Caucasus

As we pass into October, what has happened to the Guns of August? Those who recall Barbara Tuchman’s famous book about the origins of WWI must remember the uncanny way that Europe gives rise to conflict in late summer. In Georgia — or what used to be parts of Georgia — the guns are silent now, but is peace at hand in the Caucasus?

Surveying the scene along these former ramparts should give us pause.

As the New York Times reports today, 200 European Union peacekeepers have arrived in Georgia, one of the provisions set forth in the EU-brokered ceasefire. But — surprise! — the Russian military is hampering their entry into the so-called buffer zones on the Georgian side of the borders of Southern Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Russian troops remain in these buffer zones, well beyond the contested regions and well within the territory that all parties — even the Russian Federation — acknowledge to be part of Georgia. Where the Russian troops are, no other “outsiders” are welcome.

As Moscow has enforced its will, the international community — not to mention Tbilisi — has appeared impotent. So, you say, it serves those hotheaded Georgians right. After all, didn’t they start the conflict on August 7th, just as the world was distracted by the start of the Olympic games in Beijing? After all, wasn’t Russia merely reacting in defense of Russian citizens living in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, crossing into these lands to stop a “genocide” that Georgian forces had already begun?

Surprise, once again. The latest reports show again — and convincingly — that, on August 7th, the Russian guns were primed and ready, Russian forces ready and massed for attack, and compliant Russian media embedded among the troops. This was well before the Georgians, provoked by cross-border fire from within South Ossetia, succumbed to the Russian trap.

We can be thankful that the guns are silent, but we should not be reassured. Russia has concluded that it can work its will in its “near abroad.” With so many ethnic Russians residing in these border countries, it is a simple and emotionally compelling act to manufacture a grievance that leaves Russia no choice but to intervene, lest there be another “genocide.”

This is well-worn territory in Europe. Hitler’s Germany had “no choice” but to help the Sudentendeutsch so victimized by Czechoslovakia in the fall of 1938. Serbia’s Milosevic had “no choice” but to rush to the aid of minority Serbs living in Kosovo in the summer of 1989. With the United States distracted by its long election campaign, and world staggering from the turmoil in financial markets, it will not take much for Russia to find another grievance close at hand.

The head of Georgia’s Parliament, David Barakidze, says his country is being targeted for “regime change — by economic means,” and is appealing to the United States and other countries for major economic assistance.

In an interview from Denver, where he is lobbying leading delegates to the Democratic National Convention, Barakidze said Russian forces had severely damaged Georgia’s roads and port facilities during the recent conflict and had planted mines and other explosives near oil pipelines that continued to threaten oil shipments across Georgia to Turkey.

“Twenty per cent of Georgia’s economy is foreign direct investment,” Barakidze told me. “Without foreign confidence (in Georgia’s economy) within a few months we could be a failed state.”

Besides appealing for emergency foreign assistance, Barakidze said Georgia is calling on foreign governments to restrict the travel and foreign activities of Russia’s business elite.

Listen to the interview below:

Listen to the interview below

Now that the bloodshed has stopped in the Caucasus, constructing a new policy approach for the West is imperative.

Western, Georgian and Russian sources all agree on the following:

• Russian forces have largely, but not completely, left Georgia proper. They remain in Georgia in what has been called a “new administrative border” buffering South Ossetia and Abkhazia. They also remain within South Ossetia and Abkhazia, in numbers greater than before the outbreak of full-scale conflict on August 7.

• The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has dispatched a small number of peacekeepers to the region, but is reporting less than full cooperation from the Russians, who have not allowed OSCE into the areas that they control.

• Diplomatic contacts continue, but there are few if any signs of progress. The tit-for-tat declarations from NATO Headquarters and from Moscow make clear that NATO-Russian cooperation is on indefinite hold.

In the American political arena, there is a sense of bipartisan dissatisfaction with the current status quo. There are a few conservatives (e.g., Buchanan ) and more liberals who decry the rhetoric coming out of the White House and State Department and the McCain campaign for being too inflammatory. There are more conservatives (Krauthammer ) and a few liberals who criticize the NATO and US for not taking more resolute action. So far, at least, there’s not much difference between the way that McCain and Biden express themselves on the issue.

