WAR Russian Tanks Rolling Into South Ossetia! Hot War!-9/22-#2534
Jeffrey Thomason
Veteran Member
Russia Must Comply With Cease-fire
http://www.voanews.com/uspolicy/2008-10-25-voa2.cfm
Official US Position, posted for fair use in it's entirety (my emphasis):
http://www.voanews.com/uspolicy/2008-10-25-voa2.cfm
Official US Position, posted for fair use in it's entirety (my emphasis):
Posted for fair use...
http://www.rferl.org/content/Abkhaz_Rebels_Say_EU_Ignores_Georgian_Provocation/1332920.html
Abkhaz Rebels Say EU Ignores 'Georgian Provocation'
October 26, 2008
MOSCOW (Reuters) -- Georgia's breakaway Abkhazia region accused European Union monitors on October 26 of ignoring "armed provocations" by Georgia along its boundaries and warned Tbilisi its retaliation would be heavy-handed.
The accusation was made one day after a Georgian district governor and a villager were killed by what Georgian police said were mortars fired from the Abkhaz side in the boundary zone.
On October 26, Abkhazia accused Georgia of firing at a border checkpoint, saying one of its border guards had been wounded.
The new shoot-out appears to have increased tension in the Abkhaz de facto border zone since Russian forces pulled back to within the rebel region early this month, following a five-day war with Georgia in August.
"The heightened activity of Georgian subversive groups in Abkhazia, these frequent shooting and killings are a consequence of the absense of Russian peacekeepers in the conflict zone and the inaction of EU monitors," Russia's RIA news agency quoted an unnamed senior Abkhaz security official as saying.
Abkhaz leader Sergei Bagapsh held an emergency meeting of the separatist security council.
"Georgia is launching a large-scale terrorist action on the territory of the Republic of Abkhazia," Russia's Vesti-24 state channel showed a grim Bagapsh as telling the meeting.
"I repeat: shooting at any (Abkhaz) post from Georgian territory will be punished by retaliatory fire from all weapons we have at our disposal. If there is a need to bring in armour -- let's say, more or less combat-ready tanks -- do it."
Russian Support
Tbilisi said the situation in western Georgia was calm. "But Abkhaz separatists, supported by Russian troops, are trying to whip up tension," said Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili.
"Such statements are intended to destabilise the situation and again introduce extra [Russian] troops in the parts of Georgia, from where they had been pulled back. There has not been a single case of shooting from our side."
Russian troops and tanks pushed into Georgia in early August to halt a Georgian military offensive to retake pro-Moscow South Ossetia, which like Abkhazia threw off Georgian rule in the early 1990s.
The Russian counter-strike drove Georgian forces out of South Ossetia, and Moscow's troops pushed further into Georgian territory from both rebel regions.
The West called the response disproportionate, and Russian forces have since pulled back from buffer zones around South Ossetia and Abkhazia under a French-brokered ceasefire deal. The Kremlin has recognised the two regions as independent states.
A 225-strong European Union mission is monitoring the ceasefire in both de facto border zones.
South Ossetia accused Tbilisi last week of breaching the ceasefire deal by firing at its villages from the EU-monitored area, and said its forces would not hesitate to retaliate.
http://www.rferl.org/content/Abkhaz_Rebels_Say_EU_Ignores_Georgian_Provocation/1332920.html
Abkhaz Rebels Say EU Ignores 'Georgian Provocation'
October 26, 2008
MOSCOW (Reuters) -- Georgia's breakaway Abkhazia region accused European Union monitors on October 26 of ignoring "armed provocations" by Georgia along its boundaries and warned Tbilisi its retaliation would be heavy-handed.
The accusation was made one day after a Georgian district governor and a villager were killed by what Georgian police said were mortars fired from the Abkhaz side in the boundary zone.
On October 26, Abkhazia accused Georgia of firing at a border checkpoint, saying one of its border guards had been wounded.
The new shoot-out appears to have increased tension in the Abkhaz de facto border zone since Russian forces pulled back to within the rebel region early this month, following a five-day war with Georgia in August.
"The heightened activity of Georgian subversive groups in Abkhazia, these frequent shooting and killings are a consequence of the absense of Russian peacekeepers in the conflict zone and the inaction of EU monitors," Russia's RIA news agency quoted an unnamed senior Abkhaz security official as saying.
Abkhaz leader Sergei Bagapsh held an emergency meeting of the separatist security council.
"Georgia is launching a large-scale terrorist action on the territory of the Republic of Abkhazia," Russia's Vesti-24 state channel showed a grim Bagapsh as telling the meeting.
"I repeat: shooting at any (Abkhaz) post from Georgian territory will be punished by retaliatory fire from all weapons we have at our disposal. If there is a need to bring in armour -- let's say, more or less combat-ready tanks -- do it."
Russian Support
Tbilisi said the situation in western Georgia was calm. "But Abkhaz separatists, supported by Russian troops, are trying to whip up tension," said Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili.
"Such statements are intended to destabilise the situation and again introduce extra [Russian] troops in the parts of Georgia, from where they had been pulled back. There has not been a single case of shooting from our side."
Russian troops and tanks pushed into Georgia in early August to halt a Georgian military offensive to retake pro-Moscow South Ossetia, which like Abkhazia threw off Georgian rule in the early 1990s.
The Russian counter-strike drove Georgian forces out of South Ossetia, and Moscow's troops pushed further into Georgian territory from both rebel regions.
The West called the response disproportionate, and Russian forces have since pulled back from buffer zones around South Ossetia and Abkhazia under a French-brokered ceasefire deal. The Kremlin has recognised the two regions as independent states.
A 225-strong European Union mission is monitoring the ceasefire in both de facto border zones.
South Ossetia accused Tbilisi last week of breaching the ceasefire deal by firing at its villages from the EU-monitored area, and said its forces would not hesitate to retaliate.
Posted for fair use....
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008\10\27\story_27-10-2008_pg7_47
Monday, October 27, 2008
Anti-tank mines found at Georgian presidency
TBILISI: Two anti-tank mines were found on Sunday at a presidential residence in the western Georgian city of Zugdidi, near the rebel region of Abkhazia, the Interior Ministry said.
“Two anti-tank mines were found at the presidential residence in Zugdidi. Specialists are working to disarm and dismantle these explosive devices,” Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili told AFP, adding he had no more details regarding the incident.
A spokesman for President Mikheil Saakashvili also said he had no details of the incident.
Tensions remain high near Georgia’s rebel regions following a war in August between Russia and Georgia over another breakaway province, South Ossetia.
Two people, including a local mayor, were killed on Saturday when an explosive device was set off in the village of Muzhava on the border with Abkhazia. Police said they suspected Abkhaz rebels were behind the attack.
Russian forces moved into Georgia on August 8 to repel a Georgian military attempt to retake South Ossetia. Under a European Union-brokered ceasefire, Russian forces later withdrew to within the two rebel regions, which Moscow recognised as independent states. afp
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008\10\27\story_27-10-2008_pg7_47
Monday, October 27, 2008
Anti-tank mines found at Georgian presidency
TBILISI: Two anti-tank mines were found on Sunday at a presidential residence in the western Georgian city of Zugdidi, near the rebel region of Abkhazia, the Interior Ministry said.
“Two anti-tank mines were found at the presidential residence in Zugdidi. Specialists are working to disarm and dismantle these explosive devices,” Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili told AFP, adding he had no more details regarding the incident.
A spokesman for President Mikheil Saakashvili also said he had no details of the incident.
Tensions remain high near Georgia’s rebel regions following a war in August between Russia and Georgia over another breakaway province, South Ossetia.
Two people, including a local mayor, were killed on Saturday when an explosive device was set off in the village of Muzhava on the border with Abkhazia. Police said they suspected Abkhaz rebels were behind the attack.
Russian forces moved into Georgia on August 8 to repel a Georgian military attempt to retake South Ossetia. Under a European Union-brokered ceasefire, Russian forces later withdrew to within the two rebel regions, which Moscow recognised as independent states. afp
Posted for fair use...
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/world/20081027TDY08001.htm
INSIGHTS INTO THE WORLD / War in Georgia was message from Moscow
Masayuki Yamauchi / Special to The Yomiuri Shimbun
In August, Georgia inadvisedly provoked a war with Russia, a development so serious it had the potential to spark a new Cold War, which would have seen the United States and Russia face off against each other in the Caucasus region.
The United States, for its part, found itself in no position to extend direct military assistance to Georgia, proving that Washington's unipolar domination of world politics has waned.
Although the war in Georgia might well be referred to--alongside the ongoing international financial crisis--as a key turning point in world history, there has been little discussion in Japan about its implications.
When he was foreign minister, Taro Aso advanced what he called the Arc of Freedom and Prosperity as Japan's new Eurasian diplomatic strategy. The proposal addressed a region stretching from Turkey and the three Caucasus countries of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan to the east of Central Asia. So it is strange then, that Aso has not touched on the serious political crisis in the Caucasus region since becoming prime minister.
Whether the proposed strategy for dealing with affairs in Eurasia--from East European countries lining the Baltic Sea to Asia--can be realized has yet to be seen. I am afraid that Aso's apparent choice to forget his past diplomatic stance likely will not only make the international community skeptical about the continuity of Japan's foreign policy positions but also the trust of the nations concerned in Japan.
===
Theater of conflict
The three Caucasus countries--which lie between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea and are surrounded by the Middle East, Russia and Central Asia--used to be a theater of complex international political tugs-of-war.
Since the 19th century, the Caucasus linked the Eastern Question--a series of Middle Eastern struggles involving the European powers--and the Great Game--the rivalry between the British Empire and the Russia empire in Central Asia. In other words, the Caucasus region used to serve as an international theater of conflict connecting Europe and Asia.
Today, the same region is at the forefront of competing interests between Russia and the United States over oil and natural gas in the Caspian Sea and the issue of pipeline construction.
There is no doubt that the easterly expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is a factor that is aggravating the Caucasus problem. Even after NATO completed its task of defending Western Europe from the threat of the Soviet Union and communism, the military alliance, spearheaded by the United States, expanded further into some former Eastern European countries, as well as the three Balkan nations, toward Ukraine and Georgia--countries that had been parts of the Soviet Union since the Russian Revolution.
The easterly expansion of NATO is no more than an irritating development for Moscow, considering the national interests of Russia, whose cooperation as a member of the Group of Eight major countries is deemed to be essential in the new global political environment with regard to such matters as the war on terrorism, efforts to restore order and stability in both Iraq and Afghanistan and, recently, the global financial crisis.
The admission of Georgia by NATO carries with it the risk of laying down a new Cold War-type line of demarcation, causing a crack in the security of the whole of the Caucasus region.
===
Russia seeking greater influence
Russia had sought to reinstate and strengthen its influence in the former Soviet territories by having Abkhazia and South Ossetia become independent of Georgia. Its war with Georgia was its first with a neighboring country since its invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.
The invasion of Georgia has been taken as a veiled threat to the three Baltic countries as well as countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, all of which are inclined toward the United States and NATO.
It should be remembered that Russia's motivation to resort to retaliation against Georgia reflected its concern about the growing presence in the Caucasus region of Middle Eastern entities, such as those from oil-producing Arab countries, against the backdrop of abundant oil-generating wealth.
Russia set out to give a clear message to Israel that Moscow could no longer tolerate the latter's increasing influence in Georgia's military and espionage sectors, especially as Israel's efforts were at least tacitly backed by the United States.
According to Theodore Karasik, a scholar at the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis (INEGMA), Russia also reacted to Israel's growing interest in oil and gas pipeline infrastructure along a Turkey-Georgia-Azerbaijan-Turkmenistan route. A consortium led by major U.S. and British oil companies has constructed an oil pipeline from Azerbaijan to the eastern Mediterranean Sea coast in Turkey via Georgia.
Moscow recognized that its oil interests in the Caspian Sea--which Russia regards as its backyard--would be threatened if the existing oil pipeline were to be extended into Israel. Therefore, Russia set out to sent a clear message to Georgia and the Middle East. In fact, when the United States and its allies conducted a massive deployment of naval vessels after the outbreak of the war in Iraq in 2003, Russia demonstrated its ability to deploy its troops to the Gulf via Syria by dispatching an aircraft carrier in the eastern Mediterranean Sea--a show of force apparently directed at Israel.
===
Moscow's intermediary role
Furthermore, Russia has been clinging to its traditional and unique role as an intermediary in international negotiations with Iran, which has a nuclear development program.
Until the European Union emerged as a leading player in its own right vis-a-vis Iran's nuclear issue, Russia had regarded itself as the mediator in Iran-U.S. negotiations or Iran's talks with the Gulf Cooperation Council, which includes Saudi Arabia. By resorting to war in Georgia, Russia indicated how difficult the maintenance of security in the Caucasus and Gulf regions could become. It also indirectly showed its intention to ease sanctions on Iran and resume arms sales there, developments that Saudi Arabia would not like to see.
In a related development, Russia's attack devastated the infrastructure of the Georgian Black Sea port of Poti. The Georgian government had sold ownership of most of the port to United Arab Emirates firm RAK (Ras Al Khaimah) Investment Authority in April.
The bombing of Poti can be taken as a message that Russia had no intention of recognizing the creation of a north-south economic corridor linking the Caucasus region and the Middle East, including GCC member countries, in a way that would disregard Russia's national interests.
On the other hand, the United States saw a further weakening of its strategic position in the Caucasus region, in addition to its loosening grip on Iraq and Afghanistan. Now that energy issues have seen the Caucasus-Russia relationship take on global significance, the situation has become extremely complicated, far beyond anyone's expectations.
Given the Caucasus region's unique circumstances and its historical connection with Russia, choosing comprehensive regional neutrality rather than hasty admission to NATO could make a more realistic contribution to the security of the three Caucasus countries.
In this regard, it can be said that Japan, a non-NATO country that has contributed toward efforts to secure peace in the Middle East, is qualified to make its own efforts toward the peace and security of the Caucasus region, which neighbors the Middle East, by utilizing Aso's Eurasian strategy--the Arc of Freedom and Prosperity.
Yamauchi is a professor at Tokyo University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. He specializes in the history of international relations and serves as a member of the government-appointed Japan-China and Japan-South Korea panels for joint studies on history.
(Oct. 27, 2008)
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/world/20081027TDY08001.htm
INSIGHTS INTO THE WORLD / War in Georgia was message from Moscow
Masayuki Yamauchi / Special to The Yomiuri Shimbun
In August, Georgia inadvisedly provoked a war with Russia, a development so serious it had the potential to spark a new Cold War, which would have seen the United States and Russia face off against each other in the Caucasus region.
The United States, for its part, found itself in no position to extend direct military assistance to Georgia, proving that Washington's unipolar domination of world politics has waned.
Although the war in Georgia might well be referred to--alongside the ongoing international financial crisis--as a key turning point in world history, there has been little discussion in Japan about its implications.
When he was foreign minister, Taro Aso advanced what he called the Arc of Freedom and Prosperity as Japan's new Eurasian diplomatic strategy. The proposal addressed a region stretching from Turkey and the three Caucasus countries of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan to the east of Central Asia. So it is strange then, that Aso has not touched on the serious political crisis in the Caucasus region since becoming prime minister.
Whether the proposed strategy for dealing with affairs in Eurasia--from East European countries lining the Baltic Sea to Asia--can be realized has yet to be seen. I am afraid that Aso's apparent choice to forget his past diplomatic stance likely will not only make the international community skeptical about the continuity of Japan's foreign policy positions but also the trust of the nations concerned in Japan.
===
Theater of conflict
The three Caucasus countries--which lie between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea and are surrounded by the Middle East, Russia and Central Asia--used to be a theater of complex international political tugs-of-war.
Since the 19th century, the Caucasus linked the Eastern Question--a series of Middle Eastern struggles involving the European powers--and the Great Game--the rivalry between the British Empire and the Russia empire in Central Asia. In other words, the Caucasus region used to serve as an international theater of conflict connecting Europe and Asia.
Today, the same region is at the forefront of competing interests between Russia and the United States over oil and natural gas in the Caspian Sea and the issue of pipeline construction.
There is no doubt that the easterly expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is a factor that is aggravating the Caucasus problem. Even after NATO completed its task of defending Western Europe from the threat of the Soviet Union and communism, the military alliance, spearheaded by the United States, expanded further into some former Eastern European countries, as well as the three Balkan nations, toward Ukraine and Georgia--countries that had been parts of the Soviet Union since the Russian Revolution.
The easterly expansion of NATO is no more than an irritating development for Moscow, considering the national interests of Russia, whose cooperation as a member of the Group of Eight major countries is deemed to be essential in the new global political environment with regard to such matters as the war on terrorism, efforts to restore order and stability in both Iraq and Afghanistan and, recently, the global financial crisis.
The admission of Georgia by NATO carries with it the risk of laying down a new Cold War-type line of demarcation, causing a crack in the security of the whole of the Caucasus region.
===
Russia seeking greater influence
Russia had sought to reinstate and strengthen its influence in the former Soviet territories by having Abkhazia and South Ossetia become independent of Georgia. Its war with Georgia was its first with a neighboring country since its invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.
The invasion of Georgia has been taken as a veiled threat to the three Baltic countries as well as countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, all of which are inclined toward the United States and NATO.
It should be remembered that Russia's motivation to resort to retaliation against Georgia reflected its concern about the growing presence in the Caucasus region of Middle Eastern entities, such as those from oil-producing Arab countries, against the backdrop of abundant oil-generating wealth.
Russia set out to give a clear message to Israel that Moscow could no longer tolerate the latter's increasing influence in Georgia's military and espionage sectors, especially as Israel's efforts were at least tacitly backed by the United States.
According to Theodore Karasik, a scholar at the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis (INEGMA), Russia also reacted to Israel's growing interest in oil and gas pipeline infrastructure along a Turkey-Georgia-Azerbaijan-Turkmenistan route. A consortium led by major U.S. and British oil companies has constructed an oil pipeline from Azerbaijan to the eastern Mediterranean Sea coast in Turkey via Georgia.
Moscow recognized that its oil interests in the Caspian Sea--which Russia regards as its backyard--would be threatened if the existing oil pipeline were to be extended into Israel. Therefore, Russia set out to sent a clear message to Georgia and the Middle East. In fact, when the United States and its allies conducted a massive deployment of naval vessels after the outbreak of the war in Iraq in 2003, Russia demonstrated its ability to deploy its troops to the Gulf via Syria by dispatching an aircraft carrier in the eastern Mediterranean Sea--a show of force apparently directed at Israel.
===
Moscow's intermediary role
Furthermore, Russia has been clinging to its traditional and unique role as an intermediary in international negotiations with Iran, which has a nuclear development program.
Until the European Union emerged as a leading player in its own right vis-a-vis Iran's nuclear issue, Russia had regarded itself as the mediator in Iran-U.S. negotiations or Iran's talks with the Gulf Cooperation Council, which includes Saudi Arabia. By resorting to war in Georgia, Russia indicated how difficult the maintenance of security in the Caucasus and Gulf regions could become. It also indirectly showed its intention to ease sanctions on Iran and resume arms sales there, developments that Saudi Arabia would not like to see.
In a related development, Russia's attack devastated the infrastructure of the Georgian Black Sea port of Poti. The Georgian government had sold ownership of most of the port to United Arab Emirates firm RAK (Ras Al Khaimah) Investment Authority in April.
The bombing of Poti can be taken as a message that Russia had no intention of recognizing the creation of a north-south economic corridor linking the Caucasus region and the Middle East, including GCC member countries, in a way that would disregard Russia's national interests.
On the other hand, the United States saw a further weakening of its strategic position in the Caucasus region, in addition to its loosening grip on Iraq and Afghanistan. Now that energy issues have seen the Caucasus-Russia relationship take on global significance, the situation has become extremely complicated, far beyond anyone's expectations.
Given the Caucasus region's unique circumstances and its historical connection with Russia, choosing comprehensive regional neutrality rather than hasty admission to NATO could make a more realistic contribution to the security of the three Caucasus countries.
In this regard, it can be said that Japan, a non-NATO country that has contributed toward efforts to secure peace in the Middle East, is qualified to make its own efforts toward the peace and security of the Caucasus region, which neighbors the Middle East, by utilizing Aso's Eurasian strategy--the Arc of Freedom and Prosperity.
Yamauchi is a professor at Tokyo University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. He specializes in the history of international relations and serves as a member of the government-appointed Japan-China and Japan-South Korea panels for joint studies on history.
(Oct. 27, 2008)
Posted for fair use...
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20081027gc.html
Monday, Oct. 27, 2008
West ganging up on Russia
By GREGORY CLARK
Western reports say Russia is in deep trouble because foreigners are fleeing its stock market following the recent conflict in Georgia. Maybe so. But none of this was very visible to me on a recent Moscow visit.
Shops cater to the newly rich on central Moscow streets that 10 years ago were lined with beggars and peddlers. Construction trucks clog the 12-lane Moscow ring road built well into the countryside. A subway system shuttles hordes of commuters at minute intervals into central Moscow from high-rise developments across that countryside. High wages attract workers from former Soviet republics. The dynamism is almost as palpable as in China.
True, the stock-market collapse was impressive. But it hurt few other than a handful of speculators and the get-rich-quick oligarchs given dominant shares in the economy during the disastrous Yeltsin years.
What hurts the Russians is how the West seems to have ganged up against them, first with NATO's push into East Europe and then accusing Moscow of aggression simply because it came to the rescue of South Ossetia in August.
Nor was it the first attack. In the early '90s both South Ossetia and the equally disputed Abkhazia had to fight bitter wars with Georgia to retain the autonomy granted them in Soviet years. Both mini-wars ended with U.N.-brokered settlements under which peacekeepers, mainly Russian, were installed.
Then on Aug. 7-8, Georgian troops suddenly attacked the South Ossetian capital and 16 Russian peacekeepers were killed outright in their beds. Many more Ossetians died (1,600 was the figure given me by the Moscow Diplomatic Academy). Given that many South Ossetians have Russian passports and were liable to severe ethnic cleansing, a strong Russian counterattack was inevitable and justified.
So why is none of this recognized in the West? the Russians ask. It is not as though the facts were hard to find. But even as U.S. and British journalists were filing their detailed on-the-spot accounts of what had actually happened that night, their editors were grinding out the "punish Russian aggression" mantra. The Washington Post says the Russian goal is the overthrow of the pro-West Georgian government. If so, why did the Russian troops leave Georgia once they had stabilized the situation?
To someone like myself who lived and worked in Moscow at the height of the Cold War, the distortions are sickeningly familiar. First the West would do something ugly — invade Cuba, send U2 flights across the Soviet Union on the eve of breakthrough talks, brutalize Indochina. The angry Soviet reaction would then be used to justify the West's original atrocity, plus further atrocities. The Soviets would then use this to justify their atrocities. Even young children playing kindergarten tit for tat seemed to understand cause and effect better than most of our U.S.-British policymakers.
The Russians with whom I talked seem to have given up on the United States and Britain and are pinning their hopes more on the Europeans for understanding. While some West Europeans now do admit the attack by Georgia was a mistake, they insist that the Russian response was excessive, and that recognizing Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent republics was illegal.
Excessive? Illegal? Then what was the European determination to bomb Serbia en route to having Kosovo forcefully detached from Serbia and recognized as an independent republic? Here the hypocrisy and double standards make even kindergarten tit-for-tat look good. Complaints about the suffering of Georgians now being expelled from South Ossetia fade into nothing compared with the sufferings of Serbs and other minorities ethnically cleansed from Kosovo by the now dominant ethnic Albanians, and which the West supported.
Complaints against Russian behavior in Chechnya seem more appropriate. But the West was largely silent there; those suffering were pro-Islam and not pro-West. Most of the Russians I have met have been equally silent. Double standards are not a Western monopoly, it seems.
Future trouble looms. Soviet era ideology endorsed the mixing of populations within loosely defined constituent republics. So in Soviet days South Ossetia and Abkhazia were bundled in together with Georgia proper despite strong ethnic differences. It was all supposed to help create a new Soviet identity of multicultural togetherness. But now all that is being undone as those constituent republics set out to create their own identities. South Ossetia, incidentally, was one painful result of the breakup of the former Yugoslavia.
Ukraine is another problem waiting to explode. Culturally and linguistically it is very close to Russia and its arbitrary borders include many Russian speakers. Indeed, when we traveled there from Russia in the 1960s it was rather like going from Kanto to Kansai; we had almost no sense of entering a different region.
Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev had even decreed that the firmly Russian populated Crimean region with its important naval port of Sevastopol should also be part of Ukraine, no doubt thinking this would help calm lingering anti-Russian feelings among Ukrainians who had suffered under pre-1953 Stalinism.
Today Ukrainian nationalism is killing those hopes as the regime distances itself from Moscow and seeks NATO ties. Any Russian reaction to this seeming betrayal by a former brother region on its borders — even simple demands that Ukraine begin to pay more for the subsidized gas it receives from Russia — meets predictable Western noise about Russian bullying and blackmail.
Meanwhile, similar cultural conflicts are already well under way in the three Baltic States of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia together with Moldova and some of the former Soviet central Asian republics. Where will it all end?
Gregory Clark, vice president of Akita International University, was first secretary at the Australian Embassy, Moscow, 1963-1965. A Japanese translation of this article will appear on www.gregoryclark.net.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20081027gc.html
Monday, Oct. 27, 2008
West ganging up on Russia
By GREGORY CLARK
Western reports say Russia is in deep trouble because foreigners are fleeing its stock market following the recent conflict in Georgia. Maybe so. But none of this was very visible to me on a recent Moscow visit.
Shops cater to the newly rich on central Moscow streets that 10 years ago were lined with beggars and peddlers. Construction trucks clog the 12-lane Moscow ring road built well into the countryside. A subway system shuttles hordes of commuters at minute intervals into central Moscow from high-rise developments across that countryside. High wages attract workers from former Soviet republics. The dynamism is almost as palpable as in China.
True, the stock-market collapse was impressive. But it hurt few other than a handful of speculators and the get-rich-quick oligarchs given dominant shares in the economy during the disastrous Yeltsin years.
What hurts the Russians is how the West seems to have ganged up against them, first with NATO's push into East Europe and then accusing Moscow of aggression simply because it came to the rescue of South Ossetia in August.
Nor was it the first attack. In the early '90s both South Ossetia and the equally disputed Abkhazia had to fight bitter wars with Georgia to retain the autonomy granted them in Soviet years. Both mini-wars ended with U.N.-brokered settlements under which peacekeepers, mainly Russian, were installed.
Then on Aug. 7-8, Georgian troops suddenly attacked the South Ossetian capital and 16 Russian peacekeepers were killed outright in their beds. Many more Ossetians died (1,600 was the figure given me by the Moscow Diplomatic Academy). Given that many South Ossetians have Russian passports and were liable to severe ethnic cleansing, a strong Russian counterattack was inevitable and justified.
So why is none of this recognized in the West? the Russians ask. It is not as though the facts were hard to find. But even as U.S. and British journalists were filing their detailed on-the-spot accounts of what had actually happened that night, their editors were grinding out the "punish Russian aggression" mantra. The Washington Post says the Russian goal is the overthrow of the pro-West Georgian government. If so, why did the Russian troops leave Georgia once they had stabilized the situation?
To someone like myself who lived and worked in Moscow at the height of the Cold War, the distortions are sickeningly familiar. First the West would do something ugly — invade Cuba, send U2 flights across the Soviet Union on the eve of breakthrough talks, brutalize Indochina. The angry Soviet reaction would then be used to justify the West's original atrocity, plus further atrocities. The Soviets would then use this to justify their atrocities. Even young children playing kindergarten tit for tat seemed to understand cause and effect better than most of our U.S.-British policymakers.
The Russians with whom I talked seem to have given up on the United States and Britain and are pinning their hopes more on the Europeans for understanding. While some West Europeans now do admit the attack by Georgia was a mistake, they insist that the Russian response was excessive, and that recognizing Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent republics was illegal.
Excessive? Illegal? Then what was the European determination to bomb Serbia en route to having Kosovo forcefully detached from Serbia and recognized as an independent republic? Here the hypocrisy and double standards make even kindergarten tit-for-tat look good. Complaints about the suffering of Georgians now being expelled from South Ossetia fade into nothing compared with the sufferings of Serbs and other minorities ethnically cleansed from Kosovo by the now dominant ethnic Albanians, and which the West supported.
Complaints against Russian behavior in Chechnya seem more appropriate. But the West was largely silent there; those suffering were pro-Islam and not pro-West. Most of the Russians I have met have been equally silent. Double standards are not a Western monopoly, it seems.
Future trouble looms. Soviet era ideology endorsed the mixing of populations within loosely defined constituent republics. So in Soviet days South Ossetia and Abkhazia were bundled in together with Georgia proper despite strong ethnic differences. It was all supposed to help create a new Soviet identity of multicultural togetherness. But now all that is being undone as those constituent republics set out to create their own identities. South Ossetia, incidentally, was one painful result of the breakup of the former Yugoslavia.
Ukraine is another problem waiting to explode. Culturally and linguistically it is very close to Russia and its arbitrary borders include many Russian speakers. Indeed, when we traveled there from Russia in the 1960s it was rather like going from Kanto to Kansai; we had almost no sense of entering a different region.
Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev had even decreed that the firmly Russian populated Crimean region with its important naval port of Sevastopol should also be part of Ukraine, no doubt thinking this would help calm lingering anti-Russian feelings among Ukrainians who had suffered under pre-1953 Stalinism.
Today Ukrainian nationalism is killing those hopes as the regime distances itself from Moscow and seeks NATO ties. Any Russian reaction to this seeming betrayal by a former brother region on its borders — even simple demands that Ukraine begin to pay more for the subsidized gas it receives from Russia — meets predictable Western noise about Russian bullying and blackmail.
Meanwhile, similar cultural conflicts are already well under way in the three Baltic States of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia together with Moldova and some of the former Soviet central Asian republics. Where will it all end?
Gregory Clark, vice president of Akita International University, was first secretary at the Australian Embassy, Moscow, 1963-1965. A Japanese translation of this article will appear on www.gregoryclark.net.
Posted for fair use....
http://www.newsweek.com/id/165778
The Death of the Dissident
Russian nationalism is surging, and now even one-time liberals are turning away from the West.
