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Showing posts with label Georgia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Georgia. Show all posts
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Winning Hearts and Minds
So, I found this a bit unsettling. According to the Jerusalem Post, ethnic Georgians are being forced to work cleaning the streets of South Ossetia’s capital, Tskhinvali. The work gangs are being headed by armed Ossetians and Russian officers.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
I can't think of any puns on Georgia
It seems that the Georgian ceasefire hasn’t quite brought an end to all the hostilities. According to the NY Times, the Russians and the Georgians are accusing each other of breaking the accord. The Russians are securing/attacking (depending on who you ask) the city of Gori, directly south of South Ossetia. Gori sits astride both of the major routes through the country, from the north into Russia, and east/west, splitting the Black Sea coast from the capital of Georgia, Tblisi.
The Guardian reports that the Russians are being followed by a group of irregulars, according to locals comprising Chechens, Cossacks and Ossetians. The Guardian article also has an interesting video clip featuring columns of Russian armor moving across bridges and into towns. It’s worth checking out.
To add to the confusion, the Washington Post has contradictory quotes from both the president of Georgia and the deputy interior minister. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said that Russia is trying to “murder” Georgia’s democracy by advancing on Tblisi, while deputy minister Ekaterine Zguladze said the Russians were not moving on the capital. Both the Guardian and the Times reported that Russian tanks were reported heading for the capital, but then turned towards Russian. The Post also reports that a military base built to NATO standards in Gori is under attack, which may be the point of the assault on Gori.
So, that’s the situation in Georgia as best I can tell. It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out in a couple of weeks, as I don’t think either side’s reports can be taken at face value. The particulars from all the reports agree, but no one seems to know what to make of everything, who’s telling the truth and who’s lying (probably a little of both on both sides). The news about the irregulars following the Russians in is certainly worrisome, and may be cause for the Georgians to keep fighting, and an excuse for the Russians to stay. As they say, the situation is developing.
The Guardian reports that the Russians are being followed by a group of irregulars, according to locals comprising Chechens, Cossacks and Ossetians. The Guardian article also has an interesting video clip featuring columns of Russian armor moving across bridges and into towns. It’s worth checking out.
To add to the confusion, the Washington Post has contradictory quotes from both the president of Georgia and the deputy interior minister. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said that Russia is trying to “murder” Georgia’s democracy by advancing on Tblisi, while deputy minister Ekaterine Zguladze said the Russians were not moving on the capital. Both the Guardian and the Times reported that Russian tanks were reported heading for the capital, but then turned towards Russian. The Post also reports that a military base built to NATO standards in Gori is under attack, which may be the point of the assault on Gori.
So, that’s the situation in Georgia as best I can tell. It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out in a couple of weeks, as I don’t think either side’s reports can be taken at face value. The particulars from all the reports agree, but no one seems to know what to make of everything, who’s telling the truth and who’s lying (probably a little of both on both sides). The news about the irregulars following the Russians in is certainly worrisome, and may be cause for the Georgians to keep fighting, and an excuse for the Russians to stay. As they say, the situation is developing.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
Where Do We Go From Here?
After re-catching up on the latest reports out of Georgia, I'd like to discuss the conflict from a more macro perspective.
I think the claim Aaron made in an earlier post that Georgia probably miscalculated the degree of support they could expect from NATO countries, the United States in particular, might not be as true as it would seem at first glance. I think it's more likely Saakashvili felt that he had no options. As the NYT article we linked to yesterday discussed, Saakasshivili was in an impossible situation. He had been rejected by NATO, for the nearly explicit reason that they didn't want to have their hand forced in situations exactly like the one that has transpired. It also seems as though he felt that his presidency wouldn't endure a voluntary annexation of South Ossetia and Abkhazia (we'll put aside for the moment whether the maintenance of his presidency should have been much of a consideration).
More importantly, and this is the bottom line in my opinion -- Russia wanted these provinces and knew that they could acquire them at a cost that seemed reasonable. Putin is the consummate realist and I'm imagining his thought process went something like this:
---------
Having these territories (South Ossetia and Abkhazia) is better than not having them. They're Russian citizens and we militarily control the provinces anyway.
We have no desire to ever have NATO countries on our borders, especially ones that are openly antagonistic to our government. This action should make NATO strongly disinclined to seriously consider subsequent countries for membership that have any potential at all to be involved in similar conflicts in the future (and we'll make sure that list of countries is never zero). Furthermore, who's going to retaliate against our hostilities? Western Europe? Please. The United States is in no position to expend troops and money that it doesn't have, and the public has no appetite at all to expend them in a former Soviet state that 99% of the population couldn't find on a map. It will probably cause some spirited saber rattling from the McCain camp (and maybe even from Obama), and might even present a headache of sorts if McCain were to win, but he's probably losing, and even if he does win the odds of him really doing anything other than giving a fiery speech about freedom and democracy is so remote as to be acceptable.