Those would have the US and NATO do more have few ideas beyond freezing Russia’s entry into the WTO and proceeding with the anti-missile system in Europe. The experts at the Heritage Foundation argue that NATO should proceed with Membership Action Plans (MAPs) for Ukraine and Georgia, but how can Georgia join NATO before it controls its own territory?

It was Saakashvili’s goal to reassert Georgian sovereignty over South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Now, however, it is Georgian sovereignty over the rest of the country that is diminished.

Meanwhile, if there is a “redline” for the West in Georgia, it is probably an oil pipeline – Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan – which passes just 30 miles south of the Georgian capital. The 1,000-mile pipeline pumps one million barrels of Caspian oil per day, tracing a carefully constructed detour around Russian-controlled territory and territorial waters. Only now the new Russian “border” is closer than it was on August 7 – apparently by a dozen miles or so. And it is the Russians who seem to be calling the shots – literally.

Today’s reports from Brussels and Tbilisi offer disturbing signs that Russia is unlikely to return to the status quo ante in the Caucasus. Instead of withdrawing its military forces to where they were on August 6th, Russia has strengthened its control over South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and a strategic area of Georgia proper extending well beyond the town of Gori. Reports in the NYT make clear that, behind Russian lines, ethnic Georgians are being terrorized by a mix of Ossetians and criminals of various nationalities. Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, at NATO Headquarters, Condi Rice and other NATO foreign ministers are outlining a mix of diplomatic and political steps against Russia that are unlikely to affect the Balkanization of the Caucasus.

Russia is back, not to safeguard the rights of ethnic Ossetians, Abkhazians, or any of the myriad local ethnic groups; not to oppose Turkish domination as in centuries past; but to assert its own influence and control over Georgia and other states of the former USSR. You can argue — correctly — that Georgia did not always treat its minorities well. Now, however, we will see “small scale” ethnic cleansing, abetted by Russian occupiers. Barack Obama, less prone to hyperbole than McCain on this issue, today said that there were reports of Russian “atrocities” in Georgia.

In the Balkan wars of the last decade, there were plenty of excesses on all sides, but a central reality — Belgrade’s violence against civilians — turned the world against Serbia. Now Russia, by forcing its way further into Georgia, and sanctioning violence against ethnic Georgians, repeats a discredited pattern of behavior. It is a slippery slope.

Here’s a link to the latest BBC video coverage from Russian positions within Georgia, entitled “Secret Film of Russian Troops.”

This footage, from August 15, makes plain that Russian troops remain in the Georgia port of Poti, carrying out military actions.

A glance at today’s coverage of the Georgian crisis in the Washington Post and the NYT reveals the two different ways the Bush Administration’s latest moves may be understood. President Bush’s announcement yesterday of a “vigorous” program of humanitarian aid was either “modest action,” or the “strongest warning yet of potential [U.S.] retaliation.”

There is in fact a calculated ambiguity to these moves. U.S. official humanitarian aid is being dispatched by military aircraft — even naval vessels (although there are none yet present in the area). Strong statements by Bush and Condolezza Rice are now (finally) followed by Rice’s own travel to Tbilisi. With a growing number of American aid workers and diplomats on the ground in Georgia, backed by a small contingent of U.S. military personnel, the U.S. sends an implicit warning to Putin not to continue the Russian military advance within Georgia, lest a tripwire be crossed.
While the risk of physical confrontation between U.S. and Russian forces remains low, the two sides must take steps to ensure that their intentions and actions are clearly understood. As I noted yesterday, the text of the French-brokered ceasefire agreement between Russia and Georgia allowed Russia to take unspecified “temporary” security measures that became the justification for Russia’s occupation of Gori.

The “temporary” measures now need to be rescinded and Russian military forces removed from Abakhazia, South Ossetia and any other areas of Georgia that they have occupied. A credible international peacekeeping force should be dispatched to the contested areas. This will required skilled, resolute, bipartisan diplomacy. We will probably look back at NATO’s Bucharest summit last April as a failure — a failure of the West to send an unambiguous message to Moscow. Putin saw NATO’s discord on Georgia and Ukraine as a lack of resolve, while Saakashvili convinced himself that the summit’s final statement meant just the opposite. Now we all pay the price.