Owen Matthews and Anna Nemtsova
NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Nov 3, 2008
For centuries, a good majority of Russia's young and well-educated elite have looked westward for inspiration and role models—some of them revolutionary like Karl Marx, or more recently free marketers like Margaret Thatcher. Even during the years of Boris Yeltsin's chaotic reforms, most educated Russians still believed on some level that Russia's best hope for becoming a "normal" country was to follow the West's course of democracy and capitalism. A significant core of liberal democrats remained well into the eight-year rule of Vladimir Putin,and his relentless campaign to restore Russia's position as a great power.
But the August war in Georgia and the ongoing economic and financial collapse mark a tipping point. For the first time in generations, a mood of patriotism, jingoism and staunch Russian nationalism have become pervasive among even educated Russians who once considered themselves pro-Western liberals. Yes, most Russians have been reflexively patriotic all along. But Russia has seldom in living memory been more nationalistic—and seldom have Russia's brightest and best found themselves more in agreement with the people—as well as the Kremlin—on their country's greatness. In the spring of 2008, 65 percent of Russians felt "generally positive" about the United States, according to the Yuri Levada opinion polls center in Moscow. But after the war in Georgia, that indicator dropped to just 7 percent. At the same time, Putin's approval ratings have climbed eight points between July and September to 88 percent; Dmitry Medvedev's increased 13 points, to 83 percent.
The sharp increase underscores the "quick evolution of Russian empire complex," says Levada expert Natalya Zorkaya. "After the war the general feeling in society was, Hurrah! Russia, get up off your knees!" she says. Alexei Venediktov, editor-in-chief of Ekho Mozkvy, the last liberal national radio station still broadcasting opposition voices, says the patriotic mood has pervaded the elite to a remarkable degree. "I do not know a single Russian who would like to see his country dependent or weak—we all want Russia to be strong, wealthy and happy." Even the Union of Right Forces, once a radical free-market liberal party, last week split into pro- and anti-Kremlin factions, with the pro-Kremlin wing keeping the lion's share of the party members and offices.
The reasons for the change run deep. Rich or poor, a whole generation of Russians has gone from naive infatuation with the West's ideals in the 1990s to a deep disappointment and resentment fueled by perceived Western hypocrisy in ignoring Russian objections over the bombing of Serbia and the Iraq War—plus the widely held belief that Western economic advice during the 1990s was deliberately designed to weaken and dismember Russia. Now, for the first time in a generation, Russians have a short, victorious war to crow about, after defeats in Afghanistan and Chechyna. The financial crisis, even though it is hitting Russian markets hard, has given the Kremlin fodder for gloating that the West had finally received its comeuppance, and that finally, America will have to share the pedestal with other countries. "Putin inspired a kind of state-nationalism—he gave people hope that Russia can become a big player again," says Alexei Makarkin, vice-president of the Moscow-based Center for Political Technologies.
Among those who have turned: former Duma deputy Vyacheslav Igrunov, a founder of Memorial, a civic association devoted to the victims of Stalinism, as well as the liberal Yabloko Party. Jailed in the '80s for anti-Soviet activity, he was a classic dissident, a liberal and, in the jargon of the day, a "progressive intellectual." But like many of his fellow travelers, he experienced a disenchantment with the West, which crystallized, he says, after NATO supported Georgian "aggression" in Ossetia. Similarly, Sergei Markov, a one-time liberal dissident who "fought for freedom" in the 1980s by trying to overthrow communism and bring Russia's democrats to power, is now a Duma member for the Kremlin-created United Russia Party. He says the West "has lost all its authority for Russian intellectuals," by supporting Kosovo's independence but not Ossetia's, and because of the financial crisis, which undermines the Western free-market ideal. Now he advocates that "Russia should be preaching its own nationalistic and patriotic ideas in defense of the West's anti-Russian aggression," and the Kremlin has charged him with the task of organizing a series of initiatives to help, in Markov's words, "clean up the morals of the Russian elite" and create an ultrapatriotic breed of leaders who will help make Russia "a Christian, conservative European country, with genuine human and moral values."
Russia's leaders have done their utmost to promote a passionate nationalism. Putin promised this summer that the state would fund a new generation of patriotic films and television programs. News of this plan was rapturously received by an audience of academics and journalists at St. Petersburg State University. "The state should be taking a lead in forming the intellectual and spiritual life of Russians," says Alexander Zapesotsky, president of St. Petersburg's Trade Union Humanitarian University. The Kremlin has also continued to promote the ideologically motivated youth gangs it hatched in the aftermath of Ukraine's Orange Revolution in 2004. Their intent at the time had been to prevent the same kind of movement that had helped bring down Ukraine's government. Now these movements have spawned a network of ideologically correct organizations to organize—or, in their own terms, "modernize"—Russian business and society. The focus is on attracting young professionals and embryonic think tanks, which have proved effective in attracting ideas if only because of the promise of state funding for successful applicants. In July, Nashi leader Nikita Borovikov unveiled a plethora of new offshoots to Medvedev. Among them: "Nashi Builders," a group of young architects and designers who would brainstorm ideas for construction companies. Three years ago, management professor Vladimir Nechayev founded the Moscow Higher School of Management to train a new generation of Nashi leaders in universities across 45 regions of Russia. The core idea: "I value the success of my country as much or even more than my own success and ambitions." Some 50,000 students have since passed through its various courses—including a class of managers of the state-owned Russian Railways.
There are, of course, profound risks in the Kremlin's nationalistic tack. The NGO Sova, which monitors hate crimes, reports that 75 foreigners have been killed as a result of racist attacks and 291 wounded in Russia from January to September 2008, a steep increase over previous years. Medvedev's anti-U.S. rhetoric is dangerous too, largely because as the financial turmoil continues the temptation to shift blame onto a foreign enemy grows greater. Economic crises have historically led to ugly upsurges in nationalism—and the Kremlin is stoking the fire, a cynical ploy with sinister precedents, made all the more dangerous because there are now so few Russians left willing to oppose it.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/165778
The Death of the Dissident
Russian nationalism is surging, and now even one-time liberals are turning away from the West.
Owen Matthews and Anna Nemtsova
NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Nov 3, 2008
For centuries, a good majority of Russia's young and well-educated elite have looked westward for inspiration and role models—some of them revolutionary like Karl Marx, or more recently free marketers like Margaret Thatcher. Even during the years of Boris Yeltsin's chaotic reforms, most educated Russians still believed on some level that Russia's best hope for becoming a "normal" country was to follow the West's course of democracy and capitalism. A significant core of liberal democrats remained well into the eight-year rule of Vladimir Putin,and his relentless campaign to restore Russia's position as a great power.
But the August war in Georgia and the ongoing economic and financial collapse mark a tipping point. For the first time in generations, a mood of patriotism, jingoism and staunch Russian nationalism have become pervasive among even educated Russians who once considered themselves pro-Western liberals. Yes, most Russians have been reflexively patriotic all along. But Russia has seldom in living memory been more nationalistic—and seldom have Russia's brightest and best found themselves more in agreement with the people—as well as the Kremlin—on their country's greatness. In the spring of 2008, 65 percent of Russians felt "generally positive" about the United States, according to the Yuri Levada opinion polls center in Moscow. But after the war in Georgia, that indicator dropped to just 7 percent. At the same time, Putin's approval ratings have climbed eight points between July and September to 88 percent; Dmitry Medvedev's increased 13 points, to 83 percent.
The sharp increase underscores the "quick evolution of Russian empire complex," says Levada expert Natalya Zorkaya. "After the war the general feeling in society was, Hurrah! Russia, get up off your knees!" she says. Alexei Venediktov, editor-in-chief of Ekho Mozkvy, the last liberal national radio station still broadcasting opposition voices, says the patriotic mood has pervaded the elite to a remarkable degree. "I do not know a single Russian who would like to see his country dependent or weak—we all want Russia to be strong, wealthy and happy." Even the Union of Right Forces, once a radical free-market liberal party, last week split into pro- and anti-Kremlin factions, with the pro-Kremlin wing keeping the lion's share of the party members and offices.
The reasons for the change run deep. Rich or poor, a whole generation of Russians has gone from naive infatuation with the West's ideals in the 1990s to a deep disappointment and resentment fueled by perceived Western hypocrisy in ignoring Russian objections over the bombing of Serbia and the Iraq War—plus the widely held belief that Western economic advice during the 1990s was deliberately designed to weaken and dismember Russia. Now, for the first time in a generation, Russians have a short, victorious war to crow about, after defeats in Afghanistan and Chechyna. The financial crisis, even though it is hitting Russian markets hard, has given the Kremlin fodder for gloating that the West had finally received its comeuppance, and that finally, America will have to share the pedestal with other countries. "Putin inspired a kind of state-nationalism—he gave people hope that Russia can become a big player again," says Alexei Makarkin, vice-president of the Moscow-based Center for Political Technologies.
Among those who have turned: former Duma deputy Vyacheslav Igrunov, a founder of Memorial, a civic association devoted to the victims of Stalinism, as well as the liberal Yabloko Party. Jailed in the '80s for anti-Soviet activity, he was a classic dissident, a liberal and, in the jargon of the day, a "progressive intellectual." But like many of his fellow travelers, he experienced a disenchantment with the West, which crystallized, he says, after NATO supported Georgian "aggression" in Ossetia. Similarly, Sergei Markov, a one-time liberal dissident who "fought for freedom" in the 1980s by trying to overthrow communism and bring Russia's democrats to power, is now a Duma member for the Kremlin-created United Russia Party. He says the West "has lost all its authority for Russian intellectuals," by supporting Kosovo's independence but not Ossetia's, and because of the financial crisis, which undermines the Western free-market ideal. Now he advocates that "Russia should be preaching its own nationalistic and patriotic ideas in defense of the West's anti-Russian aggression," and the Kremlin has charged him with the task of organizing a series of initiatives to help, in Markov's words, "clean up the morals of the Russian elite" and create an ultrapatriotic breed of leaders who will help make Russia "a Christian, conservative European country, with genuine human and moral values."
Russia's leaders have done their utmost to promote a passionate nationalism. Putin promised this summer that the state would fund a new generation of patriotic films and television programs. News of this plan was rapturously received by an audience of academics and journalists at St. Petersburg State University. "The state should be taking a lead in forming the intellectual and spiritual life of Russians," says Alexander Zapesotsky, president of St. Petersburg's Trade Union Humanitarian University. The Kremlin has also continued to promote the ideologically motivated youth gangs it hatched in the aftermath of Ukraine's Orange Revolution in 2004. Their intent at the time had been to prevent the same kind of movement that had helped bring down Ukraine's government. Now these movements have spawned a network of ideologically correct organizations to organize—or, in their own terms, "modernize"—Russian business and society. The focus is on attracting young professionals and embryonic think tanks, which have proved effective in attracting ideas if only because of the promise of state funding for successful applicants. In July, Nashi leader Nikita Borovikov unveiled a plethora of new offshoots to Medvedev. Among them: "Nashi Builders," a group of young architects and designers who would brainstorm ideas for construction companies. Three years ago, management professor Vladimir Nechayev founded the Moscow Higher School of Management to train a new generation of Nashi leaders in universities across 45 regions of Russia. The core idea: "I value the success of my country as much or even more than my own success and ambitions." Some 50,000 students have since passed through its various courses—including a class of managers of the state-owned Russian Railways.
There are, of course, profound risks in the Kremlin's nationalistic tack. The NGO Sova, which monitors hate crimes, reports that 75 foreigners have been killed as a result of racist attacks and 291 wounded in Russia from January to September 2008, a steep increase over previous years. Medvedev's anti-U.S. rhetoric is dangerous too, largely because as the financial turmoil continues the temptation to shift blame onto a foreign enemy grows greater. Economic crises have historically led to ugly upsurges in nationalism—and the Kremlin is stoking the fire, a cynical ploy with sinister precedents, made all the more dangerous because there are now so few Russians left willing to oppose it.
Posted for fair use...
http://www.timesoftheinternet.com/16661.html
Ukraine defends arms sales to Georgia
TSKHINVALI, Ukraine, Nov. 3 (UPI) --
The Ukrainian government contends it broke no laws in supplying weapons used by Georgia against Russian forces in South Ossetia last summer.
Andrei Goncharuk, deputy chief of the president's secretariat in Ukraine, said Ukrainian officials honored all international laws in selling weapons and ammunition to Georgia, Interfax reported Monday.
Russian officials have said the Ukrainian government bears moral responsibility for the deaths of civilians and Russian soldiers during the two-week military incursion in South Ossetia last August.
Members of Ukraine's Parliament are investigating the Russian charges and whether arms and ammunition given Georgia exceeded what was needed for defensive purposes, Kommersant reported Monday.
Copyright 2008 by United Press International
All Rights Reserved.
http://www.timesoftheinternet.com/16661.html
Ukraine defends arms sales to Georgia
TSKHINVALI, Ukraine, Nov. 3 (UPI) --
The Ukrainian government contends it broke no laws in supplying weapons used by Georgia against Russian forces in South Ossetia last summer.
Andrei Goncharuk, deputy chief of the president's secretariat in Ukraine, said Ukrainian officials honored all international laws in selling weapons and ammunition to Georgia, Interfax reported Monday.
Russian officials have said the Ukrainian government bears moral responsibility for the deaths of civilians and Russian soldiers during the two-week military incursion in South Ossetia last August.
Members of Ukraine's Parliament are investigating the Russian charges and whether arms and ammunition given Georgia exceeded what was needed for defensive purposes, Kommersant reported Monday.
Copyright 2008 by United Press International
All Rights Reserved.
Posted for fair use....
http://www.jamestown.org/edm/article.php?article_id=2373502
MEDVEDEV’S AMBITIOUS MILITARY REFORM PLANS
By Roger McDermott
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
The T-80 Chernyy Orel tank is part of Russia's military modernization plans
Russia has announced its most ambitious, systemic military modernization program since the collapse of the USSR, scheduled to deliver a more efficient and combat-ready military by 2020. These plans betray breathtaking confidence. They will include 955 Borey-type submarines, armed with the Bulava sea-launched ballistic missile; ground-based modernized Topol-M ballistic missiles that will completely replace conventional Topols; modern tanks for the army (for instance, the T-80 Chernyy Orel [Black Eagle]); air defense systems (the S-400 surface-to-air missile system); and fifth-generation Russian fighters (series deliveries of the state-of-the-art, multi-purpose Su-35 fighters are due to begin in 2011) (Izvestia, October 20).
Perhaps even more ambitious are the plans to upgrade all units and subunits to the category of permanent combat readiness units (at the moment the ratio of combat to general readiness units is one to five). There is little public discussion of how these plans may be negatively affected by the sliding price of oil and the economic crisis currently faced by Russia, which until recently has been played down by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. There are elements of these reforms, however, that have been underestimated by Western commentators and are worth noting. They are a result of Russia’s experience in the war with Georgia in August: the shift to a brigade-based organization and a rapid reaction system that takes existing airborne troops and remolds them to provide more rapidly deployable troops from each military district. Taken together, these reform plans suggest that the Kremlin envisages using conventional warfare to resolve future crises.
The Russian Defense Ministry plans to develop new combat training programs based on its analysis of other military conflicts in recent years, including both Western experience in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Soviet experience of Afghanistan and the more recent Russia-Georgia conflict. On October 30 Lieutenant-General Vladimir Shamanov, chief of the armed forces’ Main Combat Training and Service Directorate, said that:
"Training programs for services and service arms are being reassessed with due account taken of the specifics of the operation to rebuff the Georgian aggression against South Ossetia and of the experience gained in Chechnya. We are also bearing in mind the Soviet Army's experience in Afghanistan, the United States’ operations in Iraq, and other armed conflicts" (Interfax, October 30).
Though Russia’s leadership is arguably buoyed by the success of its conflict with Georgia and the fact that it has largely avoided the threatened international isolation that was promised in August, a “lessons learned” approach is in evidence in its military reform planning. The lessons learned from the operation in South Ossetia include the Mood’s drawing up a list of modern tactical weapons and military hardware, taking the five-day war in the Caucasus into consideration. Shamanov not only advocates devising lists of weaponry needed for tactical warfare down to battalion level, but in future operations he wants the troops to be issued modern global positioning and communications devices and integrated with the tactical fire control system. These changes, or aspirations, result from the more detailed systemic changes planned in the Russian army, namely, switching to a brigade-based structure that moves away from a division based approach (Interfax, October 30).
This switch in the Russian Armed Forces from an organization based on divisions to one based on brigades will begin in January 2009 and should be concluded in 2012. It is intended to optimize and streamline the entire structure of the Russian army and form permanent readiness units and brigades. Russian Defense Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov told journalists in Moscow that the armed forces would switch from the four-level system, military district-army-division-regiment, to the three-level system: military district-operative command-brigade. “This means there will be no division-regiment level but brigades instead,” Serdyukov said (Interfax, October 30).
Russia’s military reform priorities include forming an airborne brigade to carry out “rapid reaction” roles, in each of the six Military Districts. The Russian MoD has decided to disband one of the airborne divisions (VDV, Airborne Troops), the 106th Tula, as there aren’t enough airborne troops for all of the military districts in order to form the nucleus of the future brigades. The Airborne Troops are currently composed of two airborne divisions (the 106th and 98th), the 76th Air Assault Division (Pskov), the 31st Separate Air Assault Brigade, and the Seventh Mountain Division. The Tula Airborne Division consists of three regiments (including an artillery regiment), an air defense missile battery, and support units and subunits. The total personnel strength is over 5,000 men (Komsomolskaya Pravda, October 25).
Serdyukov believes these changes will eliminate the multi-tiered structures and increase the effectiveness of command and control. At the same time, all non-fully-manned (cadre) units will be disbanded, and only permanent combat-readiness units will be left in the Army. The Russian army will no longer be a mobilization force but one based higher readiness formations. Serdyukov said that he did not see the necessity of creating independent rapid-reaction forces:
"We are proceeding from the fact that the Armed Forces already have such units. They are the Airborne Troops. They acquitted themselves effectively enough, while repelling Georgian aggression in South Ossetia. It is another thing to strengthen such units: a VDV brigade will appear in every military district to carry out urgent missions and action in unpredictable circumstances" (Kommersant Vlast, Moscow, October 20).
As these ambitious plans unfold, no doubt they will be modified and adjusted as a result of economic and other pressures. Nonetheless, we may be witnessing the first real moves toward Russian military reform; and the implications for Western planning staffs, including NATO, are far from clear. Since 1991 Western understanding of Russia’s armed forces has been predicated upon analyzing their weaknesses and lack of successful reform. The political leadership in Moscow seems to be signaling that this is about to change.
http://www.jamestown.org/edm/article.php?article_id=2373502
MEDVEDEV’S AMBITIOUS MILITARY REFORM PLANS
By Roger McDermott
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
The T-80 Chernyy Orel tank is part of Russia's military modernization plans
Russia has announced its most ambitious, systemic military modernization program since the collapse of the USSR, scheduled to deliver a more efficient and combat-ready military by 2020. These plans betray breathtaking confidence. They will include 955 Borey-type submarines, armed with the Bulava sea-launched ballistic missile; ground-based modernized Topol-M ballistic missiles that will completely replace conventional Topols; modern tanks for the army (for instance, the T-80 Chernyy Orel [Black Eagle]); air defense systems (the S-400 surface-to-air missile system); and fifth-generation Russian fighters (series deliveries of the state-of-the-art, multi-purpose Su-35 fighters are due to begin in 2011) (Izvestia, October 20).
Perhaps even more ambitious are the plans to upgrade all units and subunits to the category of permanent combat readiness units (at the moment the ratio of combat to general readiness units is one to five). There is little public discussion of how these plans may be negatively affected by the sliding price of oil and the economic crisis currently faced by Russia, which until recently has been played down by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. There are elements of these reforms, however, that have been underestimated by Western commentators and are worth noting. They are a result of Russia’s experience in the war with Georgia in August: the shift to a brigade-based organization and a rapid reaction system that takes existing airborne troops and remolds them to provide more rapidly deployable troops from each military district. Taken together, these reform plans suggest that the Kremlin envisages using conventional warfare to resolve future crises.
The Russian Defense Ministry plans to develop new combat training programs based on its analysis of other military conflicts in recent years, including both Western experience in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Soviet experience of Afghanistan and the more recent Russia-Georgia conflict. On October 30 Lieutenant-General Vladimir Shamanov, chief of the armed forces’ Main Combat Training and Service Directorate, said that:
"Training programs for services and service arms are being reassessed with due account taken of the specifics of the operation to rebuff the Georgian aggression against South Ossetia and of the experience gained in Chechnya. We are also bearing in mind the Soviet Army's experience in Afghanistan, the United States’ operations in Iraq, and other armed conflicts" (Interfax, October 30).
Though Russia’s leadership is arguably buoyed by the success of its conflict with Georgia and the fact that it has largely avoided the threatened international isolation that was promised in August, a “lessons learned” approach is in evidence in its military reform planning. The lessons learned from the operation in South Ossetia include the Mood’s drawing up a list of modern tactical weapons and military hardware, taking the five-day war in the Caucasus into consideration. Shamanov not only advocates devising lists of weaponry needed for tactical warfare down to battalion level, but in future operations he wants the troops to be issued modern global positioning and communications devices and integrated with the tactical fire control system. These changes, or aspirations, result from the more detailed systemic changes planned in the Russian army, namely, switching to a brigade-based structure that moves away from a division based approach (Interfax, October 30).
This switch in the Russian Armed Forces from an organization based on divisions to one based on brigades will begin in January 2009 and should be concluded in 2012. It is intended to optimize and streamline the entire structure of the Russian army and form permanent readiness units and brigades. Russian Defense Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov told journalists in Moscow that the armed forces would switch from the four-level system, military district-army-division-regiment, to the three-level system: military district-operative command-brigade. “This means there will be no division-regiment level but brigades instead,” Serdyukov said (Interfax, October 30).
Russia’s military reform priorities include forming an airborne brigade to carry out “rapid reaction” roles, in each of the six Military Districts. The Russian MoD has decided to disband one of the airborne divisions (VDV, Airborne Troops), the 106th Tula, as there aren’t enough airborne troops for all of the military districts in order to form the nucleus of the future brigades. The Airborne Troops are currently composed of two airborne divisions (the 106th and 98th), the 76th Air Assault Division (Pskov), the 31st Separate Air Assault Brigade, and the Seventh Mountain Division. The Tula Airborne Division consists of three regiments (including an artillery regiment), an air defense missile battery, and support units and subunits. The total personnel strength is over 5,000 men (Komsomolskaya Pravda, October 25).
Serdyukov believes these changes will eliminate the multi-tiered structures and increase the effectiveness of command and control. At the same time, all non-fully-manned (cadre) units will be disbanded, and only permanent combat-readiness units will be left in the Army. The Russian army will no longer be a mobilization force but one based higher readiness formations. Serdyukov said that he did not see the necessity of creating independent rapid-reaction forces:
"We are proceeding from the fact that the Armed Forces already have such units. They are the Airborne Troops. They acquitted themselves effectively enough, while repelling Georgian aggression in South Ossetia. It is another thing to strengthen such units: a VDV brigade will appear in every military district to carry out urgent missions and action in unpredictable circumstances" (Kommersant Vlast, Moscow, October 20).
As these ambitious plans unfold, no doubt they will be modified and adjusted as a result of economic and other pressures. Nonetheless, we may be witnessing the first real moves toward Russian military reform; and the implications for Western planning staffs, including NATO, are far from clear. Since 1991 Western understanding of Russia’s armed forces has been predicated upon analyzing their weaknesses and lack of successful reform. The political leadership in Moscow seems to be signaling that this is about to change.
Posted for fair use....
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...orgia-and-the-EU-Victory-for-the-Kremlin.html
Russia, Georgia and the EU: Victory for the Kremlin?
Britain's shameful U-turn on Russia is alarming many in Eastern Europe, says Edward Lucas.
By Edward Lucas
Last Updated: 4:49PM GMT 03 Nov 2008
So it is business as usual with Russia. And what a bad business it is. Britain's decision to allow France to lead the European Union back into normal relations with Vladimir Putin's ex-KGB regime in Russia is one of the most startling volte-faces in our country's recent diplomatic history. It has left our allies in Eastern Europe – Poland, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – aghast at our duplicity. "Our last European hope just ----ed us. We should have known. For we are but a small faraway country about which they know nothing," a senior official in the region wrote in a despairing email after The Daily Telegraph broke the news on Friday.
European unity after the war in Georgia was never terribly impressive – a mild public rebuke and the suspension of talks on a new "partnership and co-operation agreement" until Russia met the conditions of the loosely worded truce brokered by the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy.
Russia has met some of those conditions – but not all. EU monitors are still unable to inspect the war zone properly. If they could, they would see evidence of ethnic cleansing in the two separatist enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. They would also see that Russia has increased its military presence. The message to the Kremlin is clear: you can invade a neighbouring country, threaten Europe's energy supplies, and the EU will do nothing serious about it.
The reason is simple: Gordon Brown cares little about foreign affairs, but likes the idea of stitching up deals on the reform of international finance with his new friend Mr Sarkozy. France, which is running the EU until the end of the year, wants a triumph to present to the European summit in Nice this month. Showing that it has repaired relations with Russia is part of that. It will please all the pro-Russian countries in the EU. Russia's energetic cultivation of contacts in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria and France has built up a bridgehead of influence. Those in Whitehall who watch with alarm and disgust as parts of our establishment cosy up to rich and powerful Russians have been outmanoeuvred. The idea that the start of talks is balanced by a new, careful scrutiny of EU-Russian relations should fool nobody. This is surrender.
It must be especially humiliating for David Miliband, whose condemnation of Russia's actions, in a speech in the Ukrainian capital Kiev on August 27, inspired hopes from the Baltic to the Black Sea that Britain was now a champion of the ex-communist countries' freedom and security. He excoriated Russia's "unilateral attempt to redraw the map", calling it "the moment when countries are required to set out where they stand". This week's decision casts those words in a bitter light.
It is also part of a wider and gloomier picture. Even before the war in Georgia in August, Russia was bullying its neighbours, stitching up Europe's energy market and turning money into power across the continent. In the old Cold War, the Kremlin was shackled by communism. Now it has been turbo-charged by capitalism, through the boom in oil and gas prices that has brought it
$1.3 trillion in extra revenues since 2000. That enables it to exercise influence not only on us, but among us, too. It has built up assets, commercial and human, in positions of power across Europe. German industry makes tens of billions of euros in the Russian market; Russia is Germany's main energy supplier. The former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder chairs the consortium building a Russian-German gas pipeline (conceived, in secret, while he was still running Germany).
Even though the EU is far stronger than Russia on paper, three times bigger in population terms, and more than 10 times larger as an economy, it seems unable to stand up to the Kremlin. The financial crisis has hit Russia hard – but it has hit us harder. A few years ago, threatening to freeze dodgy Russian companies out of the developed world's capital markets would have been a real threat. Now, if they find London, New York, and Frankfurt unwelcoming, they can turn to the exchanges in Dubai, Mumbai and Shanghai.
Nor does Russia greatly care if it is excluded from clubs such as the Council of Europe or the G8, or if talks on joining the World Trade Organisation or the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development are frozen. Such "punishments" may even reinforce the message of the ex-KGB regime to the Russian people: that their country is surrounded by malevolent hypocrites. The Kremlin's message to Europe is cold and confident: you need us more than we need you. President Dmitri Medvedev is proving as tough and tricky as his predecessor, Vladimir Putin. His new security plan is to end the Atlantic alliance, pushing America out of Europe and creating a new security regime in which the continent's biggest countries – chiefly Germany and Russia – will boss everyone else about.
It is not too late to fight back. Nato has already changed its approach. Belatedly, the alliance's top-secret military planning bureaucracy is working out how it could defend the Baltic states and Poland. Nato warplanes last week held air exercises over Estonia, while senior American commanders are paying frequent visits to the Baltic states.
That is encouraging, but it is not enough. There are other matters that need addressing urgently – including Russian spying. This has reached unprecedented levels, and is probably more dangerous and destructive to Western interests than during the old Cold War. A co-ordinated, wholesale expulsion of Russian intelligence officers and their hangers-on from, say, London, Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen and Warsaw would send a powerful message to the Kremlin.
The key to the West's future security is the security of the Baltic states. Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians have thrown in their lot with us and we must not let them down. Consider this scenario. Imagine that Estonian extremists start intimidating local Russians (who amount to around a third of the Estonian population). Russia can easily stoke this covertly, while demanding publicly that Estonia crack down. Then imagine that Russian activists (again, backed, discreetly, by Moscow) set up "self-defence units" which start patrols, and set up checkpoints. When the Estonian authorities try to stop this, the Kremlin complains; Russian military "volunteers" start mustering across the border, proclaiming their intention to defend compatriots from "fascism". The Russian media report this with wild enthusiasm; the Russian authorities say they cannot indefinitely restrain the spontaneous patriotic sentiments of their citizens.
Suppose Estonia requests support under Article IV of the Nato charter. At this point, Russia's cultivation of assets in the West pays off. Germany, Italy and other big European countries tell Estonia to sort out its problems with Russia bilaterally. The result is a worse split in the Alliance even worse than the one over Iraq. Faced with the West's weakness, the Kremlin ups the odds. Estonia tries to restore order; Russia terms that an intolerable provocation and demands a change of government, immediate changes in the language and citizenship laws, and the establishment of what it calls a "Swiss solution": cantons in which Russians will be allowed "to run their own affairs". To back this up, Russian forces start military manoeuvres.
So what does Estonia do then? America may offer moral support, but is it going to risk a Third World War with Russia to protect Estonia? Such a course of events is not inevitable, or even likely. But it is not as preposterous as it should be. Too many of the ingredients are in place and the Kremlin is perfectly capable of cooking them into a dangerous dish. The big question for Estonia and its friends is what can be done to make sure that never happens.
The answer is not to give up on Nato but to complement it with a regional grouping. The existing Nordic ties between Sweden, Norway and Finland, boosted by support from Poland and Denmark, would put this scenario back where it belongs: in the world of geopolitical thrillers. Add in British, Canadian and American involvement and you would have a formidable counterweight to Russian mischief-making in both the Baltic and the Arctic – the likely hotspots of the new Cold War.
Edward Lucas is author of 'The New Cold War: How the Kremlin menaces both Russia and the West' (Bloomsbury). An updated edition is published this month.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...orgia-and-the-EU-Victory-for-the-Kremlin.html
Russia, Georgia and the EU: Victory for the Kremlin?
