a declining population, a massive country and a poorly equipped military, I don't think Russia's ready for the kind of guerrilla warfare that could be unleashed on them. If they try to retain the portion of Georgia they captured, I would expect a seriously nasty campaign of bombings and snipings to start.
It looks to me like they expected to defeat the Georgian army in the field and then do what they wanted with the country. When it got away, they were left with chasing it into the mountains and going through a prolonged, deadly conflict while the International community froze assets, cancelled contracts and so forth.
Just what do the Russians have now that they didn't have before this?
Update: Powerline has a map of Georgia showing the route of a crucial oil pipeline. The Russians failed to capture it or destroy it in bombing. It is managed by the British.
The pipeline, in which British Petroleum is the lead partner, can carry up to one million barrels of oil per day. It is of considerable strategic significance, as it is the only means by which countries in the region like Azerbaijan can get their oil into the international market without relying on Russia.So they didn't get the Georgian army and they didn't get the pipeline. That doesn't look good at all.
Update 2: If the idea was to terrify the other ex-Soviet provinces, does this sound like it worked?
In a show of defiance to the Russian attacks, 100,000 people packed the main Rustaveli avenue of Tbilisi, where a sea of red-and-white Georgian flags waved above the crowds.Update 3: Apparently, no one got word of the cease fire to the Russian army and they hit Gori and turned left. How far will they go? If they stop before taking the country, then let's review the situation.
President Mikheil Saakashvili told a rally that Georgia would quit the Russian-led Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a grouping of former Soviet states, and urged Ukraine to follow suit.
Georgia has received strong support from other former communist states with the leaders of Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic states travelling to Tbilisi where they addressed a mass rally.
"You have the right to freedom and independence. We are here to demonstrate our solidarity ... freedom is worth fighting for," shouted Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko in live pictures carried by Georgian television.
- Did they get the government? No.
- Did they get the capital? No.
- Did they get the army? No.
- Did they get the pipeline? No.
7 comments:
Best comment I've read on the subject and I agree with you, a colossal blunder. It has also opened the world's eyes somewhat belatedly given Putin's behaviour for the last few years to the total untrustworthiness of Russia. The only power they have really is oil, both the high price it commands and because the EU have stupidly allowed themselves to become dependent on it. Though the US has followed a similar path of dependence on foreign oil, we can supply ourselves in a pinch and when John McCain is Prez I think he has a sufficiently strategic outlook to see that we do.
KT, Linked... but later tomorrow. I really have taken to that scheduled post thing.
Thanks, dean.
ligneus, that's exactly what I was thinking. They let the mask fall in exchange for ... what? Now every one of their old satellites is watching this, knowing they can't trust Putin and planning for the invasion. If I were them, I'd have war plans to evacuate my government, disperse my army and go to ground. I get all the technical help I could from the US on what worked for Al Qaeda. There are lessons learned on both sides, you know. AQ discovered a lot of ingenious ways to take on an enemy with numerical, technical and firepower superiority and still give it a very hard time.
While the US can blow through $100B here and there in a war and still come out on top, the Russians can't. Nor do they have the military culture required for winning a guerrilla war. That's why we won in Iraq and they lost in Afghanistan.
I think this was a total disaster for them, particularly in the long run.
Unfortunately for the Georgians, whom I support, I think it's a Russian masterstroke. Here's why...
"Russia has accomplished a strategic coup de main. The aim of most warfare is to present your enemy with a dilemma. For example, achieve air superiority against his land forces, and his forces can either sit still in bunkers and be encircled by your troops, or move and be bombed – either way they’re screwed, it’s a dilemma. Russia has presented the West [and, in particular, the EU and NATO] with a dilemma – do nothing to help Georgia and lose BTC [gas pipeline], or go to war against Russia and in the course of the conflict lose BTC.
Checkmate."
Colossal blunder to have made sure that Georgia never again tries to militarily attack Abkhazia and SO?
That is the goal of all Russian people I speak with.
It seems to have been achieved.
Bush isn't using language anymore that suggests Russia should get out of Abkhazia or SO.
What is the US going to do: refill all the munitions dumps and rearm the soldiers to attack Abkhazia which might even have French peacekeepers on its beaches with all those gorgeous Russian women soon?
I am a conservative US vet who lives in Russia. This is now the largest economy in Europe with shopping malls going up all over the place. This is no longer the land of drunk men and mail order brides.
Abkhazia is a major tourist beach zone. It is filled with Russians and would only ever be filled with Russians. So what idiot, even in Georgia, would want to take it by force? That is apparently what this US educated neocon president wanted to do (Russians shockingly found invasion plans while doing recon on the bases they captured)
If the US had a border dispute with Mexico and then 1000 townspeople were killed in a Texas border town in a raid...you would want regime change in Mexico City.
Only a jingoist neocon (I favored the Iraq War but I never signed up for making enemies with Russia) would say the Russian people have no right to respond like we would.
We bombed Serbia to make Kosovo free. This is exactly the same thing. There is no difference at all.
You just have to show some respect for the people of the other superpower to do EXACTLY what we do.
Now regarding who won:
Abkhazia and SO will never belong to Saakashvili now.
His plans to invade them and capture them have failed and now, with EU peacekeepers coming and the world traumatized about what Saakashvili started, it does not look like even George Bush will give him the green light to try again.
And the polls are pointing at Obama who is clearly annoyed at the way McCain wanted to use a crisis that Bush gave a green light to start in order to gain political points. I don't think the presumptious "I think every American is with me when I say we are all Georgians now" is going to play well among educated people who might know where Abkhazia is.
Businessmen with ties to Europe's largest market are now going to actively keep any anti-Russia politician out of the White House.
So anyone with wet dreams of US snipers helping to "liberate" Abkhazia by killing our Russian allies...better keep it under the sheet covers.
Russians are now interviewing 200 prisoners in SO to see which of them followed orders to kill their fellow peacekeepers.
Apparently that means that there will be some executions.
We need to understand more who US allies really are here.
Update:
Bush announced humanitarian aid brought in by US military personnel. Saakashvili then ran off at the mouth with "The American military is coming to take control of our airports and ports and save us". The Pentagon then toned down that language saying they don't need to "take control" of anything.
Analysts in Europe are saying that Saakvashili wants the US to get into a war with Russia.
In any event, US convoys could be driving by on that road by Gori that the Russians had today but will probably give up under the ceasefire.
We need the French and Italians in Gori and Tschinvali...and Abkhazia in the buffer zone (and maybe on the beaches with the Russian women). :-)
Russia will go to great lengths to avoid a war with the U.S.
My guess is that this action wasn't supposed to happen (at least not yet), and that some general jumped the gun.
As some blogger elsewhere has called it... it's Russian Roulette. Meanwhile, the West is playing Texas Hold 'Em, keeping their cards close to their chest and trying to draw Russia further into an untenable situation.
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