If the Georgian-Russian ceasefire takes hold — and CNN, WSJ and others are reporting right now that Russian troops continue to advance within Georgia proper — resolving who actually keeps the peace will be a challenging issue. Barack Obama called yesterday for “a genuine international peacekeeping force.” This would clearly be a step in the right direction, since the presence of Russian “peacekeepers” in South Ossetia over the past 16 years has been more an instrument of Russian occupation than a neutral, unbiased buffer.

The danger here is that Russia has adopted a flexible definition of sovereignty and territorial integrity, as seen in Medvedev’s comments at his press conference yesterday with French President Sarkozy:

…No doubt we recognize the sovereignty of Georgia and the independence of the Georgian authorities and other countries, as well. But, this does not mean that sovereign state has or should have the possibility to do whatever it wants, even sovereign countries have to answer for their actions.

Now, with regard to territorial integrity, that is one concept. And if sovereignty is based on the will of the people and on the constitution, then territorial integrity as a rule can be demonstrated by the actual facts on the ground. And despite the fact that on paper it may look fine, life is much more complicated. And the question of territorial integrity is a very difficult and complicated question which cannot be solved in any demonstrations or in parliament even, or in meetings among leaders…

If Russian troops continue to occupy any part of Georgia, prospects for a fair rendering of the “will of the people” of South Ossetia or Abkhazia are slim. In the six-point ceasefire agreement, Georgia promises to return its military forces to “their normal bases,” while Russian troops must only withdraw to “[their] lines prior to the start of hostilities.” Further, the agreement states that, “while awaiting an international mechanism, Russian peacekeeping forces will implement additional security measures on a temporary basis.”

The longer it takes to establish an “international mechanism,” the more likely it is that Russia’s “temporary” added security measures will prove to be a further extended occupation, changing even more facts on the ground.

As of this writing, Russia has declared a halt to its military offensive in Georgia, some 24 hours after Georgia declared a ceasefire of its own. The olive branch was waved in Moscow by President Medvedev, who stated that “the aggressor has been punished.” If the ceasefire holds, the outside world may have an opportunity to check the veracity of the statements issued by Moscow and Tbilisi, see first-hand the casualties and assess the damage. Hopefully we can use this blog to highlight this information as it becomes available.

Even now, however, some facts on the ground are clearly beyond dispute. All the violence took place within the internationally recognized boundaries of Georgia. While the conflict began in South Ossetia, Russian forces quickly responded by attacking targets well beyond this contested region, including the town of Gori, in central Georgia, as well as Abkhazia, and Senaki, in Georgia to the west. According to the photos taken by Reuters early Monday, residential apartment buildings were hit in Gori. Video footage broadcast yesterday throughout the world showed Georgian President Saakashvili being hustled to cover by his guards in Gori, not far from the Georgian capital. The Washington Post reported that both Georgian and Russian officials confirmed the Russian takeover of Senaki. French Foreign Minister Kouchner saw the destruction in Gori first hand. Yet Russian UN Ambassador Churkin cautioned, predictably, that such reports should be taken “with a grain of salt.”

Russia has had armed “peacekeepers” in South Ossetia since 1992, when they were “invited” in by Ossetians following the breakup of the USSR. Georgia has been trying to get rid of the Russians ever since. As Moscow issued Russian passports to inhabitants of South Ossetia, it set the stage for a casus belli, once it determined that its “own” citizens were threatened by Georgian “aggression.”

Sudetenland. Danzig. Land grabs in Europe have often been justified as efforts to protect borderland minorities. Now South Ossetia. What will be next — Transdnistra? Russia has armed “peacekeepers” there as well. Wherever ethnic Russians dwell in countries sharing a border with the Russian Federation, today there is concern that Moscow may try to create new facts on the ground. Look at this report from Riga:

RIGA, Latvia (AFP)–Russia’s ambassador to Latvia Monday warned the Baltic states and Poland that they would pay for their criticism of the Kremlin over the conflict in Georgia, the Baltic news agency BNS reported.

“One must not hurry on such serious issues, as serious mistakes can be made that have to be paid for a long time afterwards,” Alexander Veshnyakov was quoted as saying by BNS.

Contacted by AFP, a spokesman for the Russian embassy in Riga confirmed the ambassador’s comments but declined to elaborate.

Shall we take such reports with a grain of salt as well?

– Mark Dillen