Britain's shameful U-turn on Russia is alarming many in Eastern Europe, says Edward Lucas.
By Edward Lucas
Last Updated: 4:49PM GMT 03 Nov 2008
So it is business as usual with Russia. And what a bad business it is. Britain's decision to allow France to lead the European Union back into normal relations with Vladimir Putin's ex-KGB regime in Russia is one of the most startling volte-faces in our country's recent diplomatic history. It has left our allies in Eastern Europe – Poland, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – aghast at our duplicity. "Our last European hope just ----ed us. We should have known. For we are but a small faraway country about which they know nothing," a senior official in the region wrote in a despairing email after The Daily Telegraph broke the news on Friday.
European unity after the war in Georgia was never terribly impressive – a mild public rebuke and the suspension of talks on a new "partnership and co-operation agreement" until Russia met the conditions of the loosely worded truce brokered by the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy.
Russia has met some of those conditions – but not all. EU monitors are still unable to inspect the war zone properly. If they could, they would see evidence of ethnic cleansing in the two separatist enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. They would also see that Russia has increased its military presence. The message to the Kremlin is clear: you can invade a neighbouring country, threaten Europe's energy supplies, and the EU will do nothing serious about it.
The reason is simple: Gordon Brown cares little about foreign affairs, but likes the idea of stitching up deals on the reform of international finance with his new friend Mr Sarkozy. France, which is running the EU until the end of the year, wants a triumph to present to the European summit in Nice this month. Showing that it has repaired relations with Russia is part of that. It will please all the pro-Russian countries in the EU. Russia's energetic cultivation of contacts in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria and France has built up a bridgehead of influence. Those in Whitehall who watch with alarm and disgust as parts of our establishment cosy up to rich and powerful Russians have been outmanoeuvred. The idea that the start of talks is balanced by a new, careful scrutiny of EU-Russian relations should fool nobody. This is surrender.
It must be especially humiliating for David Miliband, whose condemnation of Russia's actions, in a speech in the Ukrainian capital Kiev on August 27, inspired hopes from the Baltic to the Black Sea that Britain was now a champion of the ex-communist countries' freedom and security. He excoriated Russia's "unilateral attempt to redraw the map", calling it "the moment when countries are required to set out where they stand". This week's decision casts those words in a bitter light.
It is also part of a wider and gloomier picture. Even before the war in Georgia in August, Russia was bullying its neighbours, stitching up Europe's energy market and turning money into power across the continent. In the old Cold War, the Kremlin was shackled by communism. Now it has been turbo-charged by capitalism, through the boom in oil and gas prices that has brought it
$1.3 trillion in extra revenues since 2000. That enables it to exercise influence not only on us, but among us, too. It has built up assets, commercial and human, in positions of power across Europe. German industry makes tens of billions of euros in the Russian market; Russia is Germany's main energy supplier. The former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder chairs the consortium building a Russian-German gas pipeline (conceived, in secret, while he was still running Germany).
Even though the EU is far stronger than Russia on paper, three times bigger in population terms, and more than 10 times larger as an economy, it seems unable to stand up to the Kremlin. The financial crisis has hit Russia hard – but it has hit us harder. A few years ago, threatening to freeze dodgy Russian companies out of the developed world's capital markets would have been a real threat. Now, if they find London, New York, and Frankfurt unwelcoming, they can turn to the exchanges in Dubai, Mumbai and Shanghai.
Nor does Russia greatly care if it is excluded from clubs such as the Council of Europe or the G8, or if talks on joining the World Trade Organisation or the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development are frozen. Such "punishments" may even reinforce the message of the ex-KGB regime to the Russian people: that their country is surrounded by malevolent hypocrites. The Kremlin's message to Europe is cold and confident: you need us more than we need you. President Dmitri Medvedev is proving as tough and tricky as his predecessor, Vladimir Putin. His new security plan is to end the Atlantic alliance, pushing America out of Europe and creating a new security regime in which the continent's biggest countries – chiefly Germany and Russia – will boss everyone else about.
It is not too late to fight back. Nato has already changed its approach. Belatedly, the alliance's top-secret military planning bureaucracy is working out how it could defend the Baltic states and Poland. Nato warplanes last week held air exercises over Estonia, while senior American commanders are paying frequent visits to the Baltic states.
That is encouraging, but it is not enough. There are other matters that need addressing urgently – including Russian spying. This has reached unprecedented levels, and is probably more dangerous and destructive to Western interests than during the old Cold War. A co-ordinated, wholesale expulsion of Russian intelligence officers and their hangers-on from, say, London, Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen and Warsaw would send a powerful message to the Kremlin.
The key to the West's future security is the security of the Baltic states. Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians have thrown in their lot with us and we must not let them down. Consider this scenario. Imagine that Estonian extremists start intimidating local Russians (who amount to around a third of the Estonian population). Russia can easily stoke this covertly, while demanding publicly that Estonia crack down. Then imagine that Russian activists (again, backed, discreetly, by Moscow) set up "self-defence units" which start patrols, and set up checkpoints. When the Estonian authorities try to stop this, the Kremlin complains; Russian military "volunteers" start mustering across the border, proclaiming their intention to defend compatriots from "fascism". The Russian media report this with wild enthusiasm; the Russian authorities say they cannot indefinitely restrain the spontaneous patriotic sentiments of their citizens.
Suppose Estonia requests support under Article IV of the Nato charter. At this point, Russia's cultivation of assets in the West pays off. Germany, Italy and other big European countries tell Estonia to sort out its problems with Russia bilaterally. The result is a worse split in the Alliance even worse than the one over Iraq. Faced with the West's weakness, the Kremlin ups the odds. Estonia tries to restore order; Russia terms that an intolerable provocation and demands a change of government, immediate changes in the language and citizenship laws, and the establishment of what it calls a "Swiss solution": cantons in which Russians will be allowed "to run their own affairs". To back this up, Russian forces start military manoeuvres.
So what does Estonia do then? America may offer moral support, but is it going to risk a Third World War with Russia to protect Estonia? Such a course of events is not inevitable, or even likely. But it is not as preposterous as it should be. Too many of the ingredients are in place and the Kremlin is perfectly capable of cooking them into a dangerous dish. The big question for Estonia and its friends is what can be done to make sure that never happens.
The answer is not to give up on Nato but to complement it with a regional grouping. The existing Nordic ties between Sweden, Norway and Finland, boosted by support from Poland and Denmark, would put this scenario back where it belongs: in the world of geopolitical thrillers. Add in British, Canadian and American involvement and you would have a formidable counterweight to Russian mischief-making in both the Baltic and the Arctic – the likely hotspots of the new Cold War.
Edward Lucas is author of 'The New Cold War: How the Kremlin menaces both Russia and the West' (Bloomsbury). An updated edition is published this month.
Posted for fair use....
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/11/07/opinion/main4582529.shtml
Russia's Poor Excuse For Invading Georgia
Nov. 8, 2008(The New Republic) This column was written by James P. Rubin.
Why did Russia really invade Georgia? In late September, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov appeared before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and offered a rather stunning explanation. Lavrov--who previously spent a decade as Russia's ambassador to the United Nations, where he mastered the body of international precedents and U.N. Security Council resolutions that together make up the de facto law of nations--informed his audience that, by attacking Georgia, Moscow was implementing a principle endorsed by the Security Council in 2006: the "responsibility to protect."
Lavrov was referring to the U.N.'s new legal justification for intervention in the internal affairs of a member state. The concept--which arose out of the world's failure to stop genocide in Rwanda--envisions nations joining together to protect potential victims of mass human rights abuses or genocide, even if that means trampling on the sovereignty of another country by using military force. The inaugural test of this new principle came in Darfur. To date, no nation, including the United States, seems willing to live up to this "responsibility." But Russia, according to its foreign minister, is now doing exactly that. "If all this talk about 'responsibility to protect' is going to remain just talk," Lavrov said, "if all this talk about human security is going to be used only to initiate some pathetic debate in the United Nations and elsewhere, then we believe this is wrong. So, we exercised the human security maxim. We exercised the responsibility to protect."
Russia had previously accused Georgia of committing genocide against South Ossetia--despite the fact that the most reliable independent reporting has concluded that fewer than 100 civilians died during Georgia's initial incursion into the region. On August 30, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Georgia's goal was the "extermination of the peaceful population in South Ossetia" and asked, "What is this if it's not genocide?" None of this--the accusation of genocide, the invocation of "responsibility to protect"--was an accident. For it was the threat of genocide against Kosovo's Albanians that prompted nato, led by the United States, to initiate military action against Russia's ally Serbia in 1999. Now, Russia is seeking to turn the tables--to exploit the human rights rhetoric of the West in order to establish international acceptance for a sphere of influence in Central Asia and other parts of the former Soviet Union. On September 12, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev made the analogy explicit: "There is certainly no serious argument which would allow one to ... separate the process of the recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia from the decisions taken with regard to Kosovo."
According to the International Crisis Group, the United States and Europe are "struggling to come to terms with Russia's attempts to portray its support for breakaway regions in Georgia as a mirror image of what they did in Kosovo." It shouldn't really be such a struggle. For the truth is that Moscow's comparison is nonsense. Kosovo was all about moral intervention. Georgia is all about geopolitical resentment. It is imperative that the West not fall into Russia's analogy trap.
At least since the presidency of Woodrow Wilson, America has been the world's leading champion of self-determination. Russia, on the other hand, is rarely the first stop in a fledgling nation's campaign to win international recognition. Nor is Moscow a top destination for human rights campaigners trying to drum up support for action to stop ethnic cleansing, mass murder, or genocide. Indeed, until Georgia's attack on South Ossetia prompted a Russian invasion of Georgia itself, Russian foreign policy has been marked by a preference for the inviolability of national borders and a downright reluctance to support international action, especially military action, in the service of human rights. What's changed is that, after Georgia's offensive against South Ossetia this August, Moscow saw an opportunity to lock in an analogy to Kosovo--an analogy that was extraordinarily misleading.
It is crucial to remember that, when the crisis began in Kosovo in the late '90s, there was remarkable unanimity among the major powers--the United States, key European governments, and, yes, even Russia. Having lived through the Serbo- Croatian war and the slaughter in Bosnia, the international community initially acted in unison to confront Slobodan Milosevic.
Throughout 1998 and up until nato's military campaign began in March 1999, Moscow joined with Washington and key European countries to pressure the Serbian government. Working together, Russia, Europe, and the United States imposed severe economic sanctions on Serbia and drafted an agreement largely intended to protect the Kosovar Albanians from Belgrade's security forces. Indeed, Russia's foreign minister, Igor Ivanov, frankly admitted to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright that the threat of force might be necessary to convince Milosevic to avoid an all-out onslaught against the Albanians. (He obviously hoped the mere threat of force would be sufficient, since Russia eventually opposed nato's bombing campaign.)
Russia's position at the time is relevant for two reasons. First, while Moscow often quibbled about the details, it largely accepted the Western view that Serbian forces had committed massive human rights abuses against Bosnian Muslims and that the Albanians were at risk of being similarly slaughtered. Second, throughout the crisis, Moscow worked hand in hand with the West to forge an outcome that protected the Albanians. Russia supported U.N. Resolution 1244, which ended the war, eliminated Belgrade's legal control over Kosovo, and even spelled out a path to self-determination.
Today, of course, Russia regards Kosovo as a festering wound to its national pride. Obviously, something happened over the last ten years. And, while Milosevic is gone, the Albanians have their freedom, and Serbia's democracy has been moving in the right direction, the change is not in the Balkans; it is in the foreign policy of Putin's Russia.
At the beginning of the Putin era in 2000, Kosovo was not a particularly contentious subject between Moscow and the West. Although Russia supported Belgrade's position that Kosovo's future status should be a matter of international negotiation, it largely agreed that the oppression of the Kosovar Albanians at the hands of Serbian authorities justified Kosovar demands for self-government. The issue for Moscow was not whether Kosovo would ever again be under the rule of Belgrade. Rather, the question was when and how self- government would come about--that is, whether it would ultimately take the form of full independence or some lesser degree of autonomy.
It was only after the breakdown in relations between Moscow and Washington in 2003 and 2004 that Russia began to harden its position on Kosovo. With Putin fuming that Washington had gone to war in Iraq over his objection--and believing that his cooperative stance on Afghanistan and the war on terrorism was not reciprocated--Russian policy toward the United States took a turn for the worse.
An early victim of this policy shift was the U.N.-sponsored plan for resolving the Kosovo issue. That plan was developed and implemented over three years by Marti Ahtisaari, the former Finnish president and just-named winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. The Serbs remained intransigent, and Moscow rejected the Ahtisaari plan. With the patience of most of the world exhausted, Washington and key European countries decided to proceed despite Moscow's opposition, recognizing Kosovo as an independent country in February of this year.
If nothing else, this history demonstrates that the international community--including Russia--was largely unified during a decade of diplomatic engagement. And the risk of massive human rights abuses was real and generally accepted. The case of South Ossetia could not be more different. Human rights, let alone genocide, have never been a major factor in international decision-making there. And, as for the United Nations's decision to endorse Russia's peacekeeping role in the disputed regions of Georgia, this was a matter of pragmatism, not an international stamp of approval for Russian policy. (With the U.N. peacekeeping system discredited and weak, the international community has, by default rather than by design, begun to rely more and more on regional powers and institutions to bear the burden of tamping down regional conflicts.) In short, Russia's attempt to link South Ossetia to Kosovo has little basis in either history or reality.
Moscow has been quite open about its desire for freedom of action, if not hegemony, along its borders. Indeed, when he was U.N. ambassador, Lavrov himself tried his hand at great-power horse-trading with then-Ambassador Albright--suggesting in the mid-'90s that, if Russia supported the U.N. peacekeeping force needed to prop up a failing democracy in Haiti, then Moscow should be able to count on U.S. support for Russia's peacekeeping mission in Georgia. More recently, Medvedev, in presenting his country's latest comprehensive foreign policy statement, described Russia as having a "privileged interest" in developments along its huge Eurasian border. But, until its fateful decision to launch an invasion of Georgia, Moscow had limited itself to non-military measures--for example, subjecting Ukraine to the manipulation of energy prices and supplies.
Now, however, Russia has crossed a geopolitical Rubicon. In response, the international community and the West must take extreme care not to ratify Moscow's claims of special rights or privileges in its border regions by legitimating its calculated, phony rhetoric about genocide and human rights.
Predictably, some prominent American strategists are already worried that the backlash against Russia will go too far. Henry Kissinger, for example, recently opined on the need to understand--though not accept--Russia's point of view on South Ossetia. Certainly, the Bush administration could have done more to work in partnership with Russia after Putin's commendable decision to support America's response to September 11. Nor was it necessary to rush forward with deployments of missile defenses in Eastern Europe. And I would be the last to defend Bush's flawed diplomacy in the run-up to the Iraq war. But even hinting at the validity of Moscow's absurd analogy between South Ossetia and Kosovo is a recipe for disaster. It would not only dishonor the memories of the real victims of genocide in countries like Rwanda, Bosnia, and Cambodia; it would also give credence to Russia's campaign for privileged rights in the former Soviet Union. And, in the long run, that could jeopardize the freedom of the smaller countries--among them, several nascent democracies--that line Russia's border.
We can be realistic without succumbing to realism. America and Russia share a large number of common interests; we can and should work together on non- proliferation, climate change, terrorism, and the Middle East peace process.
But we must also see to it that Russia pays a heavy price for its use of force in August. Fortunately, this is already happening. Moscow's diplomatic isolation is nearly unanimous. Even before the financial crisis struck last month, Russia's market was collapsing as a result of the Georgian war, making a mockery of Putin's boast that Moscow would soon be the world's financial center. In conjunction with the Putin era's domestic assault on political parties, the press, and civil society, the invasion of Georgia has done long-term damage to Russia's reputation. It will be a long time before Russia is considered a responsible power--notwithstanding Foreign Minister Lavrov's ruminations about the responsibility to protect.
By James P. Rubin
Reprinted with permission from The New Republic.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/11/07/opinion/main4582529.shtml
Russia's Poor Excuse For Invading Georgia
Nov. 8, 2008(The New Republic) This column was written by James P. Rubin.
Why did Russia really invade Georgia? In late September, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov appeared before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and offered a rather stunning explanation. Lavrov--who previously spent a decade as Russia's ambassador to the United Nations, where he mastered the body of international precedents and U.N. Security Council resolutions that together make up the de facto law of nations--informed his audience that, by attacking Georgia, Moscow was implementing a principle endorsed by the Security Council in 2006: the "responsibility to protect."
Lavrov was referring to the U.N.'s new legal justification for intervention in the internal affairs of a member state. The concept--which arose out of the world's failure to stop genocide in Rwanda--envisions nations joining together to protect potential victims of mass human rights abuses or genocide, even if that means trampling on the sovereignty of another country by using military force. The inaugural test of this new principle came in Darfur. To date, no nation, including the United States, seems willing to live up to this "responsibility." But Russia, according to its foreign minister, is now doing exactly that. "If all this talk about 'responsibility to protect' is going to remain just talk," Lavrov said, "if all this talk about human security is going to be used only to initiate some pathetic debate in the United Nations and elsewhere, then we believe this is wrong. So, we exercised the human security maxim. We exercised the responsibility to protect."
Russia had previously accused Georgia of committing genocide against South Ossetia--despite the fact that the most reliable independent reporting has concluded that fewer than 100 civilians died during Georgia's initial incursion into the region. On August 30, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Georgia's goal was the "extermination of the peaceful population in South Ossetia" and asked, "What is this if it's not genocide?" None of this--the accusation of genocide, the invocation of "responsibility to protect"--was an accident. For it was the threat of genocide against Kosovo's Albanians that prompted nato, led by the United States, to initiate military action against Russia's ally Serbia in 1999. Now, Russia is seeking to turn the tables--to exploit the human rights rhetoric of the West in order to establish international acceptance for a sphere of influence in Central Asia and other parts of the former Soviet Union. On September 12, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev made the analogy explicit: "There is certainly no serious argument which would allow one to ... separate the process of the recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia from the decisions taken with regard to Kosovo."
According to the International Crisis Group, the United States and Europe are "struggling to come to terms with Russia's attempts to portray its support for breakaway regions in Georgia as a mirror image of what they did in Kosovo." It shouldn't really be such a struggle. For the truth is that Moscow's comparison is nonsense. Kosovo was all about moral intervention. Georgia is all about geopolitical resentment. It is imperative that the West not fall into Russia's analogy trap.
At least since the presidency of Woodrow Wilson, America has been the world's leading champion of self-determination. Russia, on the other hand, is rarely the first stop in a fledgling nation's campaign to win international recognition. Nor is Moscow a top destination for human rights campaigners trying to drum up support for action to stop ethnic cleansing, mass murder, or genocide. Indeed, until Georgia's attack on South Ossetia prompted a Russian invasion of Georgia itself, Russian foreign policy has been marked by a preference for the inviolability of national borders and a downright reluctance to support international action, especially military action, in the service of human rights. What's changed is that, after Georgia's offensive against South Ossetia this August, Moscow saw an opportunity to lock in an analogy to Kosovo--an analogy that was extraordinarily misleading.
It is crucial to remember that, when the crisis began in Kosovo in the late '90s, there was remarkable unanimity among the major powers--the United States, key European governments, and, yes, even Russia. Having lived through the Serbo- Croatian war and the slaughter in Bosnia, the international community initially acted in unison to confront Slobodan Milosevic.
Throughout 1998 and up until nato's military campaign began in March 1999, Moscow joined with Washington and key European countries to pressure the Serbian government. Working together, Russia, Europe, and the United States imposed severe economic sanctions on Serbia and drafted an agreement largely intended to protect the Kosovar Albanians from Belgrade's security forces. Indeed, Russia's foreign minister, Igor Ivanov, frankly admitted to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright that the threat of force might be necessary to convince Milosevic to avoid an all-out onslaught against the Albanians. (He obviously hoped the mere threat of force would be sufficient, since Russia eventually opposed nato's bombing campaign.)
Russia's position at the time is relevant for two reasons. First, while Moscow often quibbled about the details, it largely accepted the Western view that Serbian forces had committed massive human rights abuses against Bosnian Muslims and that the Albanians were at risk of being similarly slaughtered. Second, throughout the crisis, Moscow worked hand in hand with the West to forge an outcome that protected the Albanians. Russia supported U.N. Resolution 1244, which ended the war, eliminated Belgrade's legal control over Kosovo, and even spelled out a path to self-determination.
Today, of course, Russia regards Kosovo as a festering wound to its national pride. Obviously, something happened over the last ten years. And, while Milosevic is gone, the Albanians have their freedom, and Serbia's democracy has been moving in the right direction, the change is not in the Balkans; it is in the foreign policy of Putin's Russia.
At the beginning of the Putin era in 2000, Kosovo was not a particularly contentious subject between Moscow and the West. Although Russia supported Belgrade's position that Kosovo's future status should be a matter of international negotiation, it largely agreed that the oppression of the Kosovar Albanians at the hands of Serbian authorities justified Kosovar demands for self-government. The issue for Moscow was not whether Kosovo would ever again be under the rule of Belgrade. Rather, the question was when and how self- government would come about--that is, whether it would ultimately take the form of full independence or some lesser degree of autonomy.
It was only after the breakdown in relations between Moscow and Washington in 2003 and 2004 that Russia began to harden its position on Kosovo. With Putin fuming that Washington had gone to war in Iraq over his objection--and believing that his cooperative stance on Afghanistan and the war on terrorism was not reciprocated--Russian policy toward the United States took a turn for the worse.
An early victim of this policy shift was the U.N.-sponsored plan for resolving the Kosovo issue. That plan was developed and implemented over three years by Marti Ahtisaari, the former Finnish president and just-named winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. The Serbs remained intransigent, and Moscow rejected the Ahtisaari plan. With the patience of most of the world exhausted, Washington and key European countries decided to proceed despite Moscow's opposition, recognizing Kosovo as an independent country in February of this year.
If nothing else, this history demonstrates that the international community--including Russia--was largely unified during a decade of diplomatic engagement. And the risk of massive human rights abuses was real and generally accepted. The case of South Ossetia could not be more different. Human rights, let alone genocide, have never been a major factor in international decision-making there. And, as for the United Nations's decision to endorse Russia's peacekeeping role in the disputed regions of Georgia, this was a matter of pragmatism, not an international stamp of approval for Russian policy. (With the U.N. peacekeeping system discredited and weak, the international community has, by default rather than by design, begun to rely more and more on regional powers and institutions to bear the burden of tamping down regional conflicts.) In short, Russia's attempt to link South Ossetia to Kosovo has little basis in either history or reality.
Moscow has been quite open about its desire for freedom of action, if not hegemony, along its borders. Indeed, when he was U.N. ambassador, Lavrov himself tried his hand at great-power horse-trading with then-Ambassador Albright--suggesting in the mid-'90s that, if Russia supported the U.N. peacekeeping force needed to prop up a failing democracy in Haiti, then Moscow should be able to count on U.S. support for Russia's peacekeeping mission in Georgia. More recently, Medvedev, in presenting his country's latest comprehensive foreign policy statement, described Russia as having a "privileged interest" in developments along its huge Eurasian border. But, until its fateful decision to launch an invasion of Georgia, Moscow had limited itself to non-military measures--for example, subjecting Ukraine to the manipulation of energy prices and supplies.
Now, however, Russia has crossed a geopolitical Rubicon. In response, the international community and the West must take extreme care not to ratify Moscow's claims of special rights or privileges in its border regions by legitimating its calculated, phony rhetoric about genocide and human rights.
Predictably, some prominent American strategists are already worried that the backlash against Russia will go too far. Henry Kissinger, for example, recently opined on the need to understand--though not accept--Russia's point of view on South Ossetia. Certainly, the Bush administration could have done more to work in partnership with Russia after Putin's commendable decision to support America's response to September 11. Nor was it necessary to rush forward with deployments of missile defenses in Eastern Europe. And I would be the last to defend Bush's flawed diplomacy in the run-up to the Iraq war. But even hinting at the validity of Moscow's absurd analogy between South Ossetia and Kosovo is a recipe for disaster. It would not only dishonor the memories of the real victims of genocide in countries like Rwanda, Bosnia, and Cambodia; it would also give credence to Russia's campaign for privileged rights in the former Soviet Union. And, in the long run, that could jeopardize the freedom of the smaller countries--among them, several nascent democracies--that line Russia's border.
We can be realistic without succumbing to realism. America and Russia share a large number of common interests; we can and should work together on non- proliferation, climate change, terrorism, and the Middle East peace process.
But we must also see to it that Russia pays a heavy price for its use of force in August. Fortunately, this is already happening. Moscow's diplomatic isolation is nearly unanimous. Even before the financial crisis struck last month, Russia's market was collapsing as a result of the Georgian war, making a mockery of Putin's boast that Moscow would soon be the world's financial center. In conjunction with the Putin era's domestic assault on political parties, the press, and civil society, the invasion of Georgia has done long-term damage to Russia's reputation. It will be a long time before Russia is considered a responsible power--notwithstanding Foreign Minister Lavrov's ruminations about the responsibility to protect.
By James P. Rubin
Reprinted with permission from The New Republic.
Posted for fair use....
http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-11-10-voa35.cfm
EU Agrees to Restart Talks With Russia
By VOA News
10 November 2008
European Union foreign ministers, meeting in Brussels, have agreed to reopen partnership talks with Russia frozen after the Russian military sweep into Georgia.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, says Lithuania was the only one of the 27 member countries to oppose resuming dialogue.
EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner says the talks could be scheduled after the November 18 meeting in Geneva on the conflict.
Earlier, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and his Swedish counterpart, Carl Bildt, said in a joint statement that the talks were in the union's best interests. But they expressed concern that Russian forces have not withdrawn to their pre-conflict deployments and again backed Georgia's territorial integrity.
Georgian Prime Minister Grigol Mgalobishvili said a return to business as usual with Russia would encourage Moscow to continue "aggressive actions" against Georgia and eastern Europe.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said his country wants "durable, long-lasting and close relations with the union as a strategic partner."
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said he hoped talks with Russia could resume soon, but also insisted there would be no return to "business as usual."
A Russia-EU summit is scheduled to take place Friday in Nice, France.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP and Reuters.
http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-11-10-voa35.cfm
EU Agrees to Restart Talks With Russia
By VOA News
10 November 2008
European Union foreign ministers, meeting in Brussels, have agreed to reopen partnership talks with Russia frozen after the Russian military sweep into Georgia.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, says Lithuania was the only one of the 27 member countries to oppose resuming dialogue.
EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner says the talks could be scheduled after the November 18 meeting in Geneva on the conflict.
Earlier, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and his Swedish counterpart, Carl Bildt, said in a joint statement that the talks were in the union's best interests. But they expressed concern that Russian forces have not withdrawn to their pre-conflict deployments and again backed Georgia's territorial integrity.
Georgian Prime Minister Grigol Mgalobishvili said a return to business as usual with Russia would encourage Moscow to continue "aggressive actions" against Georgia and eastern Europe.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said his country wants "durable, long-lasting and close relations with the union as a strategic partner."
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said he hoped talks with Russia could resume soon, but also insisted there would be no return to "business as usual."
A Russia-EU summit is scheduled to take place Friday in Nice, France.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP and Reuters.
Posted for fair use...
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iL77xjNADv_pSi43ubf2zutJwNIQD94G4V7G0
EU monitors say they were fired on in Georgia
1 hour ago
TBILISI, Georgia (AP) — European Union cease-fire monitors in Georgia say they were shot at near a breakaway region in the former Soviet republic.
The EU observer mission says in a statement Sunday that shots were fired as they investigated the shooting death of a Georgian policeman near the border with Abkhazia. They called the incident "unacceptable" and asked Abkhaz authorities to investigate.
No one was injured in Saturday's shooting. The 225-strong mission is there to monitor a fragile cease-fire brokered after a short war between Russia and Georgia in August.
Abkhazia is one of two regions of Georgia controlled by Moscow-friendly separatists to have been recognized as independent by Russia but not the West.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iL77xjNADv_pSi43ubf2zutJwNIQD94G4V7G0
EU monitors say they were fired on in Georgia
1 hour ago
TBILISI, Georgia (AP) — European Union cease-fire monitors in Georgia say they were shot at near a breakaway region in the former Soviet republic.
The EU observer mission says in a statement Sunday that shots were fired as they investigated the shooting death of a Georgian policeman near the border with Abkhazia. They called the incident "unacceptable" and asked Abkhaz authorities to investigate.
No one was injured in Saturday's shooting. The 225-strong mission is there to monitor a fragile cease-fire brokered after a short war between Russia and Georgia in August.
Abkhazia is one of two regions of Georgia controlled by Moscow-friendly separatists to have been recognized as independent by Russia but not the West.
Posted for fair use...
http://www.city-journal.org/2008/18_4_snd-putin.html
André Glucksmann
Confronting the Putin Doctrine
Europe must hold fast against Russian blackmail.
Autumn 2008
The world shook this August, overturning the equilibrium not just of forces on the ground, but of people’s ideas and prejudices. The gigantic Olympic Games in Beijing displayed China’s will to power, a major challenge for the twenty-first century. The invasion of Georgia alerted the world to the return of an imperial Russia without frontiers. But neither event should have surprised the West. It has been 30 years since China, having swept aside Marxist dogmas, laid the foundation of an economic miracle that has raised its economy to second or third place in the world. Soon it will be ten years since Vladimir Putin, the leveler of Grozny, made himself a new Russian czar. Neither Beijing nor Georgia was hard to foresee. The veil ripped away was that of our illusions.
Consider the Russian question. What right do we have to make a show of disappointed innocence about the aggressiveness of Putin, who seduced George W. Bush with his blue eyes, Tony Blair with his good manners, Silvio Berlusconi with his frequenting of the Italian Riviera, Gerhard Schröder with a Gazprom chairmanship—and who received the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor from Jacques Chirac? The Kremlin has proclaimed the axioms of the Putin Doctrine loudly and clearly, but no deafness is so profound as that of those who will not hear.
