One soldier, his face a mask of exhaustion, cradled a Kalashnikov.
“We killed as many of them as we could,” he said. “But where are our friends?”
It was the question of the day. As Russian forces massed Sunday on two fronts, Georgians were heading south with whatever they could carry. When they met Western journalists, they all said the same thing: Where is the United States? When is NATO coming?
The sad truth is what I wrote the other night Georgia 2008 is Czechoslovakia 1938 revisited. We will not be coming, at least not the way Georgians expect and deserve. Russia is also upping the ante. Russia seems to be demanding the ouster of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. At the start of the war, Russian aims seemed limited to ousting Georgian forces from South Ossetia. That has now expanded to ousting Georgian forces from Abkhazia as well. Tomorrow will be a critical day is seeing how far Russia is willing to go with its war aims.
With Russia continuing its assault on the Republic of Georgia, here is who is coming to the aid of the small Caucusus republic.
The United States
While the United States failed to inform the Georgians as to the severity of the Russian build-up, it is likely that the US is sharing intelligence. At this point with both the President out of the country and Congress not in session, there have no requests for emergency aid to Georgia. So far, the only concrete assistance that the US has provided is that the US will transport Georgian troops stationed in Iraq back to Georgia. There are currently 2,000 Georgian troops in Iraq.
The Ukraine
The government of the Ukraine informed Russia that ships used in an attack on Russia may not be allowed back to the Russian naval base in the Ukrainian city of Sevastapol. To the extent that this is aid, it prevents Russia from using all of the forces at its disposal against now helpless Georgia.
The Baltic Republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania
The Baltics, having worked closely with Georgiain international matters have much to say on the situation. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Petras Vaitiekunas is currently in Georgia assessing the situation.
“Having arrived in Georgia and observing the situation on the spot, I agree with the assessments of the situation by the international community, that Russian military forces have crossed all red lines by crossing an internationally-recognized border into the sovereign territory of Georgia,” said Vaitiekunas.
The three Baltic presidents signed a joint declaration stating “we will use all means available to us as Presidents to ensure that aggression against a small country in Europe will not be passed over in silence or with meaningless statements equating the victims with the victimizers.” Clearly the Baltics have not forgotten 1940 nor fifty years of harsh Soviet rule.
Poland
Poland has close ties to Georgia and has several development projects on-going in the country. The President of the Republic of Poland Lech Kaczyński has offered the portal of the Republic of Poland’s Presidency to disseminate news from Georgia including official news releases from the Georgian government. True to form, the Russians have also cyber-attacked Georgia shutting websites and Internet traffic in Georgia. The website of the Bank of Georgia was hacked and its front page now has a picture of Adolf Hitler.
Armenia
Armenia is taking a netural position as best it can. Armenia is highly dependent on Russia for oil and natural gas. Armenia’s role in the conflict is largely limited to providing assistance to expats living in Georgia and some refugees. Borders are also porous in the Caucusus and perhaps 300,000 Armenians live in Georgia. They’re geographically dispersed, though, with the biggest chunk residiing in Javkhaz province but at least 100,000 living in and around Tbilisi, the capital of Geogia. It should be interesting to see how Armenia respond to this. For my US readership, Georgia is about the size of West Virginia.
Israel
Israel is sending humanitarian aid to Georgia as the first part of a broader aid effort to be implemented soon. The shipment, which will be flown by the Georgian national airline, consists of two respirators and seven EKG monitors. The aid is a result of cooperation between the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Archimedes Global-Madanes Group. More from IRMA
In effect, no one is really helping Georgia to the extent it needs help. French President is off to Moscow this week ostensibly to pressure the Russians into a cease-fire. His trip will be a success if that is achieved and he can get the Russians to withdraw to the status quo ante. The partition of Georgia is now a de facto one and whatever illusions Goergia harboured of recovering South Ossetia and Abkhazia are gone. For Sarkozy the visit is not without risk, he may be seen like Neville Chamberlain coming back from Munich. Let’s just hope he does not announce that “peace is at hand.” It is clearly not. We have entered an new era in international geo-politics. The Russia bear is no longer in hibernation. It’s springtime for the bear and it’s hungry.
Video Report fro Al-Jazeera on the Latest Russian Moves
News Reports & Blogs
From the New York Times an article on how Georgians feel let down by the West. It is sad really even on the blogosphere there is very little discussion of the Georgian crisis. What’s even sadder is that it is largely on conservative blogs. I may be the only liberal progressive blog covering this in the United States.
Coverage from Fistful of Euros
The liberal European blog Fistful of Euros is devoting substantial coverage to the Georgian Crisis with several anaylitcal posts a day.
How Many Dispusted Territories Have You Annexed This Week by Charlie Whitaker looks at the character of the war and finds it has a “retro” feel.
There’s a distinct retrograde character to this week’s events. This makes following the news exciting, but nonetheless I don’t think we’re seeing the beginning of a return to the state of affairs pre-1989. For a start, with communism, for decades, there was the fear that maybe, just maybe, the reds might be outproducing us. In other words, whether or not communism was ethically sound, it worked. (And there’s more than a hint of this mentality with respect to China today.) I tend to believe that if you follow this road assiduously you get to a situation where – through reference to some sort of biological analogy – ‘strength’ or ‘fitness’ is given as the highest purpose of a nation. This bad.
Luckily, we don’t need to go there: communism (at least, communism as practised by the Russians) turned out not to work. The consequences are still with Russia today, and can be seen at various levels and in various applications, including military applications. For example, shells fired from a Leopard 2 will likely pass clean through the hull of a T-80, but not vice versa. (Korolev’s rocket designs were good, admittedly.) It’s only because military investment was such a high priority in the USSR that we see today’s Russia in possession of a variety of functional materiel.
Chess My Ass by Douglas Muir looks how this war was not exactly a chess match.
The Russians are also sending signals about regime change; Foreign Minister Lavrov said that Russia “no longer sees [Saakashvili] as a partner”. They’re also ostentatiously ignoring Georgia’s request for a cease-fire.
I don’t have a lot of analysis to add here, but let me throw out a couple of things. One, I keep reading people writing “oh, the Russians have been so clever here — see, they’re playing chess”. Jesus Christ, people. Can we PLEASE declare a moratorium on this totally stupid metaphor? The majority of Russians do not, in fact, play chess. And why don’t we ever hear about Chinese playing go, or Turks playing nardi?
Enough with the chess. This isn’t chess. It looks like Georgia got suckered into doing something stupid, and the Russians were ready for it, and are taking the opportunity to stomp Georgia good. But there’s nothing particularly chess-like about that.
Second, if Russia really is entering Georgia in force, it’s about to become a different sort of game altogether. Russia has no reason to do that unless it’s gunning for regime change. Attacking Gori is right at the bleeding edge of plausible self-defense; Gori is near the border, and has been the forward base for Georgian operations in South Ossetia. But going beyond Gori, landing forces on the Georgian coast, or attacking in force out of Abkhazia, would be something else again.
Russia may win the war. It will lose the propaganda war. Wherever the fault lies for this crisis, in the West will be blamed and that neither serves Russia nor the West well. Russia will emerge from this ever more isolated and ever more surrounded. Russian paranoia is nothing new and we have fed it (remember my Don’t Not Feed the Bears post) but now the West is destined to view Russia with greater suscipion and apprehension. Missile defence shields may now find a more welcoming environment across Europe.