While we're at it we can kick the piss out of Georgia, which won't be a bad precedent for any other former satellite that starts acting up.
----------------
That's it. Russia wanted these provinces and now they have them, at very little cost. There won't be any real push back. No sanctions. No bombings. Certainly no foreign ground troops either in Georgia or Russia. Just some condemning rhetoric, and most of the world's paying more attention to the Olympics anyway.
I expect Russia will soon pull its troops out of Georgia, keeping South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and that will be that for now.
I think the claim Aaron made in an earlier post that Georgia probably miscalculated the degree of support they could expect from NATO countries, the United States in particular, might not be as true as it would seem at first glance. I think it's more likely Saakashvili felt that he had no options. As the NYT article we linked to yesterday discussed, Saakasshivili was in an impossible situation. He had been rejected by NATO, for the nearly explicit reason that they didn't want to have their hand forced in situations exactly like the one that has transpired. It also seems as though he felt that his presidency wouldn't endure a voluntary annexation of South Ossetia and Abkhazia (we'll put aside for the moment whether the maintenance of his presidency should have been much of a consideration).
More importantly, and this is the bottom line in my opinion -- Russia wanted these provinces and knew that they could acquire them at a cost that seemed reasonable. Putin is the consummate realist and I'm imagining his thought process went something like this:
---------
Having these territories (South Ossetia and Abkhazia) is better than not having them. They're Russian citizens and we militarily control the provinces anyway.
We have no desire to ever have NATO countries on our borders, especially ones that are openly antagonistic to our government. This action should make NATO strongly disinclined to seriously consider subsequent countries for membership that have any potential at all to be involved in similar conflicts in the future (and we'll make sure that list of countries is never zero). Furthermore, who's going to retaliate against our hostilities? Western Europe? Please. The United States is in no position to expend troops and money that it doesn't have, and the public has no appetite at all to expend them in a former Soviet state that 99% of the population couldn't find on a map. It will probably cause some spirited saber rattling from the McCain camp (and maybe even from Obama), and might even present a headache of sorts if McCain were to win, but he's probably losing, and even if he does win the odds of him really doing anything other than giving a fiery speech about freedom and democracy is so remote as to be acceptable.
While we're at it we can kick the piss out of Georgia, which won't be a bad precedent for any other former satellite that starts acting up.
----------------
That's it. Russia wanted these provinces and now they have them, at very little cost. There won't be any real push back. No sanctions. No bombings. Certainly no foreign ground troops either in Georgia or Russia. Just some condemning rhetoric, and most of the world's paying more attention to the Olympics anyway.
I expect Russia will soon pull its troops out of Georgia, keeping South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and that will be that for now.
Actions and Consequences
What has the war in Georgia taught us? Well, first off, when Russian troops are deployed as peacekeepers in your breakaway provinces, it’s a good idea to not antagonize them. The Georgian government was under the mistaken impression that the US’s support for its NATO candidacy implied far more military aid than has been forthcoming – or perhaps they simply felt like Russia’s response wouldn’t be quite so severe.
As for Russia, it seems increasingly clear that their motivation is not simply to increase their influence in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, but to cripple the Georgian military. Putin and Medvedev have both said that the war is drawing to its “logical conclusion” – that conclusion apparently being to pursue the Georgian military until it’s broken, and until they’ve cut the country in half at Gori.
The NY Times reports:
And what with the consequences be for Russia? I can’t see them allowing South Ossetia and Abkhazia to be folded back into Georgia – especially since the provinces themselves clearly don’t want that. Two new states, closely allied with Russia? Or will Russia try to make the relationship a bit more permanent?
As for Russia, it seems increasingly clear that their motivation is not simply to increase their influence in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, but to cripple the Georgian military. Putin and Medvedev have both said that the war is drawing to its “logical conclusion” – that conclusion apparently being to pursue the Georgian military until it’s broken, and until they’ve cut the country in half at Gori.
The NY Times reports:
“Russia says it is acting to protect residents there and to punish Georgia for the assault, which Georgia says was to protect Georgian enclaves in the territory from attack and to push out illegally deployed Russian troops.”Well, fair enough. Georgia overplayed their hand, and are now caught between Russia and the unwillingness and the inability (whatever William Kristol may have to say) of the West to do something substantive about the situation. There’s only so much the United States and the European Union can do to counter Russia in a situation like this. The benefit of defending the Georgian military is simply not worth the cost of a large scale war with Russia. That may suck for Georgia at the moment, but maybe they should keep it in mind the next time they decide to go waking up bears.