Putin spoke the first of these axioms in 2005: “The greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century was the dissolution of the Soviet Union.” The First World War (10 million dead), the Second (50 million), Auschwitz, the Gulag—these are but profits and losses in his accounting. The true abomination, in his view, remains the treason of Boris Yeltsin, who, after Mikhail Gorbachev refused to send armored tanks to attack the peoples of Eastern Europe, allowed Ukraine, the Baltic nations, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and others to throw off 70 years of Bolshevik oppression, achieve their independence peacefully, and severely weaken Putin’s hierarchy—provisionally, he hopes.
The second axiom: mass democratic movements, such as Georgia’s Rose Revolution in 2003 and Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2004, are signs of a “permanent revolution” that threatens the foundations of the Russian state; such subversion receives financing from the CIA, NATO, foreign interests—and bad Russians. A few days before she was assassinated, my friend Anna Politkovskaia told me about the disproportionate panic that the joyous Kiev and Tbilisi uprisings provoked in high places in Moscow. Exaggerating the danger beyond reason, the frightened Kremlin bigwigs anticipated a shower of cannonballs in their own country. Hence their unmeasured repression of all protest: they censored the press, muzzled dissident voices, and assassinated or imprisoned the obstinate. Hence, too, their attempt to suppress their neighbors’ desire for emancipation, whether by brutally stopping the flow of natural gas in the middle of winter, clumsily buying off political opponents, or, when necessary, deploying tanks. The march on Tbilisi sent a clear message: it is them or us. It was left to Dmitry Medvedev, the amiable new Russian president upon whom Western dreamers project their hopes, to equate Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili with Hitler.
Yet the real surprise of August 2008 was not what Putin did, but signs of new firmness in Europe. French president Nicolas Sarkozy negotiated a delicate and ambiguous cease-fire, which at least blocked the Russian offensive on the Georgian capital. Then the European Union refused to shut its eyes to Russia’s barely disguised annexation of Abkhazia and of South Ossetia. Europe did not give in to panic: its response was neither a return to the Cold War (“Yalta is over,” Sarkozy declared) nor to angelism (“The vacation from history is over,” Polish prime minister Donald Tusk followed up). Time will tell if the 27 European nations are capable of holding their course, forging an energetic common policy, and negotiating with their Russian oil suppliers as equals. After all, the Russians need to sell as much as the West needs to buy.
In the face of European hostility to its Georgian thrust, the Kremlin has not changed its objectives, but its tone has become more accommodating. Clearly, Russia is testing how far it can go, and it has learned that Georgia is not another Chechnya. As a substitute for lost power, a nuisance policy on all fronts, while it can make an initial impression, will not restore the prestige of a clay-footed colossus.
Despite the bragging that accompanies its oil-drunkenness, Russia knows that its future is not bright. The country remains anemic, plagued with alcoholism, mafias, corruption, unemployment, tuberculosis, AIDS, prostitution, and a dizzying demographic plunge. Russian life expectancy is at Third World levels. Seventy percent of its budget depends on the sale of energy and raw materials. So long as its means of drilling and storage are lacking, Russia will not be able to blackmail prosperous Europe over the long term, and it will take a decade or even several to construct the transportation capacity to redirect its energy supplies toward Asia.
In the aftermath of its Georgian expedition, Russia’s diplomatic isolation is striking. It has not succeeded in winning recognition for the self-proclaimed independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. China’s refusal to acquiesce demonstrates that there will be no bloc of authoritarian capitalist states following Putin’s lead in a new Cold War against the democracies. The only regimes going along with Russia are those temporarily protected by the rise of oil prices. Chávez’s Venezuela and Ahmadinejad’s Iran share a malevolent drive with Putin’s Russia: every political, diplomatic, social, or military crisis that might raise the price of crude represents an opportunity. But the power interests that drive the economies of China, Europe, and the United States favor a reduction of energy prices. Moscow’s taste for trouble is enclosing it in global solitude.
The European Union, if it maintains its newfound—and still uncertain—firmness, will be able to force its big neighbor to moderate its ardor for conquest. Public opinion must hold firm and not be intimidated by the apocalyptic evocations of which Kremlin propagandists are so fond. Reassuringly, Sarkozy has spared us a repetition of the pitiful spectacle of the French prime minister, Pierre Mauroy, proclaiming in 1981 that we must “not add to the misfortune of the Poles”—the victims of Brezhnev and Jaruzelski—“the misfortunes of the French, who would be deprived of the gas they need to cook their steak and fries.”
Whatever lies Putin and Medvedev choose to circulate, the confrontation of August 2008 was not between a bellicose (let alone “Nazi”) Georgia and its “fraternal” big neighbor; or between capitalist democracies and an autocratic Moscow-Beijing axis that is no less capitalist; or even between a European culture of freedom and another based on nationalist sovereignty. Instead, the crisis brought European public opinion face-to-face with itself. Will Europe choose to commit suicide by oil and cave to the Putin doctrine? Or will it hold firm and resist?
André Glucksmann is a French philosopher. His article was translated from the French by Alexis Cornel.
http://www.city-journal.org/2008/18_4_snd-putin.html
André Glucksmann
Confronting the Putin Doctrine
Europe must hold fast against Russian blackmail.
Autumn 2008
The world shook this August, overturning the equilibrium not just of forces on the ground, but of people’s ideas and prejudices. The gigantic Olympic Games in Beijing displayed China’s will to power, a major challenge for the twenty-first century. The invasion of Georgia alerted the world to the return of an imperial Russia without frontiers. But neither event should have surprised the West. It has been 30 years since China, having swept aside Marxist dogmas, laid the foundation of an economic miracle that has raised its economy to second or third place in the world. Soon it will be ten years since Vladimir Putin, the leveler of Grozny, made himself a new Russian czar. Neither Beijing nor Georgia was hard to foresee. The veil ripped away was that of our illusions.
Consider the Russian question. What right do we have to make a show of disappointed innocence about the aggressiveness of Putin, who seduced George W. Bush with his blue eyes, Tony Blair with his good manners, Silvio Berlusconi with his frequenting of the Italian Riviera, Gerhard Schröder with a Gazprom chairmanship—and who received the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor from Jacques Chirac? The Kremlin has proclaimed the axioms of the Putin Doctrine loudly and clearly, but no deafness is so profound as that of those who will not hear.
Putin spoke the first of these axioms in 2005: “The greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century was the dissolution of the Soviet Union.” The First World War (10 million dead), the Second (50 million), Auschwitz, the Gulag—these are but profits and losses in his accounting. The true abomination, in his view, remains the treason of Boris Yeltsin, who, after Mikhail Gorbachev refused to send armored tanks to attack the peoples of Eastern Europe, allowed Ukraine, the Baltic nations, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and others to throw off 70 years of Bolshevik oppression, achieve their independence peacefully, and severely weaken Putin’s hierarchy—provisionally, he hopes.
The second axiom: mass democratic movements, such as Georgia’s Rose Revolution in 2003 and Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2004, are signs of a “permanent revolution” that threatens the foundations of the Russian state; such subversion receives financing from the CIA, NATO, foreign interests—and bad Russians. A few days before she was assassinated, my friend Anna Politkovskaia told me about the disproportionate panic that the joyous Kiev and Tbilisi uprisings provoked in high places in Moscow. Exaggerating the danger beyond reason, the frightened Kremlin bigwigs anticipated a shower of cannonballs in their own country. Hence their unmeasured repression of all protest: they censored the press, muzzled dissident voices, and assassinated or imprisoned the obstinate. Hence, too, their attempt to suppress their neighbors’ desire for emancipation, whether by brutally stopping the flow of natural gas in the middle of winter, clumsily buying off political opponents, or, when necessary, deploying tanks. The march on Tbilisi sent a clear message: it is them or us. It was left to Dmitry Medvedev, the amiable new Russian president upon whom Western dreamers project their hopes, to equate Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili with Hitler.
Yet the real surprise of August 2008 was not what Putin did, but signs of new firmness in Europe. French president Nicolas Sarkozy negotiated a delicate and ambiguous cease-fire, which at least blocked the Russian offensive on the Georgian capital. Then the European Union refused to shut its eyes to Russia’s barely disguised annexation of Abkhazia and of South Ossetia. Europe did not give in to panic: its response was neither a return to the Cold War (“Yalta is over,” Sarkozy declared) nor to angelism (“The vacation from history is over,” Polish prime minister Donald Tusk followed up). Time will tell if the 27 European nations are capable of holding their course, forging an energetic common policy, and negotiating with their Russian oil suppliers as equals. After all, the Russians need to sell as much as the West needs to buy.
In the face of European hostility to its Georgian thrust, the Kremlin has not changed its objectives, but its tone has become more accommodating. Clearly, Russia is testing how far it can go, and it has learned that Georgia is not another Chechnya. As a substitute for lost power, a nuisance policy on all fronts, while it can make an initial impression, will not restore the prestige of a clay-footed colossus.
Despite the bragging that accompanies its oil-drunkenness, Russia knows that its future is not bright. The country remains anemic, plagued with alcoholism, mafias, corruption, unemployment, tuberculosis, AIDS, prostitution, and a dizzying demographic plunge. Russian life expectancy is at Third World levels. Seventy percent of its budget depends on the sale of energy and raw materials. So long as its means of drilling and storage are lacking, Russia will not be able to blackmail prosperous Europe over the long term, and it will take a decade or even several to construct the transportation capacity to redirect its energy supplies toward Asia.
In the aftermath of its Georgian expedition, Russia’s diplomatic isolation is striking. It has not succeeded in winning recognition for the self-proclaimed independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. China’s refusal to acquiesce demonstrates that there will be no bloc of authoritarian capitalist states following Putin’s lead in a new Cold War against the democracies. The only regimes going along with Russia are those temporarily protected by the rise of oil prices. Chávez’s Venezuela and Ahmadinejad’s Iran share a malevolent drive with Putin’s Russia: every political, diplomatic, social, or military crisis that might raise the price of crude represents an opportunity. But the power interests that drive the economies of China, Europe, and the United States favor a reduction of energy prices. Moscow’s taste for trouble is enclosing it in global solitude.
The European Union, if it maintains its newfound—and still uncertain—firmness, will be able to force its big neighbor to moderate its ardor for conquest. Public opinion must hold firm and not be intimidated by the apocalyptic evocations of which Kremlin propagandists are so fond. Reassuringly, Sarkozy has spared us a repetition of the pitiful spectacle of the French prime minister, Pierre Mauroy, proclaiming in 1981 that we must “not add to the misfortune of the Poles”—the victims of Brezhnev and Jaruzelski—“the misfortunes of the French, who would be deprived of the gas they need to cook their steak and fries.”
Whatever lies Putin and Medvedev choose to circulate, the confrontation of August 2008 was not between a bellicose (let alone “Nazi”) Georgia and its “fraternal” big neighbor; or between capitalist democracies and an autocratic Moscow-Beijing axis that is no less capitalist; or even between a European culture of freedom and another based on nationalist sovereignty. Instead, the crisis brought European public opinion face-to-face with itself. Will Europe choose to commit suicide by oil and cave to the Putin doctrine? Or will it hold firm and resist?
André Glucksmann is a French philosopher. His article was translated from the French by Alexis Cornel.
Posted for fair use....
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27873440
Georgian, Polish presidents' motorcade fired on
The shots allegedly come from the breakaway province of South Ossetia
The Associated Press
updated 1:06 p.m. PT, Sun., Nov. 23, 2008
TBILISI, Georgia - Shots were fired near the motorcade carrying the presidents of Georgia and Poland on Sunday — the fifth anniversary of Georgia's Rose Revolution — Georgian officials said. No one was hurt in the shooting.
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, who led the pro-Western 2003 uprising but whose popularity has waned in recent months, blamed Russian troops in Georgia's breakaway province of South Ossetia.
"Frankly, I didn't expect the Russians to open fire," he said at a news conference with Polish President Lech Kaczynski. "The reality is you are dealing with unpredictable people. They weren't happy to see our guest and they weren't happy to see me either."
Conflicting accounts about events
Kaczynski said the shots were fired from only about 30 meters (100 feet) from the motorcade. He said it was not clear if the gunfire was aimed at the motorcade or shots were fired into the air.
But he said the incident demonstrated the weakness of the French-brokered truce that ended Russia's August war with Georgia over South Ossetia. The truce agreement, Kaczynski said, "does not reflect reality."
"I know from their shouting that they were Russians; I also know from the president of Georgia that there are Russian outposts on that territory," Kaczynski said.
"Fire was opened on Georgian territory, and territory that until August this year was controlled by the authorities in Tbilisi," he added.
The plan, brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, called for Russian troops to withdraw from areas outside South Ossetia and Abkhazia, but they have remained in several areas controlled by Georgia before the war, including the area around the town of Akhalgori, near which the firing was said to have occurred.
Kaczynski criticized the European Union and NATO which, he said, have failed to take united action to counter what he described as Russia's attempt to rebuild the Soviet empire.
"Today, it's not too late yet, but tomorrow it might be," he said.
Relations deteriorating for several years
Relations between Russia and Georgia have been deteriorating for several years. The Rose Revolution in 2003 was a popular uprising against elections that were seen as fraudulent. It drove President Eduard Shevardnadze, a former Soviet foreign minister, from office and ushered pro-Western Saakashvili into power.
Saakashvili's popularity has dwindled as critics have charged him with authoritarianism and with mishandling the war with Russia. This year's anniversary was marked with little jubilation. A former ally used the occasion to launch a drive to unseat Saakashvili.
The circumstances of Sunday's incident remained unclear as night fell. Russia's deputy foreign minister, Grigory Karasin, insisted that no shots has been fired, and the Russian Defense Ministry, in statements carried by Russian news agencies, dismissed the Georgian allegations as a "provocation."
South Ossetian separatist authorities also denied that shots had been fired in the area. A spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry in Moscow said he had no immediate comment on the Georgian claims.
Even Georgian officials differed among themselves. Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said the shots were fired as the motorcade approached a Russian military checkpoint near the Akhalgori in South Ossetia. But lawmaker Marika Verulashvili said the incident happened as the motorcade approached a Georgian police checkpoint near the breakaway province after visiting a camp of Georgian refugees.
'Treacherous power we are facing'
Georgian Security Council chief Alexander Lomaia criticized Russia over the incident.
"We are facing the aggressive and irresponsible behavior of the occupation forces," he said in televised remarks.
Georgia's Parliament speaker, David Bakradze, urged the international community to condemn the shooting, saying it "shows what kind of treacherous power we are facing."
Russia recognized South Ossetia and another breakaway Georgian province, Abkhazia, as independent nations after the war and deployed nearly 4,000 troops to each region, a far larger presence than before the conflict.
The war broke out when Saakashvili launched an offensive Aug. 7 to regain control of South Ossetia. Russia sent in troops which quickly routed the Georgian military.
The war and Moscow's subsequent recognition of the two breakaway regions have badly strained Russia-west ties.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27873440
Georgian, Polish presidents' motorcade fired on
The shots allegedly come from the breakaway province of South Ossetia
The Associated Press
updated 1:06 p.m. PT, Sun., Nov. 23, 2008
TBILISI, Georgia - Shots were fired near the motorcade carrying the presidents of Georgia and Poland on Sunday — the fifth anniversary of Georgia's Rose Revolution — Georgian officials said. No one was hurt in the shooting.
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, who led the pro-Western 2003 uprising but whose popularity has waned in recent months, blamed Russian troops in Georgia's breakaway province of South Ossetia.
"Frankly, I didn't expect the Russians to open fire," he said at a news conference with Polish President Lech Kaczynski. "The reality is you are dealing with unpredictable people. They weren't happy to see our guest and they weren't happy to see me either."
Conflicting accounts about events
Kaczynski said the shots were fired from only about 30 meters (100 feet) from the motorcade. He said it was not clear if the gunfire was aimed at the motorcade or shots were fired into the air.
But he said the incident demonstrated the weakness of the French-brokered truce that ended Russia's August war with Georgia over South Ossetia. The truce agreement, Kaczynski said, "does not reflect reality."
"I know from their shouting that they were Russians; I also know from the president of Georgia that there are Russian outposts on that territory," Kaczynski said.
"Fire was opened on Georgian territory, and territory that until August this year was controlled by the authorities in Tbilisi," he added.
The plan, brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, called for Russian troops to withdraw from areas outside South Ossetia and Abkhazia, but they have remained in several areas controlled by Georgia before the war, including the area around the town of Akhalgori, near which the firing was said to have occurred.
Kaczynski criticized the European Union and NATO which, he said, have failed to take united action to counter what he described as Russia's attempt to rebuild the Soviet empire.
"Today, it's not too late yet, but tomorrow it might be," he said.
Relations deteriorating for several years
Relations between Russia and Georgia have been deteriorating for several years. The Rose Revolution in 2003 was a popular uprising against elections that were seen as fraudulent. It drove President Eduard Shevardnadze, a former Soviet foreign minister, from office and ushered pro-Western Saakashvili into power.
Saakashvili's popularity has dwindled as critics have charged him with authoritarianism and with mishandling the war with Russia. This year's anniversary was marked with little jubilation. A former ally used the occasion to launch a drive to unseat Saakashvili.
The circumstances of Sunday's incident remained unclear as night fell. Russia's deputy foreign minister, Grigory Karasin, insisted that no shots has been fired, and the Russian Defense Ministry, in statements carried by Russian news agencies, dismissed the Georgian allegations as a "provocation."
South Ossetian separatist authorities also denied that shots had been fired in the area. A spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry in Moscow said he had no immediate comment on the Georgian claims.
Even Georgian officials differed among themselves. Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said the shots were fired as the motorcade approached a Russian military checkpoint near the Akhalgori in South Ossetia. But lawmaker Marika Verulashvili said the incident happened as the motorcade approached a Georgian police checkpoint near the breakaway province after visiting a camp of Georgian refugees.
'Treacherous power we are facing'
Georgian Security Council chief Alexander Lomaia criticized Russia over the incident.
"We are facing the aggressive and irresponsible behavior of the occupation forces," he said in televised remarks.
Georgia's Parliament speaker, David Bakradze, urged the international community to condemn the shooting, saying it "shows what kind of treacherous power we are facing."
Russia recognized South Ossetia and another breakaway Georgian province, Abkhazia, as independent nations after the war and deployed nearly 4,000 troops to each region, a far larger presence than before the conflict.
The war broke out when Saakashvili launched an offensive Aug. 7 to regain control of South Ossetia. Russia sent in troops which quickly routed the Georgian military.
The war and Moscow's subsequent recognition of the two breakaway regions have badly strained Russia-west ties.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Posted for fair use...
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iETVHPxAN8ys9dtARn5_L0Mz2hEw
Tensions with Moscow rise as Georgia marks uprising anniversary
14 minutes ago
TBILISI (AFP) — Georgia on Sunday marked the fifth anniversary of its pro-Western "Rose Revolution" as tensions rose with Moscow over claims that Russian forces had opened fire near a convoy carrying President Mikheil Saakashvili.
The anniversary also highlighted increasing challenges to Saakashvili's rule, with a key former ally founding a new opposition party and calling for his resignation.
Georgia accused Russian troops near the breakaway region of South Ossetia of opening fire as a convoy carrying Saakashvili and Polish President Lech Kaczynski drove by -- a claim Russia denied.
Kaczynski later said it was unclear whether the shots had been fired at the convoy or into the air. There were no reports of injuries.
At a televised news conference, Saakashvili said Russian forces "were not happy to see us and reacted in this barbaric way."
"Aggression continues in Georgia," he said. "The ceasefire and the European Union-brokered agreement are being violated."
But Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin dismissed the claim as "one more instance of wishful thinking on the part of Georgia."
"No fire was opened against adjoining Georgian territory from South Ossetian territory," the Interfax news agency quoted Karasin as saying in Moscow.
Tensions remain high in South Ossetia and in another breakaway region, Abkhazia, following a brief war between Russia and Georgia in August.
Russian forces pushed into Georgia -- a candidate for NATO membership -- on August 8 to repel a Georgian military attempt to retake South Ossetia, which for years had been receiving extensive backing from Moscow.
Critics have accused Saakashvili of mishandling the war and on Sunday former parliament speaker Nino Burjanadze used the anniversary to launch a challenge to his rule.
"Five years ago the Georgian people entrusted power to today's authorities, but instead of democratic development and territorial integrity we have today the opposite," she told several thousand supporters at the founding congress of her Democratic Movement-United Georgia party.
"In any civilised nation, authorities who led the country to disaster would resign. We must have elections and bring new authorities to power," said Burjanadze, who along with Saakashvili was a prominent leader of the revolution.
Up to 200 opposition supporters also rallied outside the offices of television channel Imedi to denounce what they are say are government attempts to muzzle the media.
Imedi, a pro-opposition channel that was shut down last year during a state of emergency, has shied away from criticising the authorities since re-opening under new ownership, critics say.
In a nationally televised address late Saturday, Saakashvili called for Georgians to unite as they did during the revolution against a "dangerous threat" from Russia.
"We were attacked because of the success of the last five years, it was the last challenge of the empire against us," he said.
"We have never faced such a dangerous threat. We need strength and unity. We must believe in the future and have courage. Instead of celebrating... we must show unity as we did on November 23, 2003."
The Rose Revolution saw tens of thousands of protesters rally in Tbilisi in November 2003 to denounce parliamentary elections won by allies of then-president Eduard Shevardnadze.
The veteran Georgian leader resigned after protesters, led by Saakashvili brandishing a single rose, stormed into parliament.
Backed by Western governments, in particular Washington, Saakashvili launched widespread reforms and vowed to bring Georgia into NATO and the European Union.
But in recent years critics have accused Saakashvili of becoming authoritarian, especially after riot police violently dispersed tens of thousands of anti-government protesters last year and he briefly imposed the state of emergency.
He is also coming under increasing criticism for the government's handling of the August war, which saw Russian troops pour deep into Georgia, occupy swathes of territory and bomb targets across the country.
Russian forces later withdrew to within South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which Moscow has recognised as independent states, making Georgia's goal of regaining control of the rebel regions all but impossible.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iETVHPxAN8ys9dtARn5_L0Mz2hEw
Tensions with Moscow rise as Georgia marks uprising anniversary
14 minutes ago
TBILISI (AFP) — Georgia on Sunday marked the fifth anniversary of its pro-Western "Rose Revolution" as tensions rose with Moscow over claims that Russian forces had opened fire near a convoy carrying President Mikheil Saakashvili.
The anniversary also highlighted increasing challenges to Saakashvili's rule, with a key former ally founding a new opposition party and calling for his resignation.
Georgia accused Russian troops near the breakaway region of South Ossetia of opening fire as a convoy carrying Saakashvili and Polish President Lech Kaczynski drove by -- a claim Russia denied.
Kaczynski later said it was unclear whether the shots had been fired at the convoy or into the air. There were no reports of injuries.
At a televised news conference, Saakashvili said Russian forces "were not happy to see us and reacted in this barbaric way."
"Aggression continues in Georgia," he said. "The ceasefire and the European Union-brokered agreement are being violated."
But Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin dismissed the claim as "one more instance of wishful thinking on the part of Georgia."
"No fire was opened against adjoining Georgian territory from South Ossetian territory," the Interfax news agency quoted Karasin as saying in Moscow.
Tensions remain high in South Ossetia and in another breakaway region, Abkhazia, following a brief war between Russia and Georgia in August.
Russian forces pushed into Georgia -- a candidate for NATO membership -- on August 8 to repel a Georgian military attempt to retake South Ossetia, which for years had been receiving extensive backing from Moscow.
Critics have accused Saakashvili of mishandling the war and on Sunday former parliament speaker Nino Burjanadze used the anniversary to launch a challenge to his rule.
"Five years ago the Georgian people entrusted power to today's authorities, but instead of democratic development and territorial integrity we have today the opposite," she told several thousand supporters at the founding congress of her Democratic Movement-United Georgia party.
"In any civilised nation, authorities who led the country to disaster would resign. We must have elections and bring new authorities to power," said Burjanadze, who along with Saakashvili was a prominent leader of the revolution.
Up to 200 opposition supporters also rallied outside the offices of television channel Imedi to denounce what they are say are government attempts to muzzle the media.
Imedi, a pro-opposition channel that was shut down last year during a state of emergency, has shied away from criticising the authorities since re-opening under new ownership, critics say.
In a nationally televised address late Saturday, Saakashvili called for Georgians to unite as they did during the revolution against a "dangerous threat" from Russia.
"We were attacked because of the success of the last five years, it was the last challenge of the empire against us," he said.
"We have never faced such a dangerous threat. We need strength and unity. We must believe in the future and have courage. Instead of celebrating... we must show unity as we did on November 23, 2003."
The Rose Revolution saw tens of thousands of protesters rally in Tbilisi in November 2003 to denounce parliamentary elections won by allies of then-president Eduard Shevardnadze.
The veteran Georgian leader resigned after protesters, led by Saakashvili brandishing a single rose, stormed into parliament.
Backed by Western governments, in particular Washington, Saakashvili launched widespread reforms and vowed to bring Georgia into NATO and the European Union.
But in recent years critics have accused Saakashvili of becoming authoritarian, especially after riot police violently dispersed tens of thousands of anti-government protesters last year and he briefly imposed the state of emergency.
He is also coming under increasing criticism for the government's handling of the August war, which saw Russian troops pour deep into Georgia, occupy swathes of territory and bomb targets across the country.
Russian forces later withdrew to within South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which Moscow has recognised as independent states, making Georgia's goal of regaining control of the rebel regions all but impossible.
See...
Balkans Flashpoint - Shots Fired at Georgian President's Motorcade
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?t=312459
Also...
Posted for fair use...
http://www.jamestown.org/edm/article.php?article_id=2373548
RUSSIA'S RADICAL MILITARY REFORM IN PROGRESS
By Pavel Felgenhauer
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Russia's top military commander, First Deputy Defense Minister and Chief of General Staff General Nikolai Makarov told journalists that the Russian army structure was too bulky and not fit for modern warfare. Makarov stated that radical military reforms would create a "modern, well armed, mobile armed force that could meet present and future challenges." Makarov did not elaborate on what these "challenges" might be (Interfax, November 19).
According to Makarov, in recent local wars in Chechnya and Georgia, Russian army regiments could field no more than a reinforced battalion battle group, while each division, consisting of several regiments, could muster at best only several such battalion groups. The Soviet command structure was created in the 1960s and inherited by modern Russia; its organization "of armies, divisions, regiments, and battalions [is] too cumbersome and ineffective," Makarov said. Brigades smaller than divisions but twice as big as regiments will be created as a replacement. Instead of sending mixed task forces consisting of elements of different divisions and regiments into battle, the Russian military plan in the future is to use brigades as better balanced, organized, and efficient battlefield formations (Interfax, November 19).
Makarov admitted that only 20 percent of the units of the Russian armed forces—the so called "permanent readiness units"—were ready for action at present. The rest are the so-called "cadre divisions," consisting of officers and NCOs but no soldiers. Such units were created to be staffed fully by reservists and expand into combat formations during mass mobilization in a time of war; but such "cadre units" would be useless in local conflicts. According to Makarov, all Russian armed forces units in the future will be in "permanent readiness" (Interfax, November 19). It would seem that Russian generals have acknowledged that preparing for a mass mobilization of millions of reservists in today’s Russia is a dream that could never happen. If this reform plan were indeed carried out in a consequential way, it could significantly improve Russia's military capabilities.
Makarov announced that the "central command structures of the Defense Ministry and General Staff have swollen to unseemly proportions and are not performing properly." He stated that the staffs of "central command structures of the Defense Ministry and General Staff" would be cut: "Of the present 21,500 officers and generals, 13,000 will fired" and "only those command structures that are indeed working will be retained" (Interfax, November 19). It is remarkable that Makarov, appointed last June to replace General Yuri Baluyevsky, became the chief of the General Staff at all (see EDM, June 5). When the chief states that the General Staff is inflated and ineffective, it is clear that drastic action is inevitable; but radical cuts in top military staff members cannot in itself improve performance. Makarov did not say to what extent the drastic cuts in staff personnel will be accompanied with significant changes in the structure of the Defense Ministry.
It is uncertain whether Moscow will follow the Western practice of building an essentially civilian Defense Ministry, moving significant administrative responsibilities out of the hands of the uniformed military. It is also a moot question whether an effective civilian Defense Ministry could establish civilian control over the military within the framework of the present authoritarian, totally undemocratic Russian state.
Makarov announced plans to rearm the reformed Russian military with new weapons: "In the coming three to five years we plan to replace 30 percent of old weapons with the newest ones and by 2018 to 2020, 80 to 100 percent" (Interfax, November 19). The promise sounds grand but remains vague: who will make the new weapons, what types will they be, and what will they cost? It is not clear that the Russian defense industry is up to the job.
Last week Duma Deputy Mikhail Musavatov quoted Makarov as announcing at a closed meeting of the Duma Defense Committee that Russia would buy unmanned intelligence-gathering drones from Israel. Makarov apparently said that Israeli-made drones had "performed well—on the Georgian side—during hostilities in Georgia in August." Communications and other modern technologies will be purchased abroad. Makarov admitted that the Russian defense industry could not make equipment of the same quality at present, "so we must buy foreign" (RIA-Novosti, November 13).
If the arrangement to buy Israeli drones indeed goes through, this will be the first time that Russia has officially obtained a major Western-made weapons system since the 1940s. Such a major change in defense procurement policy will, however, meet with opposition. Another Duma deputy, Mikhail Babich, announced the same day, "the Defense Committee decided that Russia would not buy Israeli drones but would develop its own" and that "Makarov agreed with that decision" (Interfax, November 13).
In the West parliament decides about the procurement of weapons, but in Russia the Duma simply rubber-stamps the decision. President Dmitry Medvedev announced this week, "A parliamentary republic would bring death to Russia" (Kommersant, November 19). If the Defense Ministry obtains approval from the Kremlin to go ahead and buy Israeli, it will be done.
Balkans Flashpoint - Shots Fired at Georgian President's Motorcade
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?t=312459
Also...
Posted for fair use...
http://www.jamestown.org/edm/article.php?article_id=2373548
RUSSIA'S RADICAL MILITARY REFORM IN PROGRESS
By Pavel Felgenhauer
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Russia's top military commander, First Deputy Defense Minister and Chief of General Staff General Nikolai Makarov told journalists that the Russian army structure was too bulky and not fit for modern warfare. Makarov stated that radical military reforms would create a "modern, well armed, mobile armed force that could meet present and future challenges." Makarov did not elaborate on what these "challenges" might be (Interfax, November 19).
According to Makarov, in recent local wars in Chechnya and Georgia, Russian army regiments could field no more than a reinforced battalion battle group, while each division, consisting of several regiments, could muster at best only several such battalion groups. The Soviet command structure was created in the 1960s and inherited by modern Russia; its organization "of armies, divisions, regiments, and battalions [is] too cumbersome and ineffective," Makarov said. Brigades smaller than divisions but twice as big as regiments will be created as a replacement. Instead of sending mixed task forces consisting of elements of different divisions and regiments into battle, the Russian military plan in the future is to use brigades as better balanced, organized, and efficient battlefield formations (Interfax, November 19).
Makarov admitted that only 20 percent of the units of the Russian armed forces—the so called "permanent readiness units"—were ready for action at present. The rest are the so-called "cadre divisions," consisting of officers and NCOs but no soldiers. Such units were created to be staffed fully by reservists and expand into combat formations during mass mobilization in a time of war; but such "cadre units" would be useless in local conflicts. According to Makarov, all Russian armed forces units in the future will be in "permanent readiness" (Interfax, November 19). It would seem that Russian generals have acknowledged that preparing for a mass mobilization of millions of reservists in today’s Russia is a dream that could never happen. If this reform plan were indeed carried out in a consequential way, it could significantly improve Russia's military capabilities.
Makarov announced that the "central command structures of the Defense Ministry and General Staff have swollen to unseemly proportions and are not performing properly." He stated that the staffs of "central command structures of the Defense Ministry and General Staff" would be cut: "Of the present 21,500 officers and generals, 13,000 will fired" and "only those command structures that are indeed working will be retained" (Interfax, November 19). It is remarkable that Makarov, appointed last June to replace General Yuri Baluyevsky, became the chief of the General Staff at all (see EDM, June 5). When the chief states that the General Staff is inflated and ineffective, it is clear that drastic action is inevitable; but radical cuts in top military staff members cannot in itself improve performance. Makarov did not say to what extent the drastic cuts in staff personnel will be accompanied with significant changes in the structure of the Defense Ministry.
It is uncertain whether Moscow will follow the Western practice of building an essentially civilian Defense Ministry, moving significant administrative responsibilities out of the hands of the uniformed military. It is also a moot question whether an effective civilian Defense Ministry could establish civilian control over the military within the framework of the present authoritarian, totally undemocratic Russian state.
Makarov announced plans to rearm the reformed Russian military with new weapons: "In the coming three to five years we plan to replace 30 percent of old weapons with the newest ones and by 2018 to 2020, 80 to 100 percent" (Interfax, November 19). The promise sounds grand but remains vague: who will make the new weapons, what types will they be, and what will they cost? It is not clear that the Russian defense industry is up to the job.
Last week Duma Deputy Mikhail Musavatov quoted Makarov as announcing at a closed meeting of the Duma Defense Committee that Russia would buy unmanned intelligence-gathering drones from Israel. Makarov apparently said that Israeli-made drones had "performed well—on the Georgian side—during hostilities in Georgia in August." Communications and other modern technologies will be purchased abroad. Makarov admitted that the Russian defense industry could not make equipment of the same quality at present, "so we must buy foreign" (RIA-Novosti, November 13).
If the arrangement to buy Israeli drones indeed goes through, this will be the first time that Russia has officially obtained a major Western-made weapons system since the 1940s. Such a major change in defense procurement policy will, however, meet with opposition. Another Duma deputy, Mikhail Babich, announced the same day, "the Defense Committee decided that Russia would not buy Israeli drones but would develop its own" and that "Makarov agreed with that decision" (Interfax, November 13).
In the West parliament decides about the procurement of weapons, but in Russia the Duma simply rubber-stamps the decision. President Dmitry Medvedev announced this week, "A parliamentary republic would bring death to Russia" (Kommersant, November 19). If the Defense Ministry obtains approval from the Kremlin to go ahead and buy Israeli, it will be done.
Last edited:
jed turtle
a brother in the Lord
"Last week Duma Deputy Mikhail Musavatov quoted Makarov as announcing at a closed meeting of the Duma Defense Committee that Russia would buy unmanned intelligence-gathering drones from Israel. Makarov apparently said that Israeli-made drones had "performed well—on the Georgian side—during hostilities in Georgia in August." Communications and other modern technologies will be purchased abroad. Makarov admitted that the Russian defense industry could not make equipment of the same quality at present, "so we must buy foreign" (RIA-Novosti, November 13)."
WTF? once again, Israel is offering high tech military equipment to avowed enemies of the US and /or allies of its own enemies (China).
is it all about the almight dollar, Israel?
WTF? once again, Israel is offering high tech military equipment to avowed enemies of the US and /or allies of its own enemies (China).
is it all about the almight dollar, Israel?
Spirit Of Truth
Deceased
Russia has plan of Saakashvili's assassination
From - http://rustavi2.com/news/news_text.php?id_news=28954&pg=1&im=main&ct=1&wth=
From - http://rustavi2.com/news/news_text.php?id_news=28950&pg=1&im=main&ct=1&wth=
------------------------------------------
Be careful with this, folks. Saakashvili is likely KGB:
See - http://www.spiritoftruth.org/astrology.htm
From - http://www.4forums.com/political/eu...rder-soon-beginning-military-operation-2.html
So if Saakashvili is reportedly assassinated, don't necessarily believe this is true. His assassination may be 'staged' as part of Moscow's larger plan to militarily defeat the West.
To see how this is so, consider this 'news photo' from an AP story about a reported shooting on Saakashvili's motorcade:
If, indeed, there was live fire on Saakashvili's motorcade, why would he and his guest, Polish President Lech Kaczynski, get out of their vehicles? This photo shows Saakashvili and Kacyzynski standing outside with protective troops surrounding them with guns drawn and aimed (and who would have taken such a photo from such a perilous vantage point?). This is a typical 'WTF?' BS image forwarded to Western news outlets to create a story meant for Western consumption:
http://www.spiritoftruth.org/defectors.htm
From - http://rustavi2.com/news/news_text.php?id_news=28954&pg=1&im=main&ct=1&wth=
From - http://rustavi2.com/news/news_text.php?id_news=28950&pg=1&im=main&ct=1&wth=
------------------------------------------
Be careful with this, folks. Saakashvili is likely KGB:
See - http://www.spiritoftruth.org/astrology.htm
From - http://www.4forums.com/political/eu...rder-soon-beginning-military-operation-2.html
So if Saakashvili is reportedly assassinated, don't necessarily believe this is true. His assassination may be 'staged' as part of Moscow's larger plan to militarily defeat the West.
To see how this is so, consider this 'news photo' from an AP story about a reported shooting on Saakashvili's motorcade:
If, indeed, there was live fire on Saakashvili's motorcade, why would he and his guest, Polish President Lech Kaczynski, get out of their vehicles? This photo shows Saakashvili and Kacyzynski standing outside with protective troops surrounding them with guns drawn and aimed (and who would have taken such a photo from such a perilous vantage point?). This is a typical 'WTF?' BS image forwarded to Western news outlets to create a story meant for Western consumption:
http://www.spiritoftruth.org/defectors.htm
Last edited:
Posted for fair use....
http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/article.aspx?id=2958
For NATO-Russia Relations, No More Business as Usual
David Capezza | 24 Nov 2008
World Politics Review
In a speech last Thursday, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer announced that the alliance's relationship with Russia will no longer be "business as usual," while stressing the need for a multidimensional approach towards relations with Moscow. With relations between NATO and Russia greatly strained, Scheffer argued against framing the issue as a choice between Russia and Georgia, declaring that, "No, we will not choose." If acted upon, Scheffer's call to action could mark the beginning of a new approach towards Russia.
The multidimensional approach, according to Scheffer, includes "a broad cooperative framework embracing virtually all the countries on our continent, a specific policy for those countries interested in joining NATO, and a determined attempt to draw Russia closer to the alliance."
Russia's incursion into Georgia highlighted the growing rift between Moscow and NATO, and put NATO's continued discussions with Georgia even more in the spotlight. Altering those discussions to appease Russian interests would have been of great concern, not only to the alliance, but also to potential NATO members Georgia and Ukraine. But while Scheffer noted that Russia's use of force was of concern to NATO members, he insisted that it would not be the "red line" on enlargement. The announcement that discussions will continue with Georgia is therefore critical, not only for NATO-Russia relations, but also for the future of the alliance, signaling that NATO will not take a submissive approach to enlargement.
Nevertheless, Scheffer's announcement that NATO will at the same time emphasize a direct diplomatic approach with Russia demonstrates that the alliance is willing to take the first step towards restoring healthy relations with Moscow. The NATO-Russia Council, in particular, needs to once again become a functional forum for Russia and NATO to voice concerns over security issues. If Russia balks at these efforts, it will then be clear that it is Russia, and not the alliance, that is resisting cooperation. This is unlikely, however, as the Russian government has repeatedly called for engagement through international institutions, such as the U.N. and OSCE. On Nov. 20, Russia's ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, stated that it is necessary for NATO and Russia to continue their engagement on mutual security concerns, such as a response to the piracy crisis, to increase the effectiveness of addressing these issues.
NATO's announcement is also a recognition that relations with Russia are critical to the alliance. In the words of the secretary general, "[T]rustful NATO-Russia relations are a strategic asset -- a boon to European and indeed global security." While NATO-Russia relations might seem to be worsening today, they are, in fact, closer than they have ever been before. Quite literally, NATO's enlargement process has placed the edge of Europe on Russia's border. As Scheffer indicates, there are a number of issues in which NATO and Russia share strategic interests, from arms control and nonproliferation to terrorism -- issues that must be confronted jointly by both NATO and Russia is they are to be successfully addressed.
By reforming NATO's policy towards Russia, Scheffer is hoping to eliminate the need to sacrifice the alliance's interests in order to garner support from Russia. Whether on Georgia and the Ukraine or missile defense, engaging Russia to create a transparent and non-threatening relationship will allow all countries to discuss their concerns in an open forum.
The alternative of noncooperation and confrontation is not viable. While NATO seeks to fulfill an ambitious agenda that includes operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo, and the Mediterranean, a non-cooperative approach towards Russia will only result in additional security problems. Though Russia's minister of defense, Anatoly Serdyukov, reiterated Moscow's opposition to Georgia's accession to NATO on Nov. 18, NATO's new approach towards Russia may in fact alleviate Russia's opposition.
The new policy as outlined by its secretary general would demonstrate to both Russia and aspiring members states in the region that NATO is committed to making the alliance stronger and closer. But by emphasizing cooperation with Russia at the same time on specific issues such as terrorism, energy and cyber security, it would allow NATO to demonstrate that its goal of a more secure Europe poses no threat to Moscow. If adopted, the multidimensional approach would be a further indication that the alliance will continue to be a valuable asset, vital for the future of a secure and stable Europe.
David Capezza is currently a consultant at the Center for a New American Security in Washington, D.C.
http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/article.aspx?id=2958
For NATO-Russia Relations, No More Business as Usual
David Capezza | 24 Nov 2008
World Politics Review
In a speech last Thursday, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer announced that the alliance's relationship with Russia will no longer be "business as usual," while stressing the need for a multidimensional approach towards relations with Moscow. With relations between NATO and Russia greatly strained, Scheffer argued against framing the issue as a choice between Russia and Georgia, declaring that, "No, we will not choose." If acted upon, Scheffer's call to action could mark the beginning of a new approach towards Russia.
The multidimensional approach, according to Scheffer, includes "a broad cooperative framework embracing virtually all the countries on our continent, a specific policy for those countries interested in joining NATO, and a determined attempt to draw Russia closer to the alliance."
Russia's incursion into Georgia highlighted the growing rift between Moscow and NATO, and put NATO's continued discussions with Georgia even more in the spotlight. Altering those discussions to appease Russian interests would have been of great concern, not only to the alliance, but also to potential NATO members Georgia and Ukraine. But while Scheffer noted that Russia's use of force was of concern to NATO members, he insisted that it would not be the "red line" on enlargement. The announcement that discussions will continue with Georgia is therefore critical, not only for NATO-Russia relations, but also for the future of the alliance, signaling that NATO will not take a submissive approach to enlargement.
Nevertheless, Scheffer's announcement that NATO will at the same time emphasize a direct diplomatic approach with Russia demonstrates that the alliance is willing to take the first step towards restoring healthy relations with Moscow. The NATO-Russia Council, in particular, needs to once again become a functional forum for Russia and NATO to voice concerns over security issues. If Russia balks at these efforts, it will then be clear that it is Russia, and not the alliance, that is resisting cooperation. This is unlikely, however, as the Russian government has repeatedly called for engagement through international institutions, such as the U.N. and OSCE. On Nov. 20, Russia's ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, stated that it is necessary for NATO and Russia to continue their engagement on mutual security concerns, such as a response to the piracy crisis, to increase the effectiveness of addressing these issues.
NATO's announcement is also a recognition that relations with Russia are critical to the alliance. In the words of the secretary general, "[T]rustful NATO-Russia relations are a strategic asset -- a boon to European and indeed global security." While NATO-Russia relations might seem to be worsening today, they are, in fact, closer than they have ever been before. Quite literally, NATO's enlargement process has placed the edge of Europe on Russia's border. As Scheffer indicates, there are a number of issues in which NATO and Russia share strategic interests, from arms control and nonproliferation to terrorism -- issues that must be confronted jointly by both NATO and Russia is they are to be successfully addressed.
By reforming NATO's policy towards Russia, Scheffer is hoping to eliminate the need to sacrifice the alliance's interests in order to garner support from Russia. Whether on Georgia and the Ukraine or missile defense, engaging Russia to create a transparent and non-threatening relationship will allow all countries to discuss their concerns in an open forum.
The alternative of noncooperation and confrontation is not viable. While NATO seeks to fulfill an ambitious agenda that includes operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo, and the Mediterranean, a non-cooperative approach towards Russia will only result in additional security problems. Though Russia's minister of defense, Anatoly Serdyukov, reiterated Moscow's opposition to Georgia's accession to NATO on Nov. 18, NATO's new approach towards Russia may in fact alleviate Russia's opposition.
The new policy as outlined by its secretary general would demonstrate to both Russia and aspiring members states in the region that NATO is committed to making the alliance stronger and closer. But by emphasizing cooperation with Russia at the same time on specific issues such as terrorism, energy and cyber security, it would allow NATO to demonstrate that its goal of a more secure Europe poses no threat to Moscow. If adopted, the multidimensional approach would be a further indication that the alliance will continue to be a valuable asset, vital for the future of a secure and stable Europe.
David Capezza is currently a consultant at the Center for a New American Security in Washington, D.C.
Desperado
Membership Revoked
Nothing new here, I have said it many times, Israel is not our friend.
Posted for fair use....
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jjr583sDpvXnpHd8PpVrHN7zifLA
Russia building 'Berlin Wall' in Georgia: FM
4 hours ago
LONDON (AFP) — Georgian Foreign Minister Eka Tkeshelashvili said Wednesday that Russian forces were erecting a "Berlin Wall" as part of a campaign to cut off rebel regions from the rest of the country.
Russia is trying to divide Abkhazia and South Ossetia from the rest of Georgia, she said in a speech to the International Institute for Strategic Studies think-tank in London.
Tkeshelashvili said Russia was building a wall at Zugdidi, a city at the Abkhaz border.
"Russia physically destroys physical links between the regions of Georgia," she said. "It is blowing up bridges in Gali region so that it is harder for people to go to the neighbouring region of Samegrelo.
"In Zugdidi city, for that matter, they are building a wall which will be not perhaps the size of the Berlin Wall but is something resembling that.
"The same goes for South Ossetia with which the roads and then bridges are being blown up. In physical terms, they try to dismember these regions in such a way that there's a physical detachment of these regions."
And she warned: "If Russia is allowed to continue along the way, that would damage the process of talks and negotiations."
Russian troops and tanks poured into Georgia on August 8 to repel a Georgian military attempt to retake South Ossetia, which had received extensive backing from Moscow for years.
Russian forces occupied swathes of the country, but later withdrew to within South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which Moscow then recognised as independent states.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday she would not insist on granting NATO membership to Georgia and Ukraine at the military alliance's ministerial meeting in Brussels next week.
Tkeshelashvili, 31, said Georgia still aspired to join Western community frameworks.
"It's not NATO membership that unnerves Russia," she said. "It's the very fact of the independence of Georgia and the possibility of independence of other countries (formerly under Moscow's control).
"The blackmailing of Russia cannot be successful."
She added: "If Russia is allowed to be effective in reinstating the Soviet Union, it will be a danger not only for Georgia."
Outgoing US President George W. Bush was a staunch ally of Georgia during the August war with Russia.
But despite Washington cooling its support for a formal path to help Georgia join NATO, Tkeshelashvili said she was not worried about the incoming US president-elect Barack Obama being less attentive to Georgia.
"There are no concerns of that type," she said.
Both Obama and vice president-elect Joseph Biden had repeatedly made a "very firm commitment to the cause of Georgia's independence and sovereignty" and their team had a "full understanding" of the situation.
"I don't think that there will be any chance of fading interest from the United States," the foreign minister said.
Tkeshelashvili added that the dearth of independent monitors in Abkhazia and South Ossetia meant nothing could stop Russia from "furthering its agenda" in Georgia.
"There is not a single international mechanism that can even monitor what is happening in these regions," she said.
"No mechanism that can preventively alarm us if... something is going in a dangerous way.
"If Russia will be still in the mind of furthering the agenda that it had when it invaded Georgia, there's nothing that can restrain Russia."
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jjr583sDpvXnpHd8PpVrHN7zifLA
Russia building 'Berlin Wall' in Georgia: FM
4 hours ago
LONDON (AFP) — Georgian Foreign Minister Eka Tkeshelashvili said Wednesday that Russian forces were erecting a "Berlin Wall" as part of a campaign to cut off rebel regions from the rest of the country.
Russia is trying to divide Abkhazia and South Ossetia from the rest of Georgia, she said in a speech to the International Institute for Strategic Studies think-tank in London.
Tkeshelashvili said Russia was building a wall at Zugdidi, a city at the Abkhaz border.
"Russia physically destroys physical links between the regions of Georgia," she said. "It is blowing up bridges in Gali region so that it is harder for people to go to the neighbouring region of Samegrelo.
"In Zugdidi city, for that matter, they are building a wall which will be not perhaps the size of the Berlin Wall but is something resembling that.
"The same goes for South Ossetia with which the roads and then bridges are being blown up. In physical terms, they try to dismember these regions in such a way that there's a physical detachment of these regions."
And she warned: "If Russia is allowed to continue along the way, that would damage the process of talks and negotiations."
Russian troops and tanks poured into Georgia on August 8 to repel a Georgian military attempt to retake South Ossetia, which had received extensive backing from Moscow for years.
Russian forces occupied swathes of the country, but later withdrew to within South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which Moscow then recognised as independent states.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday she would not insist on granting NATO membership to Georgia and Ukraine at the military alliance's ministerial meeting in Brussels next week.
Tkeshelashvili, 31, said Georgia still aspired to join Western community frameworks.
"It's not NATO membership that unnerves Russia," she said. "It's the very fact of the independence of Georgia and the possibility of independence of other countries (formerly under Moscow's control).
"The blackmailing of Russia cannot be successful."
She added: "If Russia is allowed to be effective in reinstating the Soviet Union, it will be a danger not only for Georgia."
Outgoing US President George W. Bush was a staunch ally of Georgia during the August war with Russia.
But despite Washington cooling its support for a formal path to help Georgia join NATO, Tkeshelashvili said she was not worried about the incoming US president-elect Barack Obama being less attentive to Georgia.
"There are no concerns of that type," she said.
Both Obama and vice president-elect Joseph Biden had repeatedly made a "very firm commitment to the cause of Georgia's independence and sovereignty" and their team had a "full understanding" of the situation.
"I don't think that there will be any chance of fading interest from the United States," the foreign minister said.
Tkeshelashvili added that the dearth of independent monitors in Abkhazia and South Ossetia meant nothing could stop Russia from "furthering its agenda" in Georgia.
"There is not a single international mechanism that can even monitor what is happening in these regions," she said.
"No mechanism that can preventively alarm us if... something is going in a dangerous way.
"If Russia will be still in the mind of furthering the agenda that it had when it invaded Georgia, there's nothing that can restrain Russia."
Posted for fair use....
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE4AT1KC20081130
Georgia and Ukraine to get NATO advice
Sun Nov 30, 2008 2:16pm EST
By David Brunnstrom
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO is expected to encourage Georgia and Ukraine to pursue reforms needed to eventually join the alliance but stop short of offering formal roadmaps at a meeting of the bloc's foreign ministers on Tuesday.
At an April NATO summit held in Bucharest, France and Germany, worried about the reaction of key energy supplier Russia, blocked Membership Action Plans (MAP) -- also called roadmaps -- for the former Soviet states.
However, under U.S. pressure, NATO leaders promised them eventual NATO membership and to review their cases in December, though Germany's foreign minister said in an interview published on Sunday his position had not changed since Bucharest.
Georgia's conflict in August with Russia, and political instability in Ukraine, have since fueled doubts. Diplomats say all NATO states, including the United States, now agree that neither country is yet ready for a formal path to membership.
Precisely how to proceed has been a matter for debate among the 26 existing members of the Western military bloc.
"There is no disagreement on what eventually should happen -- membership for Ukraine and Georgia," a NATO diplomat said.
"There's no disagreement also that we are not at a time when membership is close -- there's a lot for them still to do. The issue is the mechanism, the practicalities of the process."
Washington, which pressed for roadmaps for both countries in April, has since backed away from this position, and now suggests formal membership plans may not be needed.
The MAP is a programme of advice and practical support covering political, economic, defense and security cooperation designed to help aspiring countries prepare for membership.
The U.S. stance provoked concerns among some European members, notably Germany, and suggestions Washington was trying provide entry short-cuts for Ukraine and Georgia, something U.S. officials deny, saying their membership is probably years away.
"There are other ways to prepare countries for membership," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Wednesday, adding Poland and the Czech Republic gained membership in other ways.
NOT READY
Rice said Georgia and Ukraine were not yet ready for NATO but that continuing to deal with the two via NATO commissions would send a "strong signal" they could join "at some point."
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told business daily Handelsblatt that Germany held the same view about giving the pair membership as it did in April.
"We gave Georgia and Ukraine a NATO prospect, but also stressed both don't yet satisfy conditions for joining. We will help, but I see no reason just now to go beyond what was agreed then," he said in an interview in the paper's Monday edition.
"Internal political problems in Ukraine have increased if anything, and the attitude toward NATO certainly hasn't become more positive," Steinmeier added.
A senior U.S. official said it was unclear what would emerge from the Brussels meeting but he hoped any declaration would repeat the promises made in Bucharest that both the former Soviet states would ultimately belong to NATO.
The NATO ministers also are expected to review a decision to suspend high-level meetings on the main NATO-Russia dialogue forum, the NATO-Russia Council, following the Georgia conflict.
Some European states have been keen to relaunch this dialogue, especially since the European Union plans to restart talks on a partnership pact with Russia on Tuesday.
However, Washington has urged European allies not to forge closer ties until Russia has complied with all its Georgia ceasefire obligations. Senior State Department official Matthew Bryza also has argued against resumption of military exercises.
"We are definitely not at the point yet of favoring the resumption of military exercises," he said last week.
"I don't know that any of our allies are there either."
NATO diplomats insist decisions on Georgia and Ukraine are in no way influenced by Russia, though Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday welcomed Washington's decision to back away from fast-track membership for the two countries.
"Whatever the reasons, European pressure or whatever else," he said. "The main thing is that they (Washington) no longer push ahead with their previous ferociousness and senselessness."
(Additional reporting by Dave Graham; editing by Michael Roddy)
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE4AT1KC20081130
Georgia and Ukraine to get NATO advice
Sun Nov 30, 2008 2:16pm EST
By David Brunnstrom
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO is expected to encourage Georgia and Ukraine to pursue reforms needed to eventually join the alliance but stop short of offering formal roadmaps at a meeting of the bloc's foreign ministers on Tuesday.
At an April NATO summit held in Bucharest, France and Germany, worried about the reaction of key energy supplier Russia, blocked Membership Action Plans (MAP) -- also called roadmaps -- for the former Soviet states.
However, under U.S. pressure, NATO leaders promised them eventual NATO membership and to review their cases in December, though Germany's foreign minister said in an interview published on Sunday his position had not changed since Bucharest.
Georgia's conflict in August with Russia, and political instability in Ukraine, have since fueled doubts. Diplomats say all NATO states, including the United States, now agree that neither country is yet ready for a formal path to membership.
Precisely how to proceed has been a matter for debate among the 26 existing members of the Western military bloc.
"There is no disagreement on what eventually should happen -- membership for Ukraine and Georgia," a NATO diplomat said.
"There's no disagreement also that we are not at a time when membership is close -- there's a lot for them still to do. The issue is the mechanism, the practicalities of the process."
Washington, which pressed for roadmaps for both countries in April, has since backed away from this position, and now suggests formal membership plans may not be needed.
The MAP is a programme of advice and practical support covering political, economic, defense and security cooperation designed to help aspiring countries prepare for membership.
The U.S. stance provoked concerns among some European members, notably Germany, and suggestions Washington was trying provide entry short-cuts for Ukraine and Georgia, something U.S. officials deny, saying their membership is probably years away.
"There are other ways to prepare countries for membership," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Wednesday, adding Poland and the Czech Republic gained membership in other ways.
NOT READY
Rice said Georgia and Ukraine were not yet ready for NATO but that continuing to deal with the two via NATO commissions would send a "strong signal" they could join "at some point."
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told business daily Handelsblatt that Germany held the same view about giving the pair membership as it did in April.
"We gave Georgia and Ukraine a NATO prospect, but also stressed both don't yet satisfy conditions for joining. We will help, but I see no reason just now to go beyond what was agreed then," he said in an interview in the paper's Monday edition.
"Internal political problems in Ukraine have increased if anything, and the attitude toward NATO certainly hasn't become more positive," Steinmeier added.
A senior U.S. official said it was unclear what would emerge from the Brussels meeting but he hoped any declaration would repeat the promises made in Bucharest that both the former Soviet states would ultimately belong to NATO.
The NATO ministers also are expected to review a decision to suspend high-level meetings on the main NATO-Russia dialogue forum, the NATO-Russia Council, following the Georgia conflict.
Some European states have been keen to relaunch this dialogue, especially since the European Union plans to restart talks on a partnership pact with Russia on Tuesday.
However, Washington has urged European allies not to forge closer ties until Russia has complied with all its Georgia ceasefire obligations. Senior State Department official Matthew Bryza also has argued against resumption of military exercises.
"We are definitely not at the point yet of favoring the resumption of military exercises," he said last week.
"I don't know that any of our allies are there either."
NATO diplomats insist decisions on Georgia and Ukraine are in no way influenced by Russia, though Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday welcomed Washington's decision to back away from fast-track membership for the two countries.
"Whatever the reasons, European pressure or whatever else," he said. "The main thing is that they (Washington) no longer push ahead with their previous ferociousness and senselessness."
(Additional reporting by Dave Graham; editing by Michael Roddy)
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3630870,00.html
Gunfire on tense border in Georgia
Published: 11.30.08, 13:39 / Israel News
Georgian and separatist South Ossetian authorities are accusing each other of opening fire across the line of control in the ex-Soviet republic.
Nobody was hurt, but the accusations have added to tension following the August war that strengthened Russian and separatist control over Georgia's South Ossetia region.
The South Ossetian government said Sunday that a village came under sporadic automatic-weapons fire from Georgian-controlled territory for several hours late Saturday. It said South Ossetian forces did not return fire. (AP) [/quote]
Gunfire on tense border in Georgia
Published: 11.30.08, 13:39 / Israel News
Georgian and separatist South Ossetian authorities are accusing each other of opening fire across the line of control in the ex-Soviet republic.
Nobody was hurt, but the accusations have added to tension following the August war that strengthened Russian and separatist control over Georgia's South Ossetia region.
The South Ossetian government said Sunday that a village came under sporadic automatic-weapons fire from Georgian-controlled territory for several hours late Saturday. It said South Ossetian forces did not return fire. (AP) [/quote]
Posted for fair use....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/02/ukraine-georgia
Nato allies divided over Ukraine and Georgia
* Ian Traynor in Brussels
* guardian.co.uk, Tuesday December 2 2008 00.02 GMT
* larger | smaller
* Article history
Washington and several of its European allies were divided last night over how to respond to Georgia's and Ukraine's bids to join Nato and over whether to resume high-level Nato-Russia contacts frozen because of the Russian invasion of Georgia in August.
On the eve of a meeting of Nato foreign ministers today in Brussels, the Americans pushed for a new formula that would put Ukraine and Georgia on a slow path to Nato membership. But at least six European Nato members opposed the US move, which is backed by Britain, suggesting that the two-day Nato meeting will result in an ambiguous fudge.
Since 1999 prospective Nato members have had to follow a roadmap known as the Membership Action Plan (MAP) to qualify for membership. At a Nato summit in Bucharest in April President George Bush pressed for Ukraine and Georgia to be awarded the MAP, but he was defeated by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany who argued that such a step would increase friction with Russia.
The summit agreed a contradictory compromise, denying the two countries the MAP while stating they would eventually become Nato members. The summit instructed today's meeting to review those decisions. With British and east European support, the Americans argued last night that the deadlock could be broken by pushing ahead on the membership path outside the MAP.
Germany, Spain, Italy and others disagreed, contending that there could be no Nato membership process without it.
"The whole discussion around the MAP has become so politicised that it has lost its sense. It has turned into something of enormous political symbolism," said a senior US official. "We should just try to put it aside."
The British have sought to bridge the divide by proposing that the MAP procedure remains valid, but that Georgia's and Ukraine's membership bids be processed through two separate commissions between Nato and the applicants.
The main European countries reject this. On balance they view Georgia as the bigger villain in the August war with Russia, regard Georgia's president Mikheil Saakashvili as untrustworthy, believe that political instability in Ukraine makes it unsuitable for Nato, and are anxious to avoid further confrontation with Moscow.
"There is no consensus," said a senior Ukrainian official. "The MAP will not be given to Ukraine. The issue has been removed from the agenda."
Rather than enhancing Nato security, both post-Soviet countries represent a security risk for the alliance, argues the west European camp.