And what with the consequences be for Russia? I can’t see them allowing South Ossetia and Abkhazia to be folded back into Georgia – especially since the provinces themselves clearly don’t want that. Two new states, closely allied with Russia? Or will Russia try to make the relationship a bit more permanent?
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Geese, Ganders
One of my favorite bloggers, Matt Yglesias, is back from vacation and is now blogging over at Think Progress, and had a great post discussing the war in Georgia. Yglesias ponders what, exactly, it is that we get out of helping Georgia keep two breakaway provinces:
DP was discussing earlier why provinces wish to breakaway from countries. The conclusion I've come too is, if Kosovo should be allowed to determine its own fate, I can't see a reason why the Georgian provinces should be controlled by a government that, well, already doesn't control them. The fact that it is wrapped up in a larger set of political circumstances doesn't have much to do with that.
Update: And then, of course, Russia seems to invade the rest of Georgia:
Indeed, strong pro-Georgian views in the U.S. media and foreign policy community correlate heavily with strong pro-Kosovo views. This highlights the fact that the underlying issue here is simply a disposition to take a dim view of Moscow and to favor aggressive policies to roll back Russian influence rather than some kind of deep and sincerely felt desire to help Georgia.I think this pretty much sums up the US’s stance on Georgia. We are supporting them because it annoys the Russians, not because we have some sort of deep strategic need to preserve Georgia as it exists. This is not to say, of course, that the Russians ought to be free to take away provinces from Georgia (that don’t, in fact, seem to want to be, or are in any meaningful way, a part of Georgia). But it does mean to say: what are we going to do about it? The answer seems to be: not a whole lot.
DP was discussing earlier why provinces wish to breakaway from countries. The conclusion I've come too is, if Kosovo should be allowed to determine its own fate, I can't see a reason why the Georgian provinces should be controlled by a government that, well, already doesn't control them. The fact that it is wrapped up in a larger set of political circumstances doesn't have much to do with that.
Update: And then, of course, Russia seems to invade the rest of Georgia:
The advance appeared to answer the question on which the conflict had been pivoting: Would Russia simply occupy the two separatist territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, or would it push into Georgia, raising the possibility of a full-scale invasion?The situation is, as they say, fluid. Russia taking over two provinces that already don't want to be part of Georgia is one thing. Russia just taking over Georgia is a different matter entirely.
Knee Bone's Connected to the Renegade Province
The recent (and apparently expanding) conflict between Georgia and Russia has caused me to take a step back and consider the nature of relationships with separatist portions of various countries.
My primary question is, why do countries almost always fight to keep their country intact, when the related costs of annexation seem so high, and when splintering seems to happen quite frequently anyway? Now clearly, allowing a separatist state to become independent isn't always (or probably even often) the answer. However, in some instances, I wonder what the incentive is for union.
Looking at South Ossetia and Abkhazia (the Georgian provinces currently the focal point of the Georgia/Russia conflict), they were nearly autonomous areas over which the Georgian government exerted almost no control. Tibet, Kurdistan, and East Timor (now its own sovereign country) might be somewhat analogous examples. All are also areas that I don't believe have large amounts of diversity in terms of separatist beliefs (almost everyone wants out).
I can only think of two good reasons for disallowing secession. One, they are of some strategic importance. Perhaps they provide a disproportionately high tax base (unlikely in these cases), lie over valuable natural resources (true for Kurdistan), provide your only access to coastal ports, etc. Reasons like this are difficult to quantify, but make sense to me on some levels.
Two, it's bad precedent. If you let one renegade region opt-out, so to speak, then what will you do the next time a group of ten farmers holed up in some corner of your country sign a petition requesting independence? This "slippery slope" argument makes much less sense to me. Or, more pointedly, if you're really concerned that allowing one region to secede will beget other regions requesting the same thing, you probably have nothing approaching a stable government.
To ask the question more pointedly, what pragmatic advantage is China getting out of ruling Tibet? Wouldn't they be better off geo-politically to hand them the metaphorical keys to the car, establish trade relations and an embassy (or not) and wish them luck? Correspondingly, what was Georgia getting out of South Ossetia and Abkhazia -- contentious areas over which they ostensibly had no real control? If they were afraid that such an overt concession to Russia amounted to appeasement, I would counter that keeping these provinces under the Georgian flag didn't exactly do much to advance Georgian autonomy.
Hindsight is 20/20 of course, but I just wonder about the nearly universal propensity for countries to do everything possible to keep every existing acre of their current sphere, even when the maintenance of that space could potentially destabilize the parts of the country that are happy to be in the fold.