Diplomats and analysts say that the transatlantic split is such that today's session will produce a formula that effectively replicates the conflicting signals sent in Bucharest. They add that the Bucharest decision was a mistake that contributed to the Caucasus crisis in August.
The issue of Nato membership for the two countries is intimately linked with western policy towards Russia, currently incoherent and contradictory.
President Nicolas Sarkozy of France earlier this month backed Russian calls for a major summit next year to try to redefine Europe's "security architecture." An international foreign ministers' meeting in Helsinki later this week could see Germany, France, Russia, and Finland supporting the summit, which is also opposed by the US and Britain.
"We have good European security institutions," said the senior US official. "The institutions that exist are sound. I am not convinced we need a new architecture."
A senior European diplomat said the Russian proposals could be considered but that the Americans had to be involved in any discussion about European security.
"The first thing the Russians need to do is explain what they have in mind."
* guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/02/ukraine-georgia
Nato allies divided over Ukraine and Georgia
* Ian Traynor in Brussels
* guardian.co.uk, Tuesday December 2 2008 00.02 GMT
* larger | smaller
* Article history
Washington and several of its European allies were divided last night over how to respond to Georgia's and Ukraine's bids to join Nato and over whether to resume high-level Nato-Russia contacts frozen because of the Russian invasion of Georgia in August.
On the eve of a meeting of Nato foreign ministers today in Brussels, the Americans pushed for a new formula that would put Ukraine and Georgia on a slow path to Nato membership. But at least six European Nato members opposed the US move, which is backed by Britain, suggesting that the two-day Nato meeting will result in an ambiguous fudge.
Since 1999 prospective Nato members have had to follow a roadmap known as the Membership Action Plan (MAP) to qualify for membership. At a Nato summit in Bucharest in April President George Bush pressed for Ukraine and Georgia to be awarded the MAP, but he was defeated by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany who argued that such a step would increase friction with Russia.
The summit agreed a contradictory compromise, denying the two countries the MAP while stating they would eventually become Nato members. The summit instructed today's meeting to review those decisions. With British and east European support, the Americans argued last night that the deadlock could be broken by pushing ahead on the membership path outside the MAP.
Germany, Spain, Italy and others disagreed, contending that there could be no Nato membership process without it.
"The whole discussion around the MAP has become so politicised that it has lost its sense. It has turned into something of enormous political symbolism," said a senior US official. "We should just try to put it aside."
The British have sought to bridge the divide by proposing that the MAP procedure remains valid, but that Georgia's and Ukraine's membership bids be processed through two separate commissions between Nato and the applicants.
The main European countries reject this. On balance they view Georgia as the bigger villain in the August war with Russia, regard Georgia's president Mikheil Saakashvili as untrustworthy, believe that political instability in Ukraine makes it unsuitable for Nato, and are anxious to avoid further confrontation with Moscow.
"There is no consensus," said a senior Ukrainian official. "The MAP will not be given to Ukraine. The issue has been removed from the agenda."
Rather than enhancing Nato security, both post-Soviet countries represent a security risk for the alliance, argues the west European camp.
Diplomats and analysts say that the transatlantic split is such that today's session will produce a formula that effectively replicates the conflicting signals sent in Bucharest. They add that the Bucharest decision was a mistake that contributed to the Caucasus crisis in August.
The issue of Nato membership for the two countries is intimately linked with western policy towards Russia, currently incoherent and contradictory.
President Nicolas Sarkozy of France earlier this month backed Russian calls for a major summit next year to try to redefine Europe's "security architecture." An international foreign ministers' meeting in Helsinki later this week could see Germany, France, Russia, and Finland supporting the summit, which is also opposed by the US and Britain.
"We have good European security institutions," said the senior US official. "The institutions that exist are sound. I am not convinced we need a new architecture."
A senior European diplomat said the Russian proposals could be considered but that the Americans had to be involved in any discussion about European security.
"The first thing the Russians need to do is explain what they have in mind."
* guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2008
Georgian President Saakashvili: "we started the war"
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?t=313424
__________________________
Posted for fair use....
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122817723737570713.html
DECEMBER 2, 2008
Georgia Acted in Self-Defense
Some people seem to misunderstand which country was invaded.
By MIKHEIL SAAKASHVILI
Since Russia invaded Georgia last August, the international community seems stuck on one question about how the war started: Did the Georgian military act irresponsibly to take control of Tskhinvali in the South Ossetia region of Georgia?
Reuters: Russian armor on the move in Georgia, August 2008.
This question has been pushed to the center in large degree by a fierce, multimillion-dollar Russian PR campaign that hinges on leaked, very partial, and misleading reports from a military observer from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) that claimed Georgia responded militarily in South Ossetia without sufficient provocation by Russia. Judging from recent media coverage, this campaign has been successful.
Focusing on this question distracts from Russia's intense, blatant policy of regime change that has long aimed to destabilize Georgia through ethnic manipulation, and thus thwart our democracy while stopping NATO's expansion. Furthermore, it has never been in dispute whether our forces entered South Ossetia. I have always openly acknowledged that I ordered military action in South Ossetia -- as any responsible democratic leader would have done, and as the Georgian Constitution required me to do in defense of the country.
I made this decision after being confronted by two facts. First, Russia had massed hundreds of tanks and thousands of soldiers on the border between Russian and Georgia in the area of South Ossetia. We had firm intelligence that they were crossing into Georgia, a fact later confirmed by telephone intercepts verified by the New York Times and others -- and a fact never substantially denied by Russia. (We had alerted the international community both about the military deployment and an inflow of mercenaries early on Aug. 7.)
Second, for a week Russian forces and their proxies engaged in a series of deadly provocations, shelling Georgian villages that were under my government's control -- with much of the artillery located in Tskhinvali, often within sites controlled by Russian peacekeepers. Then, on Aug. 7, Russia and its proxies killed several Georgian peacekeepers. Russian peacekeepers and OSCE observers admitted that they were incapable of preventing the lethal attacks. In fact, the OSCE had proven impotent in preventing the Russians from building two illegal military bases inside South Ossetia during the preceding year.
So the question is not whether Georgia ordered military action -- including targeting of the artillery sites that were shelling villages controlled by our government. We did.
The question is, rather: What democratic polity would have acted any differently while its citizens were being slaughtered as its sovereign territory was being invaded? South Ossetia and Abkhazia are internationally recognized as part of Georgia, and even some areas within these conflict zones were under Georgian government control before the Russian invasion. We fought to repel a foreign invasion. Georgians never stepped beyond Georgian territory.
My government has urged the international community to open an independent, unbiased investigation into the origins of the war. I first proposed this on Aug. 17, standing with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Tbilisi. I offered to make every shred of evidence and every witness available. Russia has yet to accede to such terms of inquiry.
Also, last Friday I stood for several hours before a commission established by the Georgian Parliament, chaired by a leader of an opposition party, to investigate the conduct of the war. This is the first time that any leader from this part of the world has been scrutinized live on national television for his or her wartime decisions by a legislative investigation. I have also required every member of my administration and military to make themselves available to the committee.
The real test of the legitimacy of Russia's actions should be based not on whether Georgia's democratically elected leadership came to the defense of its own people on its own land, but on an assessment of the following questions. Was it Georgia or Russia (and its proxies) that:
- Pursued the de facto annexation of the sovereign territory of a neighboring state?
- Illegally issued passports to residents of a neighboring democracy in order to create a pretext for invasion (to "protect its citizens")?
- Sent hundreds of tanks and thousands of soldiers across the internationally recognized borders of a neighboring democracy?
- Instigated a series of deadly provocations and open attacks over the course of many months, resulting in civilian casualties?
- Refused to engage in meaningful, bilateral dialogue on peace proposals?
- Constantly blocked all international peacekeeping efforts?
- Refused to attend urgent peace talks on South Ossetia organized by the European Union and the OSCE in late July?
- When the crisis began to escalate, refused to have any meaningful contact (I tried to reach President Dmitry Medvedev on both Aug. 6 and 7, but he refused my calls)?
- Tried to cover up a long-planned invasion by claiming, on Aug. 8, that Georgia had killed 1,400 civilians and engaged in ethnic cleansing -- "facts" quickly disproved by international and Russian human-rights groups?
- Refused to permit EU monitors unrestricted access to these conflict areas after the fighting ended, while engaging in the brutal ethnic cleansing of Georgians?
These are the questions that need to be answered. The fact that none can be answered in Russia's favor underscores the grave risks of returning to business as usual. Russia sees Georgia as a test. If the international response is not firm, Moscow will make other moves to redraw the region's map by intimidation or force.
Responding firmly to the Putin-Medvedev government implies neither the isolation nor the abandonment of Russia; it can be achieved in tandem with continuing engagement of, and trade with, Russia. But it does require holding Russia to account. Moscow must honor its sovereign commitments and fully withdraw its troops to pre-August positions. It must allow unrestricted EU monitoring, and accede to the international consensus that these territories are Georgia. Such steps are not bellicose; they are simply the necessary course to contain an imperial regime.
We all hope that Russia soon decides to join the international community as a full, cooperative partner. This would be the greatest contribution to Georgia's stability. In the interim, we should make sure that we do not sacrifice democracies like Georgia that are trying to make this critical part of the world more stable, secure and free.
Mr. Saakashvili is president of Georgia.
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?t=313424
__________________________
Posted for fair use....
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122817723737570713.html
DECEMBER 2, 2008
Georgia Acted in Self-Defense
Some people seem to misunderstand which country was invaded.
By MIKHEIL SAAKASHVILI
Since Russia invaded Georgia last August, the international community seems stuck on one question about how the war started: Did the Georgian military act irresponsibly to take control of Tskhinvali in the South Ossetia region of Georgia?
Reuters: Russian armor on the move in Georgia, August 2008.
This question has been pushed to the center in large degree by a fierce, multimillion-dollar Russian PR campaign that hinges on leaked, very partial, and misleading reports from a military observer from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) that claimed Georgia responded militarily in South Ossetia without sufficient provocation by Russia. Judging from recent media coverage, this campaign has been successful.
Focusing on this question distracts from Russia's intense, blatant policy of regime change that has long aimed to destabilize Georgia through ethnic manipulation, and thus thwart our democracy while stopping NATO's expansion. Furthermore, it has never been in dispute whether our forces entered South Ossetia. I have always openly acknowledged that I ordered military action in South Ossetia -- as any responsible democratic leader would have done, and as the Georgian Constitution required me to do in defense of the country.
I made this decision after being confronted by two facts. First, Russia had massed hundreds of tanks and thousands of soldiers on the border between Russian and Georgia in the area of South Ossetia. We had firm intelligence that they were crossing into Georgia, a fact later confirmed by telephone intercepts verified by the New York Times and others -- and a fact never substantially denied by Russia. (We had alerted the international community both about the military deployment and an inflow of mercenaries early on Aug. 7.)
Second, for a week Russian forces and their proxies engaged in a series of deadly provocations, shelling Georgian villages that were under my government's control -- with much of the artillery located in Tskhinvali, often within sites controlled by Russian peacekeepers. Then, on Aug. 7, Russia and its proxies killed several Georgian peacekeepers. Russian peacekeepers and OSCE observers admitted that they were incapable of preventing the lethal attacks. In fact, the OSCE had proven impotent in preventing the Russians from building two illegal military bases inside South Ossetia during the preceding year.
So the question is not whether Georgia ordered military action -- including targeting of the artillery sites that were shelling villages controlled by our government. We did.
The question is, rather: What democratic polity would have acted any differently while its citizens were being slaughtered as its sovereign territory was being invaded? South Ossetia and Abkhazia are internationally recognized as part of Georgia, and even some areas within these conflict zones were under Georgian government control before the Russian invasion. We fought to repel a foreign invasion. Georgians never stepped beyond Georgian territory.
My government has urged the international community to open an independent, unbiased investigation into the origins of the war. I first proposed this on Aug. 17, standing with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Tbilisi. I offered to make every shred of evidence and every witness available. Russia has yet to accede to such terms of inquiry.
Also, last Friday I stood for several hours before a commission established by the Georgian Parliament, chaired by a leader of an opposition party, to investigate the conduct of the war. This is the first time that any leader from this part of the world has been scrutinized live on national television for his or her wartime decisions by a legislative investigation. I have also required every member of my administration and military to make themselves available to the committee.
The real test of the legitimacy of Russia's actions should be based not on whether Georgia's democratically elected leadership came to the defense of its own people on its own land, but on an assessment of the following questions. Was it Georgia or Russia (and its proxies) that:
- Pursued the de facto annexation of the sovereign territory of a neighboring state?
- Illegally issued passports to residents of a neighboring democracy in order to create a pretext for invasion (to "protect its citizens")?
- Sent hundreds of tanks and thousands of soldiers across the internationally recognized borders of a neighboring democracy?
- Instigated a series of deadly provocations and open attacks over the course of many months, resulting in civilian casualties?
- Refused to engage in meaningful, bilateral dialogue on peace proposals?
- Constantly blocked all international peacekeeping efforts?
- Refused to attend urgent peace talks on South Ossetia organized by the European Union and the OSCE in late July?
- When the crisis began to escalate, refused to have any meaningful contact (I tried to reach President Dmitry Medvedev on both Aug. 6 and 7, but he refused my calls)?
- Tried to cover up a long-planned invasion by claiming, on Aug. 8, that Georgia had killed 1,400 civilians and engaged in ethnic cleansing -- "facts" quickly disproved by international and Russian human-rights groups?
- Refused to permit EU monitors unrestricted access to these conflict areas after the fighting ended, while engaging in the brutal ethnic cleansing of Georgians?
These are the questions that need to be answered. The fact that none can be answered in Russia's favor underscores the grave risks of returning to business as usual. Russia sees Georgia as a test. If the international response is not firm, Moscow will make other moves to redraw the region's map by intimidation or force.
Responding firmly to the Putin-Medvedev government implies neither the isolation nor the abandonment of Russia; it can be achieved in tandem with continuing engagement of, and trade with, Russia. But it does require holding Russia to account. Moscow must honor its sovereign commitments and fully withdraw its troops to pre-August positions. It must allow unrestricted EU monitoring, and accede to the international consensus that these territories are Georgia. Such steps are not bellicose; they are simply the necessary course to contain an imperial regime.
We all hope that Russia soon decides to join the international community as a full, cooperative partner. This would be the greatest contribution to Georgia's stability. In the interim, we should make sure that we do not sacrifice democracies like Georgia that are trying to make this critical part of the world more stable, secure and free.
Mr. Saakashvili is president of Georgia.
Posted for fair use...
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iyCWVJcL75QZ7GhTCfDOcdQeLX5gD94U0IFG0
Georgian province in uneasy embrace of Moscow
By MATT SIEGEL – 4 hours ago
SUKHUMI, Abkhazia (AP) — Russia's footprint is everywhere in this breakaway Georgian province, from billboards featuring its president, Dmitry Medvedev, to its joint military exercises with the Abkhaz navy.
"Peace! Freedom! Independence!" proclaims a roadside billboard featuring Medvedev and Abkhaz President Sergei Bagapsh. Medvedev, although short, appears nearly twice as big as Bagapsh.
It could be a metaphor for how some Abkhaz feel since Moscow recognized their statehood following the August Russian-Georgian war: grateful for the support, but afraid of being swallowed up.
Officials in this territory of broad Black Sea beaches, lush fruit orchards and snowy mountains acknowledge that Russian soldiers have been interfering in their internal affairs.
For example, Russian soldiers regularly block access to foreigners seeking to cross the Inguri River into Abkhazia from Georgia, and harass those who venture into areas under their control.
"There's already a lot of tension," Abkhazia's deputy foreign minister, Maxim Gvindzhiya, said in an interview.
"But what can you say to a regular soldier? They don't even listen to me when I call them."
Ibragim Chkadua edited an opposition newspaper in Sukhumi, the capital, but closed it following the recognition of statehood, convinced that Abkhazia's political future would be written by the Kremlin.
"We've already become like a province of Russia," he said.
For more than a decade, Russia has stationed peacekeeping forces here to police a cease-fire between Georgia and Abkhazia. Now it plans to deepen its presence by permanently basing 3,700 troops in the territory.
Abkhazia provides Russia with a military foothold in the South Caucasus, a potential base for its Black Sea Fleet, and lucrative new markets.
The territory, about half the size of Massachusetts, is expected to provide gravel for Russia's construction industry and hotels for visitors to the 2014 Winter Olympics in nearby Sochi, Russia. This year alone, Russia is expected to invest $200 million here.
Concern about overreliance on Russia leads some Abkhaz to suggest wooing Western partners, at a time when Moscow is warning the West to stay out of its backyard.
Beslan Buratelia, an economist and member of ERA, an opposition party, says the key is to convince the Western investors who fled Russia for fear of political risks that they can safely invest in Abkhazia.
In a broader sense, the territory of fewer than 200,000 people is typical of the jigsaw puzzle of Caucasus nations: small, weak, with a history of having to maneuver between larger powers for what little autonomy it can grab.
Unlike South Ossetia, which Russia also recognized as independent after the Georgia war, Abkhazia has had de facto independence since the Soviet Union dissolved, and has tried to keep it that way.
But Russia's cultural influence is rising here, along with its economic and political power.
A man named Zurab, who refused to give his surname, said he fought for Abkhazia's independence in its 1991-1993 war with Georgia, only to discover these days that the Abkhaz language is now rarely heard in public.
"At home, my family speaks Abkhaz but when they leave the house my children speak Russian," he said. "If they want to go to Moscow to work, they have to know how to speak Russian. Still, I don't want my language to fade away. That isn't what we were fighting for."
Abkhaz Foreign Minister Sergei Shamba told The Associated Press that Russia's military presence does not make his country any more subservient to the Kremlin than countries with U.S. military bases are to Washington.
"We have a security agreement with a superpower, a country that has nuclear weapons," Shamba said. "Since that moment, a war against Abkhazia means a war against Russia."
Still, he acknowledged that Abkhazia would rather be less dependent on a single country. "Unfortunately, this is a result of our geo-strategic position," he said.
Meanwhile, the only country so far to join Russia in recognizing Abkhaz statehood is Nicaragua.
The AP was permitted by Abkhaz authorities to make a rare visit to the Upper Kodori Gorge, a region occupied by Georgian military forces until they were driven out in August.
Russian troops in armored personnel carriers patrol the steep mountain passes, littered with the shattered remains of Georgian military hardware.
The upper gorge emptied as villagers, nearly all of them ethnic Georgians, fled ahead of the advancing Russian and Abkhaz forces.
Empty homes, their gardens overgrown with dead plants, line the streets of Adzhara, formerly the seat of a Georgian-backed Abkhaz government-in-exile.
At one of a series of fortified Russian checkpoints, soldiers detained an AP reporter for hours and demanded that he erase the contents of his camera, despite his permit from officials in Sukhumi to be there.
The soldiers eventually relented, but one issued a veiled threat: "Be careful. Things happen here. You're not in America anymore."
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iyCWVJcL75QZ7GhTCfDOcdQeLX5gD94U0IFG0
Georgian province in uneasy embrace of Moscow
By MATT SIEGEL – 4 hours ago
SUKHUMI, Abkhazia (AP) — Russia's footprint is everywhere in this breakaway Georgian province, from billboards featuring its president, Dmitry Medvedev, to its joint military exercises with the Abkhaz navy.
"Peace! Freedom! Independence!" proclaims a roadside billboard featuring Medvedev and Abkhaz President Sergei Bagapsh. Medvedev, although short, appears nearly twice as big as Bagapsh.
It could be a metaphor for how some Abkhaz feel since Moscow recognized their statehood following the August Russian-Georgian war: grateful for the support, but afraid of being swallowed up.
Officials in this territory of broad Black Sea beaches, lush fruit orchards and snowy mountains acknowledge that Russian soldiers have been interfering in their internal affairs.
For example, Russian soldiers regularly block access to foreigners seeking to cross the Inguri River into Abkhazia from Georgia, and harass those who venture into areas under their control.
"There's already a lot of tension," Abkhazia's deputy foreign minister, Maxim Gvindzhiya, said in an interview.
"But what can you say to a regular soldier? They don't even listen to me when I call them."
Ibragim Chkadua edited an opposition newspaper in Sukhumi, the capital, but closed it following the recognition of statehood, convinced that Abkhazia's political future would be written by the Kremlin.
"We've already become like a province of Russia," he said.
For more than a decade, Russia has stationed peacekeeping forces here to police a cease-fire between Georgia and Abkhazia. Now it plans to deepen its presence by permanently basing 3,700 troops in the territory.
Abkhazia provides Russia with a military foothold in the South Caucasus, a potential base for its Black Sea Fleet, and lucrative new markets.
The territory, about half the size of Massachusetts, is expected to provide gravel for Russia's construction industry and hotels for visitors to the 2014 Winter Olympics in nearby Sochi, Russia. This year alone, Russia is expected to invest $200 million here.
Concern about overreliance on Russia leads some Abkhaz to suggest wooing Western partners, at a time when Moscow is warning the West to stay out of its backyard.
Beslan Buratelia, an economist and member of ERA, an opposition party, says the key is to convince the Western investors who fled Russia for fear of political risks that they can safely invest in Abkhazia.
In a broader sense, the territory of fewer than 200,000 people is typical of the jigsaw puzzle of Caucasus nations: small, weak, with a history of having to maneuver between larger powers for what little autonomy it can grab.
Unlike South Ossetia, which Russia also recognized as independent after the Georgia war, Abkhazia has had de facto independence since the Soviet Union dissolved, and has tried to keep it that way.
But Russia's cultural influence is rising here, along with its economic and political power.
A man named Zurab, who refused to give his surname, said he fought for Abkhazia's independence in its 1991-1993 war with Georgia, only to discover these days that the Abkhaz language is now rarely heard in public.
"At home, my family speaks Abkhaz but when they leave the house my children speak Russian," he said. "If they want to go to Moscow to work, they have to know how to speak Russian. Still, I don't want my language to fade away. That isn't what we were fighting for."
Abkhaz Foreign Minister Sergei Shamba told The Associated Press that Russia's military presence does not make his country any more subservient to the Kremlin than countries with U.S. military bases are to Washington.
"We have a security agreement with a superpower, a country that has nuclear weapons," Shamba said. "Since that moment, a war against Abkhazia means a war against Russia."
Still, he acknowledged that Abkhazia would rather be less dependent on a single country. "Unfortunately, this is a result of our geo-strategic position," he said.
Meanwhile, the only country so far to join Russia in recognizing Abkhaz statehood is Nicaragua.
The AP was permitted by Abkhaz authorities to make a rare visit to the Upper Kodori Gorge, a region occupied by Georgian military forces until they were driven out in August.
Russian troops in armored personnel carriers patrol the steep mountain passes, littered with the shattered remains of Georgian military hardware.
The upper gorge emptied as villagers, nearly all of them ethnic Georgians, fled ahead of the advancing Russian and Abkhaz forces.
Empty homes, their gardens overgrown with dead plants, line the streets of Adzhara, formerly the seat of a Georgian-backed Abkhaz government-in-exile.
At one of a series of fortified Russian checkpoints, soldiers detained an AP reporter for hours and demanded that he erase the contents of his camera, despite his permit from officials in Sukhumi to be there.
The soldiers eventually relented, but one issued a veiled threat: "Be careful. Things happen here. You're not in America anymore."
Posted for fair use...
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hgRfpM3G6jbupkHIVIqlQaIVORbQ
Obama chides Russia but promises new relations
4 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AFP) — President-elect Barack Obama called for a reappraisal of frosty US-Russia relations, while chiding Moscow for "bullying" Georgia and other neighboring nations.
In an interview on NBC program "Meet the Press" broadcast Sunday, Obama said he was determining when he would meet Russian President Dmitry Medvedev or the country's powerful prime minister, Vladimir Putin.
But he stressed that after he succeeds President George W. Bush on January 20: "I think that it's going to be important for us to reset US-Russia relations."
Helped by robust economic growth, energy-rich Russia has become "increasingly assertive," Obama noted.
"And when it comes to Georgia and their threats against their neighboring countries, I think they've been acting in ways that are contrary to international norms.
"We want to cooperate with them where we can," the president-elect said, citing nuclear non-proliferation and joint efforts against terrorism.
"But we have also have to send a clear message that they have to act in ways that are not bullying their neighbors."
Putin said Thursday that Russia had received "positive signals" from Obama that could open the door to dramatic improvement of Russia-US relations, especially over NATO enlargement and US missile defense plans.
Obama has promised to review the effectiveness of the Bush administration's planned missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.
And Russia welcomed a decision last week by NATO foreign ministers to put off awarding Georgia and Ukraine, two pro-Western ex-Soviet states, with action plans that would formally put them on the road to membership.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hgRfpM3G6jbupkHIVIqlQaIVORbQ
Obama chides Russia but promises new relations
4 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AFP) — President-elect Barack Obama called for a reappraisal of frosty US-Russia relations, while chiding Moscow for "bullying" Georgia and other neighboring nations.
In an interview on NBC program "Meet the Press" broadcast Sunday, Obama said he was determining when he would meet Russian President Dmitry Medvedev or the country's powerful prime minister, Vladimir Putin.
But he stressed that after he succeeds President George W. Bush on January 20: "I think that it's going to be important for us to reset US-Russia relations."
Helped by robust economic growth, energy-rich Russia has become "increasingly assertive," Obama noted.
"And when it comes to Georgia and their threats against their neighboring countries, I think they've been acting in ways that are contrary to international norms.
"We want to cooperate with them where we can," the president-elect said, citing nuclear non-proliferation and joint efforts against terrorism.
"But we have also have to send a clear message that they have to act in ways that are not bullying their neighbors."
Putin said Thursday that Russia had received "positive signals" from Obama that could open the door to dramatic improvement of Russia-US relations, especially over NATO enlargement and US missile defense plans.
Obama has promised to review the effectiveness of the Bush administration's planned missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.
And Russia welcomed a decision last week by NATO foreign ministers to put off awarding Georgia and Ukraine, two pro-Western ex-Soviet states, with action plans that would formally put them on the road to membership.
Posted for fair use...
http://www.stratfor.com/geopolitical_diary/20081209_geopolitical_diary_georgias_cabinet_ambassadors
Geopolitical Diary: Georgia's 'Cabinet of Ambassadors'
December 10, 2008 | 0311 GMT
Geopolitical Diary icon
Georgian Prime Minister Grigol Mgaloblishvili, who took office Nov. 1, nominated new defense and economic ministers on Dec. 9 — both former ambassadors. Davit Sikharulidze, former ambassador to the United States and NATO, will become defense minister, while Lasha Zhvania, former ambassador to Israel and Cyprus, will take the helm at the Ministry of Economy. This follows a Dec. 5 announcement that Grigol Vashadze, former minister of culture and sport and also a former member of the old Soviet Union Ministry of Foreign Affairs, would become Georgia’s foreign minister.
The cabinet headed by Mgaloblishvili — himself a former Georgian ambassador to Turkey — is quickly becoming a “cabinet of ambassadors.” A reshuffle of the cabinet was largely expected after the Russo-Georgian war in August. President Mikhail Saakashvili, under extreme pressure from new and old political parties following the disastrous intervention in South Ossetia and the subsequent defeat at the hands of the Russian army, had to make a scapegoat of former prime minister Lado Gurgenidze’s cabinet in order to deflect domestic criticism. The 35-year-old Mgaloblishvili, whose career highlight was the Georgian ambassadorship to Ankara, was widely seen as a safe prime ministerial choice.
The number of former diplomats and ambassadors that now hold government portfolios only further illuminates Georgia’s need to balance carefully against various international actors. In countries like Georgia — which survive at the pleasure and good will of larger neighbors and world powers — ambassadorial posts are often given to the most competent and savvy individuals the country has, both within and outside the diplomatic corps. Diplomatic skill is at a premium when one depends on it to survive. Therefore, it is not surprising that Saakashvili has tapped that pool of highly competent individuals for ministerial positions — starting with the prime minister, who is expected to assure good relations with Turkey, Georgia’s only geographical lifeline to the West.
Sikharulidze, the new defense minister, is Georgia’s North American and NATO expert and one of the most successful Georgian envoys to NATO to date. His most recent diplomatic posting was as Georgia’s ambassador to the United States (and Canada and Mexico). Saakashvili is clearly signaling the need for a defense minister versed in the art of diplomacy: The Georgian army is widely considered to be one of the worst in the world, and the country relies heavily on NATO assistance for its defense. Sikharulidze will be expected to strengthen Georgian military cooperation with the West, the United States particularly. He also will continue to make the case for Georgia within NATO and — Saakashvili hopes — will be able to call on his many foreign contacts in Brussels, Washington and defense ministries around the world to assure Georgia’s security.
It is the new foreign minister, Vashadze, who raises the most questions (and eyebrows). A dual citizen of Russia and Georgia, Vashadze has lived and worked in Moscow since 1990. He entered the Georgian government as deputy foreign minister only quite recently, on Feb. 6. Before the end of the Cold War, he was member of the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs within the Department of International Organizations and the Department of Nuclear Weapons.
The idea behind his appointment is to signal to Russia that Saakashvili can balance his foreign policy between the United States and Russia. Vashadze made a point of giving an interview to Russia’s Kommersant newspaper immediately following his appointment: He said that everything was open for negotiations save for Georgia’s territorial integrity — a statement many would consider a possibly major concession on Georgia’s NATO membership aspirations. Saakashvili is hoping the Kremlin will take Vashadze’s appointment as an indication that Tbilisi is ready to talk to Moscow.
However, the appointment is also a dangerous gamble. According to Stratfor sources in Moscow, Vashadze’s relationship to the Russian intelligence community is unclear, and there are questions about how integrated he still might be into Russia’s intelligence networks. Thus, Saakashvili has to assume that there is a possibility that all memos to Georgian ambassadors around the world also will be read at the Kremlin. Considering the responsibilities Georgia’s diplomatic representatives shoulder for everything from economic to military assistance, this would be tantamount to having Moscow know every move Tbilisi is about to make. Vashadze therefore could be either extremely useful for Saakashvili — as someone capable of phoning former colleagues in the Russian Foreign Ministry (and perhaps other corridors of power) — or a very risky person to have in charge of such a crucial ministry for Georgia. At this point, it is unclear which Vashadze is.