My primary question is, why do countries almost always fight to keep their country intact, when the related costs of annexation seem so high, and when splintering seems to happen quite frequently anyway? Now clearly, allowing a separatist state to become independent isn't always (or probably even often) the answer. However, in some instances, I wonder what the incentive is for union.
Looking at South Ossetia and Abkhazia (the Georgian provinces currently the focal point of the Georgia/Russia conflict), they were nearly autonomous areas over which the Georgian government exerted almost no control. Tibet, Kurdistan, and East Timor (now its own sovereign country) might be somewhat analogous examples. All are also areas that I don't believe have large amounts of diversity in terms of separatist beliefs (almost everyone wants out).
I can only think of two good reasons for disallowing secession. One, they are of some strategic importance. Perhaps they provide a disproportionately high tax base (unlikely in these cases), lie over valuable natural resources (true for Kurdistan), provide your only access to coastal ports, etc. Reasons like this are difficult to quantify, but make sense to me on some levels.
Two, it's bad precedent. If you let one renegade region opt-out, so to speak, then what will you do the next time a group of ten farmers holed up in some corner of your country sign a petition requesting independence? This "slippery slope" argument makes much less sense to me. Or, more pointedly, if you're really concerned that allowing one region to secede will beget other regions requesting the same thing, you probably have nothing approaching a stable government.
To ask the question more pointedly, what pragmatic advantage is China getting out of ruling Tibet? Wouldn't they be better off geo-politically to hand them the metaphorical keys to the car, establish trade relations and an embassy (or not) and wish them luck? Correspondingly, what was Georgia getting out of South Ossetia and Abkhazia -- contentious areas over which they ostensibly had no real control? If they were afraid that such an overt concession to Russia amounted to appeasement, I would counter that keeping these provinces under the Georgian flag didn't exactly do much to advance Georgian autonomy.
Hindsight is 20/20 of course, but I just wonder about the nearly universal propensity for countries to do everything possible to keep every existing acre of their current sphere, even when the maintenance of that space could potentially destabilize the parts of the country that are happy to be in the fold.
A Georgia/Russia Primer
If you're interested in what's going on in the Georgia/Russian conflict that's sprung up this week, there's an excellent piece by James Traub in the New York Times that really explains a lot. It's not short (probably taking about 20-25 minutes to read), but tripled my understanding of the political situation that led to this week's hostilities.
If you really want to understand the conflict, I highly suggest pieces like this, because if you're waiting around for CNN to spend half as much time on this war as they do on the personal life of John Edwards, it's going to be a disillusioning experience.
If you really want to understand the conflict, I highly suggest pieces like this, because if you're waiting around for CNN to spend half as much time on this war as they do on the personal life of John Edwards, it's going to be a disillusioning experience.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Big Trouble in Little Former Soviet Union
So, Russian invaded Georgia the other day. I've been trying to pull myself away from the women's 10 meter air rifle competition long enough to find out exactly what in the hell's going on.
So, Georgie tries to reassert control over a province that doesn't want to be part of Georgia (and where many of those living in the province are Russian citizens). The Russians then invade Georgia, sending in ground troops, and conducting air strikes on multiple targets. Both sides are calling it a war. Everyone wants there to not be a war and is calling for a cease fire. The EU says they'll help everyone sort things out.
Now I understand why Russian would invade a sovereign nation and everything, but...oh, wait. I guess I don't understand. In everything I've read about what's going on, it doesn't seem like Russian's really offered up much on the order of an explanation. I understand that they have citizens in Georgia, but invasion? Not to cherry-pick examples, and I'm not calling this analogous, but there are a lot of Mexicans in California, but I'm not sure Mexico has a right to invade SoCal under any circumstances short of ethnic cleansing.
I'll keep an eye out in the coming days, but I think we should all stay tuned in the meantime. Even if it means skipping parts of the synchronized diving competition.
So, Georgie tries to reassert control over a province that doesn't want to be part of Georgia (and where many of those living in the province are Russian citizens). The Russians then invade Georgia, sending in ground troops, and conducting air strikes on multiple targets. Both sides are calling it a war. Everyone wants there to not be a war and is calling for a cease fire. The EU says they'll help everyone sort things out.
Now I understand why Russian would invade a sovereign nation and everything, but...oh, wait. I guess I don't understand. In everything I've read about what's going on, it doesn't seem like Russian's really offered up much on the order of an explanation. I understand that they have citizens in Georgia, but invasion? Not to cherry-pick examples, and I'm not calling this analogous, but there are a lot of Mexicans in California, but I'm not sure Mexico has a right to invade SoCal under any circumstances short of ethnic cleansing.
I'll keep an eye out in the coming days, but I think we should all stay tuned in the meantime. Even if it means skipping parts of the synchronized diving competition.
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