Regardless, Georgia’s “cabinet of ambassadors” illustrates just how much Georgia depends on diplomacy. In order to survive as an independent entity, Georgia must appease the foreign powers that could crush it at will — and such appeasements sometimes involve great risks.
http://www.stratfor.com/geopolitical_diary/20081209_geopolitical_diary_georgias_cabinet_ambassadors
Geopolitical Diary: Georgia's 'Cabinet of Ambassadors'
December 10, 2008 | 0311 GMT
Geopolitical Diary icon
Georgian Prime Minister Grigol Mgaloblishvili, who took office Nov. 1, nominated new defense and economic ministers on Dec. 9 — both former ambassadors. Davit Sikharulidze, former ambassador to the United States and NATO, will become defense minister, while Lasha Zhvania, former ambassador to Israel and Cyprus, will take the helm at the Ministry of Economy. This follows a Dec. 5 announcement that Grigol Vashadze, former minister of culture and sport and also a former member of the old Soviet Union Ministry of Foreign Affairs, would become Georgia’s foreign minister.
The cabinet headed by Mgaloblishvili — himself a former Georgian ambassador to Turkey — is quickly becoming a “cabinet of ambassadors.” A reshuffle of the cabinet was largely expected after the Russo-Georgian war in August. President Mikhail Saakashvili, under extreme pressure from new and old political parties following the disastrous intervention in South Ossetia and the subsequent defeat at the hands of the Russian army, had to make a scapegoat of former prime minister Lado Gurgenidze’s cabinet in order to deflect domestic criticism. The 35-year-old Mgaloblishvili, whose career highlight was the Georgian ambassadorship to Ankara, was widely seen as a safe prime ministerial choice.
The number of former diplomats and ambassadors that now hold government portfolios only further illuminates Georgia’s need to balance carefully against various international actors. In countries like Georgia — which survive at the pleasure and good will of larger neighbors and world powers — ambassadorial posts are often given to the most competent and savvy individuals the country has, both within and outside the diplomatic corps. Diplomatic skill is at a premium when one depends on it to survive. Therefore, it is not surprising that Saakashvili has tapped that pool of highly competent individuals for ministerial positions — starting with the prime minister, who is expected to assure good relations with Turkey, Georgia’s only geographical lifeline to the West.
Sikharulidze, the new defense minister, is Georgia’s North American and NATO expert and one of the most successful Georgian envoys to NATO to date. His most recent diplomatic posting was as Georgia’s ambassador to the United States (and Canada and Mexico). Saakashvili is clearly signaling the need for a defense minister versed in the art of diplomacy: The Georgian army is widely considered to be one of the worst in the world, and the country relies heavily on NATO assistance for its defense. Sikharulidze will be expected to strengthen Georgian military cooperation with the West, the United States particularly. He also will continue to make the case for Georgia within NATO and — Saakashvili hopes — will be able to call on his many foreign contacts in Brussels, Washington and defense ministries around the world to assure Georgia’s security.
It is the new foreign minister, Vashadze, who raises the most questions (and eyebrows). A dual citizen of Russia and Georgia, Vashadze has lived and worked in Moscow since 1990. He entered the Georgian government as deputy foreign minister only quite recently, on Feb. 6. Before the end of the Cold War, he was member of the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs within the Department of International Organizations and the Department of Nuclear Weapons.
The idea behind his appointment is to signal to Russia that Saakashvili can balance his foreign policy between the United States and Russia. Vashadze made a point of giving an interview to Russia’s Kommersant newspaper immediately following his appointment: He said that everything was open for negotiations save for Georgia’s territorial integrity — a statement many would consider a possibly major concession on Georgia’s NATO membership aspirations. Saakashvili is hoping the Kremlin will take Vashadze’s appointment as an indication that Tbilisi is ready to talk to Moscow.
However, the appointment is also a dangerous gamble. According to Stratfor sources in Moscow, Vashadze’s relationship to the Russian intelligence community is unclear, and there are questions about how integrated he still might be into Russia’s intelligence networks. Thus, Saakashvili has to assume that there is a possibility that all memos to Georgian ambassadors around the world also will be read at the Kremlin. Considering the responsibilities Georgia’s diplomatic representatives shoulder for everything from economic to military assistance, this would be tantamount to having Moscow know every move Tbilisi is about to make. Vashadze therefore could be either extremely useful for Saakashvili — as someone capable of phoning former colleagues in the Russian Foreign Ministry (and perhaps other corridors of power) — or a very risky person to have in charge of such a crucial ministry for Georgia. At this point, it is unclear which Vashadze is.
Regardless, Georgia’s “cabinet of ambassadors” illustrates just how much Georgia depends on diplomacy. In order to survive as an independent entity, Georgia must appease the foreign powers that could crush it at will — and such appeasements sometimes involve great risks.
Posted for fair use...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7796154.stm
Published: 2008/12/22 16:45:27 GMT
Russia blamed for monitor pullout
The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe says it will close its mission in Georgia early in 2009 because of Russian opposition.
Delegates said Moscow refused to back down during a row over the status of the breakaway regions of Georgia.
Russia insists that the disputed regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia should be recognised as independent.
US Ambassador Julie Finley described Russia's resistance to reaching an agreement as "appalling".
"There is only one party responsible for what has happened and what is about to happen with the shutting down of that mission - it is the Russian Federation," she said.
The US and its European allies in the 56-nation grouping have not recognised South Ossetia as independent.
'Impossible gap'
The conflict between Russia and Georgia began on 7 August.
Georgia tried to retake its breakaway region of South Ossetia by force after a series of lower-level clashes with Russian-backed rebels.
Russia launched a counter-attack and the Georgian troops were ejected from both South Ossetia and Abkhazia days later.
Russian forces remain in the two regions.
The OSCE - which played a key role in brokering a ceasefire between both sides in August - has worked in Georgia since 1992. Both Russia and Georgia are members of the OSCE.
The observer mission's mandate officially ends on 31 December and the OSCE had been seeking a three-month extension.
Ambassador Antti Turunen, of Finland - the current head of the OSCE - said the two countries were too much at odds to reach an agreement by the end of the year so the organisation had no choice but to pull out.
"We had one side defending the territorial integrity of Georgia and the other the 'independence' of South Ossetia. The sides are so far apart it made no sense trying to bridge the gap before 31 December," he said.
The withdrawal of the estimated 200 OSCE personnel is expected to take several months.
Under the terms of the ceasefire, however, some two dozen military monitors will remain until mid February.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7796154.stm
Published: 2008/12/22 16:45:27 GMT
Russia blamed for monitor pullout
The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe says it will close its mission in Georgia early in 2009 because of Russian opposition.
Delegates said Moscow refused to back down during a row over the status of the breakaway regions of Georgia.
Russia insists that the disputed regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia should be recognised as independent.
US Ambassador Julie Finley described Russia's resistance to reaching an agreement as "appalling".
"There is only one party responsible for what has happened and what is about to happen with the shutting down of that mission - it is the Russian Federation," she said.
The US and its European allies in the 56-nation grouping have not recognised South Ossetia as independent.
'Impossible gap'
The conflict between Russia and Georgia began on 7 August.
Georgia tried to retake its breakaway region of South Ossetia by force after a series of lower-level clashes with Russian-backed rebels.
Russia launched a counter-attack and the Georgian troops were ejected from both South Ossetia and Abkhazia days later.
Russian forces remain in the two regions.
The OSCE - which played a key role in brokering a ceasefire between both sides in August - has worked in Georgia since 1992. Both Russia and Georgia are members of the OSCE.
The observer mission's mandate officially ends on 31 December and the OSCE had been seeking a three-month extension.
Ambassador Antti Turunen, of Finland - the current head of the OSCE - said the two countries were too much at odds to reach an agreement by the end of the year so the organisation had no choice but to pull out.
"We had one side defending the territorial integrity of Georgia and the other the 'independence' of South Ossetia. The sides are so far apart it made no sense trying to bridge the gap before 31 December," he said.
The withdrawal of the estimated 200 OSCE personnel is expected to take several months.
Under the terms of the ceasefire, however, some two dozen military monitors will remain until mid February.
Posted for fair use...
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9580C600&show_article=1&catnum=2
OSCE mission withdrawing from Georgia
Dec 22 05:22 PM US/Eastern
By VERONIKA OLEKSYN
Associated Press Writer
VIENNA, Austria (AP) - A team of international monitors is ending its 16-year mission in Georgia after Russia refused to allow an extension of the assignment in a dispute over two Kremlin-backed breakaway regions in the Caucasus nation.
The mission in Georgia by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe expires on Dec. 31, and when OSCE chair Finland called a meeting to seek a three-month extension, talks on the issue collapsed when Russia demanded the group join Moscow in recognizing the statehood of the provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
The dispute came to a head in August when skirmishes over South Ossetia flared into a war in which Russia swiftly crushed Georgian forces. Soon afterward, Moscow recognized both provinces as independent—and moved to increase military and political control over them.
The OSCE mission, made up of local and foreign staff, includes unarmed military monitors and also works on human rights, economic, environmental, good governance and media freedom issues. European Union observers will remain in Georgia to monitor an EU-brokered cease-fire.
Russia—an OSCE member—has banned the group's military monitors from South Ossetia since the end of the war, severely curtailing its international oversight mandate.
"Unfortunately, there was no consensus on this decision" to extend the mandate of the 200-person mission, said Antti Turunen, Finland's ambassador to the OSCE, after the closed-door gathering. "That means we have to start withdrawal of the mission and cease its activities."
The U.S. State Department called Russia's insistence on recognizing the provinces' independence an effective "veto" of a mandate agreed upon by the other 55 OSCE members.
"Russia's decision to block the extension of the mission is difficult to justify, given the ongoing tensions and significant humanitarian concerns in the region," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
Britain also issued forceful criticism.
"All it comes down to ... is the insistence of Russia that there has to be recognition of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in the future structure of the mission," said Ian Cliff, Britain's ambassador.
Russian envoy Anvar Azimov said the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia was a "reality."
Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister Giga Bokeria said Russia was challenging not only his country's sovereignty and independence but also international law and institutions. "It's basically a statement that the Soviet Union is back," he said.
Finnish Foreign Minister and OSCE Chairman Alexander Stubb said he hoped negotiations on future OSCE activities could be continued next year.
Talks on sending more OSCE observers to Georgia have deadlocked for months over Russia's refusal to let monitors into South Ossetia.
___
Associated Press writer Matt Siegel contributed to this report from Tbilisi, Georgia.
___
On the Net:
http://www.osce.org
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9580C600&show_article=1&catnum=2
OSCE mission withdrawing from Georgia
Dec 22 05:22 PM US/Eastern
By VERONIKA OLEKSYN
Associated Press Writer
VIENNA, Austria (AP) - A team of international monitors is ending its 16-year mission in Georgia after Russia refused to allow an extension of the assignment in a dispute over two Kremlin-backed breakaway regions in the Caucasus nation.
The mission in Georgia by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe expires on Dec. 31, and when OSCE chair Finland called a meeting to seek a three-month extension, talks on the issue collapsed when Russia demanded the group join Moscow in recognizing the statehood of the provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
The dispute came to a head in August when skirmishes over South Ossetia flared into a war in which Russia swiftly crushed Georgian forces. Soon afterward, Moscow recognized both provinces as independent—and moved to increase military and political control over them.
The OSCE mission, made up of local and foreign staff, includes unarmed military monitors and also works on human rights, economic, environmental, good governance and media freedom issues. European Union observers will remain in Georgia to monitor an EU-brokered cease-fire.
Russia—an OSCE member—has banned the group's military monitors from South Ossetia since the end of the war, severely curtailing its international oversight mandate.
"Unfortunately, there was no consensus on this decision" to extend the mandate of the 200-person mission, said Antti Turunen, Finland's ambassador to the OSCE, after the closed-door gathering. "That means we have to start withdrawal of the mission and cease its activities."
The U.S. State Department called Russia's insistence on recognizing the provinces' independence an effective "veto" of a mandate agreed upon by the other 55 OSCE members.
"Russia's decision to block the extension of the mission is difficult to justify, given the ongoing tensions and significant humanitarian concerns in the region," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
Britain also issued forceful criticism.
"All it comes down to ... is the insistence of Russia that there has to be recognition of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in the future structure of the mission," said Ian Cliff, Britain's ambassador.
Russian envoy Anvar Azimov said the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia was a "reality."
Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister Giga Bokeria said Russia was challenging not only his country's sovereignty and independence but also international law and institutions. "It's basically a statement that the Soviet Union is back," he said.
Finnish Foreign Minister and OSCE Chairman Alexander Stubb said he hoped negotiations on future OSCE activities could be continued next year.
Talks on sending more OSCE observers to Georgia have deadlocked for months over Russia's refusal to let monitors into South Ossetia.
___
Associated Press writer Matt Siegel contributed to this report from Tbilisi, Georgia.
___
On the Net:
http://www.osce.org
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Posted for fair use....
http://www.rferl.org/content/US_Confirms_Negotiations_With_Georgia_On_Bilateral_Charter/1363193.html
U.S. Confirms Negotiations With Georgia On Bilateral Charter
December 24, 2008
The U.S. State Department has confirmed it is negotiating with Georgia on the text of a new bilateral charter that will bolster the two countries' partnership and deepen Georgia's Euro-Atlantic integration.
In a statement on December 23, the State Department announced that the planned charter will outline enhanced cooperation to help Georgia improve its security and strengthen democratic and economic reforms.
The statement confirms comments by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who on December 22 welcomed the possibility of a U.S.-Georgian strategic partnership agreement. "America has said never before that Georgia is its strategic ally, in any statement or in any agreement,” Saakashvili said. “If now the word 'strategic' appears in our relations, this will be the most articulate answer to the aggression against Georgia. This will be the most articulate answer to permanent efforts to destroy Georgia and tear it to pieces."
Moscow sent troops into Georgia in August to repel what it said was a Georgian military attempt to retake the breakaway region of South Ossetia. Russian forces later withdrew to positions within South Ossetia and another breakaway province, Abkhazia, which Moscow recognized as independent states.
Georgia's Rustavi-2 television reports that the U.S.-Georgia accord is expected to be signed by the end of the year.
Parallel Developments
The State Department said the charter will be similar to the one signed by the United States and Ukraine on December 19 in Washington.
Speaking at a signing ceremony in Washington with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Volodymyr Ohryzko, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Ukraine was a "very important partner for the United States, and a good friend."
"We have long believed that Ukraine's independence, its democracy, is essential to a Europe whole and free and at peace,” Rice said. “The Ukrainian people are a proud and a good people, and we are very proud, foreign secretary, to be your friends and to work with you. Today, we are going to put into a charter those sentiments."
The Charter on Strategic Partnership between Ukraine and the United States mentions broad areas of cooperation, including economic development and defense. It contains promises to enhance U.S. training and equipping of Ukraine's military through NATO.
The agreement also includes a statement by Ukraine welcoming the U.S. intention to open a new "diplomatic presence" on the Crimean peninsula, the Ukrainian region where Russia's Black Sea fleet is based.
The United States also signed similar partnerships with Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in 1998. The U.S.-Baltic Charter was seen as a key tool in moving the three countries toward membership in NATO, which they joined in 2004.
In an interview with RFE/RL's Georgian Service on December 23, David Darchiashvili, the chairman of Georgia's parliamentary committee for European integration, said the U.S.-Georgian treaty will play a similar role. "With this document, Georgian-American relations become even stronger and get the nature of a strategic partnership, which in turn will bolster the process of integration with NATO," Darchiashvili said.
Washington has maintained close ties with both Kyiv and Tbilisi amid mounting Kremlin resentment, and both countries have volunteered troops for the U.S.-led campaign in Iraq.
NATO has said it would deepen its cooperation with both Ukraine and Georgia, but has so far failed to offer the two countries Membership Action Plans, or MAPs -- a key step toward formal membership.
David Kakabadze, director of RFE/RL's Georgian Service, contributed to this report
_________________________________
Posted for fair use....
http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=34280&tx_ttnews[backPid]=7&cHash=2db12273f2
U.S.–Georgia Security and Military Agreement in the Works
Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 5 Issue: 241
December 18, 2008 02:14 PM Age: 6 days
By: Vladimir Socor
Discussions are advancing on a framework agreement between the United States and Georgia, covering various aspects of relations including security and military cooperation. U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matt Bryza, in Tbilisi on December 16 and 17 for consultations, was tight-lipped when journalists asked about the details of the draft agreement. He hinted at a document in the works on “security cooperation and strategic partnership,” intended to “deepen cooperation in the security sphere.” The goals include helping Georgia fulfill the criteria for NATO membership, working with allied countries to promote that Georgian goal, and building the U.S.-Georgian strategic partnership. The agreement also covers economic relations and education (Rustavi-2 TV, December 16; Imedi TV, Civil Georgia, December 17).
Parliament chairman Davit Bakradze demurred from public comment on specifics after Bryza’s meeting with parliamentary leaders; but according to Givi Targamadze, chairman of the parliamentary commission on security and defense, the draft document “effectively covers all spheres [including] military cooperation, further equipping and developing our armed forces, and—to cite the wording in the draft—all measures aimed at jointly overcoming threats” (Rustavi-2 TV, December 16).
The Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense are coordinating the drafting on the Georgian side. According to Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Nino Kalandadze, the proposed agreement draws in part on the example of the U.S.-Baltic Charter (Rustavi-2 TV, December 17). That 1998 document, coordinated by then-Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Ronald Asmus and signed by the presidents, opened the way for the three Baltic states’ ultimate accession to NATO.
Georgia’s leading daily, 24 Saati, had first disclosed on December 15 that an agreement might be signed in the near future on U.S. economic, political, security, and military support to Georgia (24 Saati, December 15). The parliamentary leadership’s involvement in the discussions may indicate that the document is ultimately intended for ratification by parliament. President Mikheil Saakashvili only noted two days later that the agreement would build on Georgia’s “very close relations with this U.S. administration and with the next administration as well” (Imedi TV, December 17).
The Georgian government has announced the nomination of Batu Kutelia, hitherto first deputy defense minister, as the new ambassador to the United States (Civil Georgia, December 16) and has brought ambassador Davit Sikharulidze back from Washington to be the new defense minister. These appointments seem to indicate that security and military issues are set to grow in significance as part of overall U.S.-Georgia relations.
With a divided NATO neither opening nor closing its door to Georgia and the EU an insignificant security actor in this region, the United States missed Russia’s advance preparations for invasion, did not deter it, and was slow to react politically. U.S. credibility in the region, in Russia, and among many U.S. allies and partners took a hit when Russia invaded America’s showcase political and military ward and devastated it with impunity. Washington, however, did refocus its attention on Georgia soon after the Russian invasion.
The Pentagon began planning work in September on measures to bolster Georgia ’s security, as one planner was authorized to suggest publicly (Colonel Jon Chicky, “Political-Military Implications of the Russia-Georgia War and Policy Recommendations,” SAIS Central Asia-Caucasus Institute Forum, off-the-record September 2008, cleared for circulation October 2008). The U.S. Navy has maintained a continuous presence in the Black Sea since August, with recurrent port calls in Georgia. The U.S. government recently decided to insure or reinsure U.S. merchant vessels (including crews and cargoes) in the Black Sea against loss or damage from military risks. Some of those vessels deliver cargo to Georgian ports. The naval presence may well be followed soon by a carefully calibrated ground presence, but not in the form of bases.
Following the August events, a watershed with global ramifications, the rationale for establishing U.S.-Georgia bilateral security arrangements has grown more compelling.
First, the transit corridor for Caspian oil and gas must be protected from Russian military interference, as was seen during the August invasion, which underscored both the high value of the transit corridor and its vulnerability to military disruption in the absence of adequate protection. That risk notwithstanding, oil and gas transit volumes are growing, which shows that the corridor has become indispensable. Transit to Europe could increase spectacularly if Western-backed Caspian energy projects come to fruition in the years ahead. Bolstering Georgia’s security as an energy transit country would, by the same token, strengthen Azerbaijan, guaranteeing its unique westward access.
Second, the United States is about to increase its reliance on the supply route through the South Caucasus for U.S. forces in Afghanistan. The incoming U.S. Administration and possibly also NATO intend to boost forces and escalate combat against Afghan insurgents. With security unraveling along the supply route in Pakistan, Washington is refocusing on the South Caucasus as an additional route for military supplies to Afghanistan. The South Caucasus option is more expensive but incomparably more secure. It is also immune to Russian political manipulation, which awaits NATO if it chooses Russian supply routes. Georgia and Azerbaijan had offered full access and passage rights from the beginning of the U.S. and NATO operations in Afghanistan, but the allies made only limited use of those offers. Now, however, a larger flow of supplies by land and air would presuppose an unobtrusive U.S. military-logistical presence on the ground. It would also require reliable control of Georgian and Azerbaijani air space.
Third, given U.S. and overall Western interests and objectives in this region, the United States has no choice but to step in when NATO vacillates. For years NATO has recused itself from any security arrangements, even peacekeeping, in the South Caucasus despite the region’s rapidly growing strategic significance to Europe. This year NATO promised Georgia membership in principle but withheld the tool of a Membership Action Plan. Such ambiguity was enough to provoke Russia but was demonstrably not enough to restrain it. NATO’s lower-grade, yet-to-be-drafted plan for Georgia does not remove the vulnerability the country is now facing. In such circumstances this task can only devolve to the United States.
http://www.rferl.org/content/US_Confirms_Negotiations_With_Georgia_On_Bilateral_Charter/1363193.html
U.S. Confirms Negotiations With Georgia On Bilateral Charter
December 24, 2008
The U.S. State Department has confirmed it is negotiating with Georgia on the text of a new bilateral charter that will bolster the two countries' partnership and deepen Georgia's Euro-Atlantic integration.
In a statement on December 23, the State Department announced that the planned charter will outline enhanced cooperation to help Georgia improve its security and strengthen democratic and economic reforms.
The statement confirms comments by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who on December 22 welcomed the possibility of a U.S.-Georgian strategic partnership agreement. "America has said never before that Georgia is its strategic ally, in any statement or in any agreement,” Saakashvili said. “If now the word 'strategic' appears in our relations, this will be the most articulate answer to the aggression against Georgia. This will be the most articulate answer to permanent efforts to destroy Georgia and tear it to pieces."
Moscow sent troops into Georgia in August to repel what it said was a Georgian military attempt to retake the breakaway region of South Ossetia. Russian forces later withdrew to positions within South Ossetia and another breakaway province, Abkhazia, which Moscow recognized as independent states.
Georgia's Rustavi-2 television reports that the U.S.-Georgia accord is expected to be signed by the end of the year.
Parallel Developments
The State Department said the charter will be similar to the one signed by the United States and Ukraine on December 19 in Washington.
Speaking at a signing ceremony in Washington with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Volodymyr Ohryzko, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Ukraine was a "very important partner for the United States, and a good friend."
"We have long believed that Ukraine's independence, its democracy, is essential to a Europe whole and free and at peace,” Rice said. “The Ukrainian people are a proud and a good people, and we are very proud, foreign secretary, to be your friends and to work with you. Today, we are going to put into a charter those sentiments."
The Charter on Strategic Partnership between Ukraine and the United States mentions broad areas of cooperation, including economic development and defense. It contains promises to enhance U.S. training and equipping of Ukraine's military through NATO.
The agreement also includes a statement by Ukraine welcoming the U.S. intention to open a new "diplomatic presence" on the Crimean peninsula, the Ukrainian region where Russia's Black Sea fleet is based.
The United States also signed similar partnerships with Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in 1998. The U.S.-Baltic Charter was seen as a key tool in moving the three countries toward membership in NATO, which they joined in 2004.
In an interview with RFE/RL's Georgian Service on December 23, David Darchiashvili, the chairman of Georgia's parliamentary committee for European integration, said the U.S.-Georgian treaty will play a similar role. "With this document, Georgian-American relations become even stronger and get the nature of a strategic partnership, which in turn will bolster the process of integration with NATO," Darchiashvili said.
Washington has maintained close ties with both Kyiv and Tbilisi amid mounting Kremlin resentment, and both countries have volunteered troops for the U.S.-led campaign in Iraq.
NATO has said it would deepen its cooperation with both Ukraine and Georgia, but has so far failed to offer the two countries Membership Action Plans, or MAPs -- a key step toward formal membership.
David Kakabadze, director of RFE/RL's Georgian Service, contributed to this report
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U.S.–Georgia Security and Military Agreement in the Works
Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 5 Issue: 241
December 18, 2008 02:14 PM Age: 6 days
By: Vladimir Socor
Discussions are advancing on a framework agreement between the United States and Georgia, covering various aspects of relations including security and military cooperation. U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matt Bryza, in Tbilisi on December 16 and 17 for consultations, was tight-lipped when journalists asked about the details of the draft agreement. He hinted at a document in the works on “security cooperation and strategic partnership,” intended to “deepen cooperation in the security sphere.” The goals include helping Georgia fulfill the criteria for NATO membership, working with allied countries to promote that Georgian goal, and building the U.S.-Georgian strategic partnership. The agreement also covers economic relations and education (Rustavi-2 TV, December 16; Imedi TV, Civil Georgia, December 17).
Parliament chairman Davit Bakradze demurred from public comment on specifics after Bryza’s meeting with parliamentary leaders; but according to Givi Targamadze, chairman of the parliamentary commission on security and defense, the draft document “effectively covers all spheres [including] military cooperation, further equipping and developing our armed forces, and—to cite the wording in the draft—all measures aimed at jointly overcoming threats” (Rustavi-2 TV, December 16).
The Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense are coordinating the drafting on the Georgian side. According to Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Nino Kalandadze, the proposed agreement draws in part on the example of the U.S.-Baltic Charter (Rustavi-2 TV, December 17). That 1998 document, coordinated by then-Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Ronald Asmus and signed by the presidents, opened the way for the three Baltic states’ ultimate accession to NATO.
Georgia’s leading daily, 24 Saati, had first disclosed on December 15 that an agreement might be signed in the near future on U.S. economic, political, security, and military support to Georgia (24 Saati, December 15). The parliamentary leadership’s involvement in the discussions may indicate that the document is ultimately intended for ratification by parliament. President Mikheil Saakashvili only noted two days later that the agreement would build on Georgia’s “very close relations with this U.S. administration and with the next administration as well” (Imedi TV, December 17).
The Georgian government has announced the nomination of Batu Kutelia, hitherto first deputy defense minister, as the new ambassador to the United States (Civil Georgia, December 16) and has brought ambassador Davit Sikharulidze back from Washington to be the new defense minister. These appointments seem to indicate that security and military issues are set to grow in significance as part of overall U.S.-Georgia relations.
With a divided NATO neither opening nor closing its door to Georgia and the EU an insignificant security actor in this region, the United States missed Russia’s advance preparations for invasion, did not deter it, and was slow to react politically. U.S. credibility in the region, in Russia, and among many U.S. allies and partners took a hit when Russia invaded America’s showcase political and military ward and devastated it with impunity. Washington, however, did refocus its attention on Georgia soon after the Russian invasion.
The Pentagon began planning work in September on measures to bolster Georgia ’s security, as one planner was authorized to suggest publicly (Colonel Jon Chicky, “Political-Military Implications of the Russia-Georgia War and Policy Recommendations,” SAIS Central Asia-Caucasus Institute Forum, off-the-record September 2008, cleared for circulation October 2008). The U.S. Navy has maintained a continuous presence in the Black Sea since August, with recurrent port calls in Georgia. The U.S. government recently decided to insure or reinsure U.S. merchant vessels (including crews and cargoes) in the Black Sea against loss or damage from military risks. Some of those vessels deliver cargo to Georgian ports. The naval presence may well be followed soon by a carefully calibrated ground presence, but not in the form of bases.
Following the August events, a watershed with global ramifications, the rationale for establishing U.S.-Georgia bilateral security arrangements has grown more compelling.
First, the transit corridor for Caspian oil and gas must be protected from Russian military interference, as was seen during the August invasion, which underscored both the high value of the transit corridor and its vulnerability to military disruption in the absence of adequate protection. That risk notwithstanding, oil and gas transit volumes are growing, which shows that the corridor has become indispensable. Transit to Europe could increase spectacularly if Western-backed Caspian energy projects come to fruition in the years ahead. Bolstering Georgia’s security as an energy transit country would, by the same token, strengthen Azerbaijan, guaranteeing its unique westward access.
Second, the United States is about to increase its reliance on the supply route through the South Caucasus for U.S. forces in Afghanistan. The incoming U.S. Administration and possibly also NATO intend to boost forces and escalate combat against Afghan insurgents. With security unraveling along the supply route in Pakistan, Washington is refocusing on the South Caucasus as an additional route for military supplies to Afghanistan. The South Caucasus option is more expensive but incomparably more secure. It is also immune to Russian political manipulation, which awaits NATO if it chooses Russian supply routes. Georgia and Azerbaijan had offered full access and passage rights from the beginning of the U.S. and NATO operations in Afghanistan, but the allies made only limited use of those offers. Now, however, a larger flow of supplies by land and air would presuppose an unobtrusive U.S. military-logistical presence on the ground. It would also require reliable control of Georgian and Azerbaijani air space.
Third, given U.S. and overall Western interests and objectives in this region, the United States has no choice but to step in when NATO vacillates. For years NATO has recused itself from any security arrangements, even peacekeeping, in the South Caucasus despite the region’s rapidly growing strategic significance to Europe. This year NATO promised Georgia membership in principle but withheld the tool of a Membership Action Plan. Such ambiguity was enough to provoke Russia but was demonstrably not enough to restrain it. NATO’s lower-grade, yet-to-be-drafted plan for Georgia does not remove the vulnerability the country is now facing. In such circumstances this task can only devolve to the United States.
Posted for fair use....
http://balita.ph/2008/12/24/russia-ready-to-negotiate-new-mandate-of-osce-mission-in-s-ossetia/
Russia ready to negotiate new mandate of OSCE mission in S-Ossetia
December 24, 2008 4:44 pm by pna
MOSCOW, Dec. 24 — Russia is ready for further negotiations on a new mandate of the OSCE mission in South Ossetia, Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said on Tuesday.
“In our opinion, the OSCE could work in the Republic of South Ossetia. We repeat that this work requires consent of the South Ossetian authorities,” he said.
“The republican administration has repetitively voiced its readiness to discuss spheres of interaction and terms of the OSCE presence in the republic. The draft mandate of the OSCE presence in South Ossetia is being negotiated at the OSCE Vienna headquarters,” Nesterenko said.
“The mission mandate will expire on December 31. The mission is headquartered in Tbilisi. It used to have an office in Tskhinvali before the Georgian attack on South Ossetia,” the diplomat said.
“The OSCE mission’s performance was irrelevant amid the August crisis. Observers in the former Georgian-Ossetian conflict zone were witnessing preparations for the aggression but did not inform the OSCE ruling bodies about that,” he said.
“If it is necessary to preserve an OSCE mission in Georgia for some reason, its mandate must meet the new realities and bear in mind the opinion of the Republic of South Ossetia. We first suggested drafting the new mandate this September and presented a document coordinated with Tskhinvali,” he said.
“The answer was incomprehensible. Now some of our partners suggest a mechanical extension of the mandate while the current mandate is about to expire, does not meet the new reality and is not accepted by South Ossetia. This extension would make no sense,” Nesterenko said.
“If the initiators of the mandate extension did not have enough time to think about the new state of affairs, that could be done after December 31, 2008. Then the mission mandate will expire and the withdrawal will last for two or three months,” he said. (PNA/Itar-Tass)
DCT/LBV/rsm
_____________________________________
ETA...
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Russia to OSCE: Recognize South Ossetia or Get Out
Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 5 Issue: 242
December 19, 2008 01:20 PM Age: 5 days
By: Vladimir Socor
Russia is threatening to run the OSCE out of South Ossetia at the end of the year. Moscow will only relent if the OSCE recognizes the Russian-installed authorities as legitimate and treats Russian-occupied South Ossetia as an essentially sovereign state.
The OSCE has maintained a monitoring presence in South Ossetia continuously since 1993 as part of the organization’s Mission to Georgia, which is based in Tbilisi. That mission’s mandate requires a routine prolongation by January 1 at the latest. Russia threatens to veto the prolongation, in which case the OSCE would also lose its presence in South Ossetia.
Moscow’s goal, however, is far more ambitious. Its optimal solution would be for the OSCE to maintain a symbolic presence in South Ossetia, at Moscow’s mercy, in return for which the OSCE would essentially recognize the faits accomplis created since August by Russia’s invasion. The Russians also need some time to clean up the still-obtrusive traces of their destruction of Georgian villages.
Whether the OSCE maintains its Tbilisi-based mission or not is of little significance from Russia’s standpoint. Russia wants the OSCE to separate its field presence in South Ossetia from the Mission to Georgia and to operate that field presence as a new Mission, in close coordination with the Tskhinvali authorities and Moscow.
Russia has now proposed a draft mandate to the OSCE for an OSCE Mission in South Ossetia (Russian Delegation, “Draft Decision Mandate of [an] OSCE Mission in Tskhinvali,” OSCE Permanent Council, December 18). This includes some demands already presented to the OSCE by the South Ossetian authorities (see EDM, January 11) but expands and details them, raising the pressure as the countdown ticks on the mission.
Under Russia’s proposal, the OSCE would officially “take into account the substantial political changes in the region since August 2008” in establishing a new mission in South Ossetia. This would be unrelated to the organization’s Mission to Georgia and would not inherit the latter’s prerogative to maintain an OSCE presence in South Ossetia.
The proposed new mandate refers to South Ossetia at every step as “the host country” and introduces the notion of a “border between Georgia and South Ossetia.” The mandate would require the OSCE’s mission to conduct “all activities in coordination with the host country” and to “maintain contacts with the Russian military contingent.” The mission would also facilitate economic reconstruction in South Ossetia and assist South Ossetian authorities in handling interethnic relations.
The proposed mandate does not make any reference to monitoring the military situation or implementing the ceasefire. This was the core task of the OSCE’s field presence in South Ossetia from 1993 until 2007, as part of the mandate of the OSCE Mission to Georgia, which expires on January 1, 2009, unless renewed. Russia, however, is tacitly terminating the military monitoring by separating the proposed new mission from the existing Tbilisi-based mission and eliminating that monitoring from the proposed Tskhinvali-based mission’s mandate.
The mission’s staff would be limited to nine (a chief and eight international staff members, as was the case prior to the invasion), and the OSCE would no longer be free to choose them: the international staff would be appointed upon the consent of South Ossetian authorities in each individual case. South Ossetian authorities would also be entitled to cap the number of the mission’s locally hired auxiliary personnel.
Moreover, the mission’s detailed organizational provisions would be specified in a separate agreement between the OSCE and the authorities of South Ossetia. The mandate itself would be subject to prolongation at six-month intervals upon the consent of the same “host country” and the approval of the OSCE Permanent Council. This would turn the mission into a hostage to Russia on two levels: through Moscow’s proxies in Tskhinvali and its veto power within the OSCE in Vienna.
As OSCE diplomats undoubtedly realize, those South Ossetian authorities who would liaise with and micromanage this mission are likely to be affiliated with Russia’s intelligence agencies, which run and staff the South Ossetian authorities. They even control the odd human rights facade, as shown by telephone intercepts from South Ossetia’s deputy intelligence chief, made public in Tbilisi this week (AP, December 15).
Russia is adding a small sweetener to Georgia and the OSCE in the proposed mandate: it would authorize the new mission to “facilitate the establishment of favorable conditions for safe and dignified return of refugees.” This item is, however, purely symbolic and impossible to implement under the Russian military occupation and in the absence of international security guarantees. Meanwhile, Russia insists at all levels that its own armed forces are the sole guarantor of security in “independent” South Ossetia, based on bilateral agreements with the South Ossetian “government.” This week, Russian “ambassadors” presented their credentials to the South Ossetian and Abkhaz “presidents” (Interfax, December 16, 17).
Moscow uses the word “refugees,” in order to avoid the term “internally displaced persons,” because the latter would signify that South Ossetia is an internationally recognized part of Georgia. Meanwhile, the OSCE’s Office of the High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM) and Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) have collected substantial evidence of the forcible eviction of Georgians from South Ossetia and destruction of their villages in the aftermath of the Russian invasion (HCNM and ODIHR, “Human Rights in the War-Affected Areas following the Conflict in Georgia,” The Hague, November 2008).
http://balita.ph/2008/12/24/russia-ready-to-negotiate-new-mandate-of-osce-mission-in-s-ossetia/
Russia ready to negotiate new mandate of OSCE mission in S-Ossetia
December 24, 2008 4:44 pm by pna
MOSCOW, Dec. 24 — Russia is ready for further negotiations on a new mandate of the OSCE mission in South Ossetia, Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said on Tuesday.
“In our opinion, the OSCE could work in the Republic of South Ossetia. We repeat that this work requires consent of the South Ossetian authorities,” he said.
“The republican administration has repetitively voiced its readiness to discuss spheres of interaction and terms of the OSCE presence in the republic. The draft mandate of the OSCE presence in South Ossetia is being negotiated at the OSCE Vienna headquarters,” Nesterenko said.
“The mission mandate will expire on December 31. The mission is headquartered in Tbilisi. It used to have an office in Tskhinvali before the Georgian attack on South Ossetia,” the diplomat said.
“The OSCE mission’s performance was irrelevant amid the August crisis. Observers in the former Georgian-Ossetian conflict zone were witnessing preparations for the aggression but did not inform the OSCE ruling bodies about that,” he said.
“If it is necessary to preserve an OSCE mission in Georgia for some reason, its mandate must meet the new realities and bear in mind the opinion of the Republic of South Ossetia. We first suggested drafting the new mandate this September and presented a document coordinated with Tskhinvali,” he said.
“The answer was incomprehensible. Now some of our partners suggest a mechanical extension of the mandate while the current mandate is about to expire, does not meet the new reality and is not accepted by South Ossetia. This extension would make no sense,” Nesterenko said.
“If the initiators of the mandate extension did not have enough time to think about the new state of affairs, that could be done after December 31, 2008. Then the mission mandate will expire and the withdrawal will last for two or three months,” he said. (PNA/Itar-Tass)
DCT/LBV/rsm
_____________________________________
ETA...
Posted for fair use...
http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=34292&tx_ttnews[backPid]=13&cHash=1a16fb3de7
Russia to OSCE: Recognize South Ossetia or Get Out
Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 5 Issue: 242
December 19, 2008 01:20 PM Age: 5 days
By: Vladimir Socor
Russia is threatening to run the OSCE out of South Ossetia at the end of the year. Moscow will only relent if the OSCE recognizes the Russian-installed authorities as legitimate and treats Russian-occupied South Ossetia as an essentially sovereign state.
The OSCE has maintained a monitoring presence in South Ossetia continuously since 1993 as part of the organization’s Mission to Georgia, which is based in Tbilisi. That mission’s mandate requires a routine prolongation by January 1 at the latest. Russia threatens to veto the prolongation, in which case the OSCE would also lose its presence in South Ossetia.
Moscow’s goal, however, is far more ambitious. Its optimal solution would be for the OSCE to maintain a symbolic presence in South Ossetia, at Moscow’s mercy, in return for which the OSCE would essentially recognize the faits accomplis created since August by Russia’s invasion. The Russians also need some time to clean up the still-obtrusive traces of their destruction of Georgian villages.
Whether the OSCE maintains its Tbilisi-based mission or not is of little significance from Russia’s standpoint. Russia wants the OSCE to separate its field presence in South Ossetia from the Mission to Georgia and to operate that field presence as a new Mission, in close coordination with the Tskhinvali authorities and Moscow.
Russia has now proposed a draft mandate to the OSCE for an OSCE Mission in South Ossetia (Russian Delegation, “Draft Decision Mandate of [an] OSCE Mission in Tskhinvali,” OSCE Permanent Council, December 18). This includes some demands already presented to the OSCE by the South Ossetian authorities (see EDM, January 11) but expands and details them, raising the pressure as the countdown ticks on the mission.
Under Russia’s proposal, the OSCE would officially “take into account the substantial political changes in the region since August 2008” in establishing a new mission in South Ossetia. This would be unrelated to the organization’s Mission to Georgia and would not inherit the latter’s prerogative to maintain an OSCE presence in South Ossetia.
The proposed new mandate refers to South Ossetia at every step as “the host country” and introduces the notion of a “border between Georgia and South Ossetia.” The mandate would require the OSCE’s mission to conduct “all activities in coordination with the host country” and to “maintain contacts with the Russian military contingent.” The mission would also facilitate economic reconstruction in South Ossetia and assist South Ossetian authorities in handling interethnic relations.
The proposed mandate does not make any reference to monitoring the military situation or implementing the ceasefire. This was the core task of the OSCE’s field presence in South Ossetia from 1993 until 2007, as part of the mandate of the OSCE Mission to Georgia, which expires on January 1, 2009, unless renewed. Russia, however, is tacitly terminating the military monitoring by separating the proposed new mission from the existing Tbilisi-based mission and eliminating that monitoring from the proposed Tskhinvali-based mission’s mandate.
The mission’s staff would be limited to nine (a chief and eight international staff members, as was the case prior to the invasion), and the OSCE would no longer be free to choose them: the international staff would be appointed upon the consent of South Ossetian authorities in each individual case. South Ossetian authorities would also be entitled to cap the number of the mission’s locally hired auxiliary personnel.
Moreover, the mission’s detailed organizational provisions would be specified in a separate agreement between the OSCE and the authorities of South Ossetia. The mandate itself would be subject to prolongation at six-month intervals upon the consent of the same “host country” and the approval of the OSCE Permanent Council. This would turn the mission into a hostage to Russia on two levels: through Moscow’s proxies in Tskhinvali and its veto power within the OSCE in Vienna.
As OSCE diplomats undoubtedly realize, those South Ossetian authorities who would liaise with and micromanage this mission are likely to be affiliated with Russia’s intelligence agencies, which run and staff the South Ossetian authorities. They even control the odd human rights facade, as shown by telephone intercepts from South Ossetia’s deputy intelligence chief, made public in Tbilisi this week (AP, December 15).
Russia is adding a small sweetener to Georgia and the OSCE in the proposed mandate: it would authorize the new mission to “facilitate the establishment of favorable conditions for safe and dignified return of refugees.” This item is, however, purely symbolic and impossible to implement under the Russian military occupation and in the absence of international security guarantees. Meanwhile, Russia insists at all levels that its own armed forces are the sole guarantor of security in “independent” South Ossetia, based on bilateral agreements with the South Ossetian “government.” This week, Russian “ambassadors” presented their credentials to the South Ossetian and Abkhaz “presidents” (Interfax, December 16, 17).
Moscow uses the word “refugees,” in order to avoid the term “internally displaced persons,” because the latter would signify that South Ossetia is an internationally recognized part of Georgia. Meanwhile, the OSCE’s Office of the High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM) and Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) have collected substantial evidence of the forcible eviction of Georgians from South Ossetia and destruction of their villages in the aftermath of the Russian invasion (HCNM and ODIHR, “Human Rights in the War-Affected Areas following the Conflict in Georgia,” The Hague, November 2008).
Posted for fair use....
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,598311,00.html
12/24/2008 01:35 PM
SIX MONTHS AFTER CAUCASUS WAR
South Ossetia Becomes Thorn in Russia's Side
South Ossetia has been a de facto Russian protectorate since Moscow's victory in the five-day war in Georgia. But the breakaway republic is becoming an embarrassment for the Kremlin, with a corrupt president, disappearing aid money and brewing social unrest.
Thick clouds hang over the roofs of Tskhinvali, as if fog had enveloped the houses there. But they are clouds of smoke coming from the wood-burning ovens in the homes of the city's 27,000 inhabitants. There is no central gas supply in the South Ossetian capital, where gas pipes are not expected to be installed until next year.
Snow and cold temperatures have descended on this small town in the Caucasus, forcing Valentina Tadtayeva and her family to move once again. "It's already the third time since the war," says Tadtayeva, a thin, gray-haired woman.
In the night before Aug. 8, when Georgian forces launched a surprise attack on South Ossetia, a breakaway province northwest of the capital Tbilisi, three artillery shells tore off the roof and one wall of her house. Valentina, 59, and her husband Pavel, 62, had fled to the basement, together with their two sons Alan, 27, and Oleg, 26, as well as their daughter-in-law Asa, 21. "We feared for our lives," says Valentina.
The war lasted three days for the Tadtayevs. When the Russians liberated Tskhinvali, the family moved to the apartment of the youngest son's mother-in-law, where 14 people lived in two small rooms. Four weeks later, the soldiers set up an army-green tent in the courtyard, and the city administration promised to repair the damaged house within a few weeks. "Nothing has happened yet," Valentina complains. Instead, the family is now forced to move in with relatives once again. "They forgot about us," says Valentina. "Now the peace is becoming a burden."
It has been four months since Russia and Georgia went to war over the tiny state, only slightly larger than Luxembourg and with about 70,000 inhabitants, triggering a geopolitical earthquake. Moscow came to the aid of the South Ossetians. With their concentrated military might, the Russians repelled the Georgian troops from Tskhinvali and made it clear to the world that Georgia is part of their sphere of influence. What had seemed like a struggle between Georgia and Russia had turned into a conflict between Russia and the West.
But what did this victory do for South Ossetia, a mountainous strip of land that declared its independence after the hostilities ended? The state whose fate was allegedly the Kremlin's greatest concern at the time? And for which Moscow continues to collect donations through its embassies abroad -- funds intended for the "victims of the humanitarian disaster in South Ossetia?"
Besides Russia, so far only Nicaragua has recognized the separatist republic. Foreign journalists are only permitted to travel in the tiny country when accompanied by officials from the foreign ministry in Moscow. Even the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the European Union, which brokered the cease-fire between Russia and Georgia, are being denied entry by the South Ossetians and their protective power, Russia. For this reason, very little reliable information makes it out of the region.
Russian Criticism Mounting
This makes what recently appeared in Russian newspapers all the more surprising: that the republic is on the brink of social unrest, just as winter is beginning, because the government has allegedly embezzled Russian reconstruction aid funds, as the former South Ossetian defense minister and head of the security council, a Russian lieutenant general, explained; or that South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity fled spinelessly during the war; and that millions of rubles deposited in the safes at the national bank in Tskhinvali had gone missing and that Russian businesspeople are refusing to invest in South Ossetia while its brawny separatist leader remains in power.
Map of the region.
DER SPIEGEL
Map of the region.
Kokoity, a former freestyle wrestler who now sits in the "Office of the President," a six-story concrete building from the Soviet era, calls the criticism in Russian newspapers "arranged." Certain pro-Georgian forces in Russia, he says, are attempting to "discredit South Ossetia and its leadership in the eyes of the Russians." Yes, says Kokoity, it is cold now in Tskhinvali, but "we are occasionally warmed by the joy of victory and independence," he tells his freezing fellow South Ossetians -- while his own office has thermopane windows from Turkey, installed after the war.
In the city, 10 schools, kindergartens and the hospital have been rebuilt. But in many houses there are now plastic tarps and blankets where windows used to be. "We brought enough glass to Tskhinvali to provide it with three times as many windows as it needs," Russian Disaster Protection Minister Sergei Shoigu said angrily.
No one knows exactly what happened to all the glass and other building materials. The same appears to apply to much of the €350 million ($490 million) in Russian reconstruction aid. To be on the safe side, Moscow did send two of its own people to Tskhinvali to serve as prime minister and finance minister. But President Kokoity has declared the budget, filled almost exclusively with Russian funds after the war, a state secret. A former security advisor accuses Kokoity of having surrounded himself with confidants from the Russian regions of Samara and Ulyanovsk and of conducting money-laundering operations with dubious companies.
Yuri Morosov, the former prime minister who resigned after the war -- supposedly of his own free will -- voices similar complaints. According to Morosov, 100 million rubles or about €2.7 million ($3.8 million) in salary payments for public servants were embezzled shortly before the conflict. Most of the money was intended for South Ossetia's armed militias.
It's a difficult situation for Russia. While war refugees in the rest of Georgia will receive new houses, thanks to €3.4 billion ($4.8 billion) in aid money, mainly from the EU and the United States, the reconstruction of South Ossetia could prove to be an embarrassment for Moscow. If so, Russia's efforts to present itself as an protective power to the people of the Caucasus and the world will suffer.
Potential Embarrassment for Moscow
There is at least one location in Tskhinvali that looks how Moscow wants it to look. At Stalin Street 27, across from the seat of Kokoity's government, Russian mobile phone provider Yevrozet has opened a shop. Fashionably dressed saleswomen use computers as cash registers -- as long as there is no power outage. It is warm in the shop, where Nokia mobile phones and Canon cameras glitter in glass cases. The shop is an island of modernity in a city in which the scars of the war are in full view on every street corner.
The shop sees about 1,000 visitors a day, which would even be considered a success for a retail business in downtown Moscow. The trouble is, hardly anyone is buying mobile phones and cameras. "People come here because they want to see normal life," says Irma Alborova, a saleswoman.
Normal life? South Ossetia, which the Russians seem so keen on controlling, has had a bad reputation since the early 1990s. Today it is considered a hub of crime and smuggling. It rebelled against the Georgian central government in a bloody war in the early 1990s, and after the war South Ossetia became impoverished and isolated. Many residents earned a living dealing in vodka on the black market.
Kokoity made a name for himself as the region's "trade representative" in Moscow, and then, with Kremlin support, he managed to catapult himself to the presidency of the rebel republic. But now there are growing doubts, even in Moscow, over whether Kokoity is the right man for the job.
Russian Control of Caucasus at Stake
If South Ossetia plunges in chaos, Russia could lose control over the entire unstable and majority Muslim Caucasus region. In the Russian autonomous republics of Dagestan and Inguchetia, government forces wage battles with underground fighters almost daily. Even in Christian North Ossetia, a pillar of Russian imperialism until now, religious warriors are now trying to stir up resistance within the Muslim minority against the "Russian occupiers."
Kokoity governs his territory like a mafia boss. Critics are threatened with deportation by his security staff, while family members are awarded positions in the administration. Kokoity made his brother Robert, a feared gangster in Tskhinvali, ambassador in sunny Abkhazia on the Black Sea.
The Ossetians certainly have Russia to thank for stopping the invasion of Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili in August, thereby preventing reintegration of the province into Georgia. But they are increasingly skeptical about Kokoity's regime.
The Ossetian leader, who publicly drained a tankard containing three liters of wine to celebrate the Russian victory, now intends to give his regime a civilized makeover and curry favor in Moscow. Stalin Street, the only street with this name in a state capital, is to be renamed Medvedev Street.
But even Russian President Dmitry Medvedev knows that "by far not everything is going well" in South Ossetia, as he admitted in public recently.
But to avoid completely isolating itself internationally, Russia has stopped short of formally annexing the captured mountain province. This has its downsides. For example, the Kremlin cannot simply dismiss Kokoity like any other governor. Instead, it must court him as if he were a foreign head of state -- even though Kokoity's militias were apparently involved in gun battles with Russian troops recently. Many in Moscow are realizing that Russia went to war over a region that is not only insignificant, but also has a leadership every bit as unpredictable as Saakashvili.
In Tskhinvali, Valentina Tadtayeva and her sons packed together their few remaining belongings: blankets, a tea kettle, silverware and family photos. They will also take a basket of apples along to their relatives. The apples are from Kechvi, one of the Georgian villages on South Ossetian soil that were "flattened," as Kokoity says, and burned to the ground in the war. "We picked the apples after the war, otherwise we wouldn't have much," Valentina explains.
She remembers the days when Georgians sold their fruit at the market in Tskhinvali. "Somehow it seems long ago now," she says. "Even the market is now bombed out."
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,598311,00.html
12/24/2008 01:35 PM
SIX MONTHS AFTER CAUCASUS WAR
South Ossetia Becomes Thorn in Russia's Side
South Ossetia has been a de facto Russian protectorate since Moscow's victory in the five-day war in Georgia. But the breakaway republic is becoming an embarrassment for the Kremlin, with a corrupt president, disappearing aid money and brewing social unrest.
Thick clouds hang over the roofs of Tskhinvali, as if fog had enveloped the houses there. But they are clouds of smoke coming from the wood-burning ovens in the homes of the city's 27,000 inhabitants. There is no central gas supply in the South Ossetian capital, where gas pipes are not expected to be installed until next year.
Snow and cold temperatures have descended on this small town in the Caucasus, forcing Valentina Tadtayeva and her family to move once again. "It's already the third time since the war," says Tadtayeva, a thin, gray-haired woman.
In the night before Aug. 8, when Georgian forces launched a surprise attack on South Ossetia, a breakaway province northwest of the capital Tbilisi, three artillery shells tore off the roof and one wall of her house. Valentina, 59, and her husband Pavel, 62, had fled to the basement, together with their two sons Alan, 27, and Oleg, 26, as well as their daughter-in-law Asa, 21. "We feared for our lives," says Valentina.
The war lasted three days for the Tadtayevs. When the Russians liberated Tskhinvali, the family moved to the apartment of the youngest son's mother-in-law, where 14 people lived in two small rooms. Four weeks later, the soldiers set up an army-green tent in the courtyard, and the city administration promised to repair the damaged house within a few weeks. "Nothing has happened yet," Valentina complains. Instead, the family is now forced to move in with relatives once again. "They forgot about us," says Valentina. "Now the peace is becoming a burden."
It has been four months since Russia and Georgia went to war over the tiny state, only slightly larger than Luxembourg and with about 70,000 inhabitants, triggering a geopolitical earthquake. Moscow came to the aid of the South Ossetians. With their concentrated military might, the Russians repelled the Georgian troops from Tskhinvali and made it clear to the world that Georgia is part of their sphere of influence. What had seemed like a struggle between Georgia and Russia had turned into a conflict between Russia and the West.
But what did this victory do for South Ossetia, a mountainous strip of land that declared its independence after the hostilities ended? The state whose fate was allegedly the Kremlin's greatest concern at the time? And for which Moscow continues to collect donations through its embassies abroad -- funds intended for the "victims of the humanitarian disaster in South Ossetia?"
Besides Russia, so far only Nicaragua has recognized the separatist republic. Foreign journalists are only permitted to travel in the tiny country when accompanied by officials from the foreign ministry in Moscow. Even the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the European Union, which brokered the cease-fire between Russia and Georgia, are being denied entry by the South Ossetians and their protective power, Russia. For this reason, very little reliable information makes it out of the region.
Russian Criticism Mounting
This makes what recently appeared in Russian newspapers all the more surprising: that the republic is on the brink of social unrest, just as winter is beginning, because the government has allegedly embezzled Russian reconstruction aid funds, as the former South Ossetian defense minister and head of the security council, a Russian lieutenant general, explained; or that South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity fled spinelessly during the war; and that millions of rubles deposited in the safes at the national bank in Tskhinvali had gone missing and that Russian businesspeople are refusing to invest in South Ossetia while its brawny separatist leader remains in power.
Map of the region.
DER SPIEGEL
Map of the region.
Kokoity, a former freestyle wrestler who now sits in the "Office of the President," a six-story concrete building from the Soviet era, calls the criticism in Russian newspapers "arranged." Certain pro-Georgian forces in Russia, he says, are attempting to "discredit South Ossetia and its leadership in the eyes of the Russians." Yes, says Kokoity, it is cold now in Tskhinvali, but "we are occasionally warmed by the joy of victory and independence," he tells his freezing fellow South Ossetians -- while his own office has thermopane windows from Turkey, installed after the war.
In the city, 10 schools, kindergartens and the hospital have been rebuilt. But in many houses there are now plastic tarps and blankets where windows used to be. "We brought enough glass to Tskhinvali to provide it with three times as many windows as it needs," Russian Disaster Protection Minister Sergei Shoigu said angrily.
No one knows exactly what happened to all the glass and other building materials. The same appears to apply to much of the €350 million ($490 million) in Russian reconstruction aid. To be on the safe side, Moscow did send two of its own people to Tskhinvali to serve as prime minister and finance minister. But President Kokoity has declared the budget, filled almost exclusively with Russian funds after the war, a state secret. A former security advisor accuses Kokoity of having surrounded himself with confidants from the Russian regions of Samara and Ulyanovsk and of conducting money-laundering operations with dubious companies.
Yuri Morosov, the former prime minister who resigned after the war -- supposedly of his own free will -- voices similar complaints. According to Morosov, 100 million rubles or about €2.7 million ($3.8 million) in salary payments for public servants were embezzled shortly before the conflict. Most of the money was intended for South Ossetia's armed militias.
It's a difficult situation for Russia. While war refugees in the rest of Georgia will receive new houses, thanks to €3.4 billion ($4.8 billion) in aid money, mainly from the EU and the United States, the reconstruction of South Ossetia could prove to be an embarrassment for Moscow. If so, Russia's efforts to present itself as an protective power to the people of the Caucasus and the world will suffer.
Potential Embarrassment for Moscow
There is at least one location in Tskhinvali that looks how Moscow wants it to look. At Stalin Street 27, across from the seat of Kokoity's government, Russian mobile phone provider Yevrozet has opened a shop. Fashionably dressed saleswomen use computers as cash registers -- as long as there is no power outage. It is warm in the shop, where Nokia mobile phones and Canon cameras glitter in glass cases. The shop is an island of modernity in a city in which the scars of the war are in full view on every street corner.
The shop sees about 1,000 visitors a day, which would even be considered a success for a retail business in downtown Moscow. The trouble is, hardly anyone is buying mobile phones and cameras. "People come here because they want to see normal life," says Irma Alborova, a saleswoman.
Normal life? South Ossetia, which the Russians seem so keen on controlling, has had a bad reputation since the early 1990s. Today it is considered a hub of crime and smuggling. It rebelled against the Georgian central government in a bloody war in the early 1990s, and after the war South Ossetia became impoverished and isolated. Many residents earned a living dealing in vodka on the black market.
Kokoity made a name for himself as the region's "trade representative" in Moscow, and then, with Kremlin support, he managed to catapult himself to the presidency of the rebel republic. But now there are growing doubts, even in Moscow, over whether Kokoity is the right man for the job.
Russian Control of Caucasus at Stake
If South Ossetia plunges in chaos, Russia could lose control over the entire unstable and majority Muslim Caucasus region. In the Russian autonomous republics of Dagestan and Inguchetia, government forces wage battles with underground fighters almost daily. Even in Christian North Ossetia, a pillar of Russian imperialism until now, religious warriors are now trying to stir up resistance within the Muslim minority against the "Russian occupiers."
Kokoity governs his territory like a mafia boss. Critics are threatened with deportation by his security staff, while family members are awarded positions in the administration. Kokoity made his brother Robert, a feared gangster in Tskhinvali, ambassador in sunny Abkhazia on the Black Sea.
The Ossetians certainly have Russia to thank for stopping the invasion of Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili in August, thereby preventing reintegration of the province into Georgia. But they are increasingly skeptical about Kokoity's regime.
The Ossetian leader, who publicly drained a tankard containing three liters of wine to celebrate the Russian victory, now intends to give his regime a civilized makeover and curry favor in Moscow. Stalin Street, the only street with this name in a state capital, is to be renamed Medvedev Street.
But even Russian President Dmitry Medvedev knows that "by far not everything is going well" in South Ossetia, as he admitted in public recently.
But to avoid completely isolating itself internationally, Russia has stopped short of formally annexing the captured mountain province. This has its downsides. For example, the Kremlin cannot simply dismiss Kokoity like any other governor. Instead, it must court him as if he were a foreign head of state -- even though Kokoity's militias were apparently involved in gun battles with Russian troops recently. Many in Moscow are realizing that Russia went to war over a region that is not only insignificant, but also has a leadership every bit as unpredictable as Saakashvili.
In Tskhinvali, Valentina Tadtayeva and her sons packed together their few remaining belongings: blankets, a tea kettle, silverware and family photos. They will also take a basket of apples along to their relatives. The apples are from Kechvi, one of the Georgian villages on South Ossetian soil that were "flattened," as Kokoity says, and burned to the ground in the war. "We picked the apples after the war, otherwise we wouldn't have much," Valentina explains.
She remembers the days when Georgians sold their fruit at the market in Tskhinvali. "Somehow it seems long ago now," she says. "Even the market is now bombed out."
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
TheSearcher
Are you sure about that?
"South Ossetia Becomes Thorn in Russia's Side"
I'll bet. They'll just have to take over SO, then, to keep the peace, right? Does this or does this not seem very predictable to anyone but me?
The New Soviet rises, it really does.
I'll bet. They'll just have to take over SO, then, to keep the peace, right? Does this or does this not seem very predictable to anyone but me?
The New Soviet rises, it really does.