http://www.stratfor .com/weekly/ russo_georgian_ war_and_balance_ power
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*THE RUSSO-GEORGIAN WAR AND THE BALANCE OF POWER*
By George Friedman
The Russian invasion of Georgia has not changed the balance of power in
Eurasia. It simply announced that the balance of power had already
shifted. The United States has been absorbed in its wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, as well as potential conflict with Iran and a destabilizing
situation in Pakistan. It has no strategic ground forces in reserve and
is in no position to intervene on the Russian periphery. This, as we
have argued, has opened a window of opportunity for the Russians to
reassert their influence in the former Soviet sphere. Moscow did not
have to concern itself with the potential response of the United States
or Europe; hence, the invasion did not shift the balance of power. The
balance of power had already shifted, and it was up to the Russians when
to make this public. They did that Aug. 8.
Let's begin simply by reviewing the last few days.
On the night of Thursday, Aug. 7, forces of the Republic of Georgia
drove across the border of South Ossetia, a secessionist region of
Georgia that has functioned as an independent entity since the fall of
the Soviet Union. The forces drove on to the capital, Tskhinvali, which
is close to the border. Georgian forces got bogged down while trying to
take the city. In spite of heavy fighting, they never fully secured the
city, nor the rest of South Ossetia.
On the morning of Aug. 8, Russian forces entered South Ossetia, using
armored and motorized infantry forces along with air power. South
Ossetia was informally aligned with Russia, and Russia acted to prevent
the region's absorption by Georgia. Given the speed with which the
Russians responded -- within hours of the Georgian attack -- the
Russians were expecting the Georgian attack and were themselves at their
jumping-off points. The counterattack was carefully planned and
competently executed, and over the next 48 hours, the Russians succeeded
in defeating the main Georgian force and forcing a retreat. By Sunday,
Aug. 10, the Russians had consolidated their position in South Ossetia.
(click image to enlarge)
On Monday, the Russians extended their offensive into Georgia proper,
attacking on two axes. One was south from South Ossetia to the Georgian
city of Gori. The other drive was from Abkhazia, another secessionist
region of Georgia aligned with the Russians. This drive was designed to
cut the road between the Georgian capital of Tbilisi and its ports. By
this point, the Russians had bombed the military airfields at Marneuli
and Vaziani and appeared to have disabled radars at the international
airport in Tbilisi. These moves brought Russian forces to within 40
miles of the Georgian capital, while making outside reinforcement and
resupply of Georgian forces extremely difficult should anyone wish to
undertake it.
*The Mystery Behind the Georgian Invasion*
* *
In this simple chronicle, there is something quite mysterious: *Why did
the Georgians choose to invade South Ossetia on Thursday night*? There
had been a great deal of shelling by the South Ossetians of Georgian
villages for the previous three nights, but while possibly more intense
than usual, artillery exchanges were routine. The Georgians might not
have fought well, but they committed fairly substantial forces that must
have taken at the very least several days to deploy and supply.
Georgia's move was deliberate.
The United States is Georgia's closest ally. It maintained about 130
military advisers in Georgia, along with civilian advisers, contractors
involved in all aspects of the Georgian government and people doing
business in Georgia. It is inconceivable that the Americans were unaware
of Georgia's mobilization and intentions. It is also inconceivable that
the Americans were unaware that the Russians had deployed substantial
forces on the South Ossetian frontier. U.S. technical intelligence, from
satellite imagery and signals intelligence to unmanned aerial vehicles,
could not miss the fact that thousands of Russian troops were moving to
forward positions. The Russians clearly knew the Georgians were ready to
move. How could the United States not be aware of the Russians? Indeed,
given the posture of Russian troops, how could intelligence analysts
have missed the possibility that the Russians had laid a trap, hoping
for a Georgian invasion to justify its own
counterattack?
It is very difficult to imagine that the Georgians launched their attack
against U.S. wishes. The Georgians rely on the United States, and they
were in no position to defy it. This leaves two possibilities. The first
is a massive breakdown in intelligence, in which _the United States
either was unaware of the existence of Russian forces, or knew of the
Russian forces but -- along with the Georgians -- miscalculated Russia's
intentions._ The United States, along with other countries, has viewed
Russia through the prism of the 1990s, when the Russian military was in
shambles and the Russian government was paralyzed. The United States has
not seen Russia make a decisive military move beyond its borders since
the Afghan war of the 1970s-1980s. The Russians had systematically
avoided such moves for years. The United States had assumed that the
Russians would not risk the consequences of an invasion.
If this was the case, then it points to the central reality of this
situation: The Russians had changed dramatically, along with the balance
of power in the region. They welcomed the opportunity to drive home the
new reality, which was that they could invade Georgia and the United
States and Europe could not respond. As for risk, they did not view the
invasion as risky. Militarily, there was no counter. Economically,
Russia is an energy exporter doing quite well -- indeed, the Europeans
need Russian energy even more than the Russians need to sell it to them.
Politically, as we shall see, the Americans needed the Russians more
than the Russians needed the Americans. Moscow's calculus was that this
was the moment to strike. The Russians had been building up to it for
months, as we have discussed, and they struck.
*The Western Encirclement of Russia*
* *
To understand Russian thinking, we need to look at two events. The first
is the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. From the U.S. and European point of
view, the Orange Revolution represented a triumph of democracy and
Western influence. From the Russian point of view, as Moscow made clear,
the Orange Revolution was a CIA-funded intrusion into the internal
affairs of Ukraine, designed to draw Ukraine into NATO and add to the
encirclement of Russia. U.S. Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill
Clinton had promised the Russians that NATO would not expand into the
former Soviet Union empire.
That promise had already been broken in 1998 by NATO's expansion to
Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic -- and again in the 2004
expansion, which absorbed not only the rest of the former Soviet
satellites in what is now Central Europe, but also the three Baltic
states, which had been components of the Soviet Union.
The Russians had tolerated all that, but the discussion of including
Ukraine in NATO represented a fundamental threat to Russia's national
security. It would have rendered Russia indefensible and threatened to
destabilize the Russian Federation itself. When the United States went
so far as to suggest that Georgia be included as well, bringing NATO
deeper into the Caucasus, the Russian conclusion -- publicly stated --
was that the United States in particular intended to encircle and break
Russia.
The second and lesser event was the decision by Europe and the United
States to back Kosovo's separation from Serbia. The Russians were
friendly with Serbia, but the deeper issue for Russia was this: The
principle of Europe since World War II was that, to prevent conflict,
national borders would not be changed. If that principle were violated
in Kosovo, other border shifts -- including demands by various regions
for independence from Russia -- might follow. The Russians publicly and
privately asked that Kosovo not be given formal independence, but
instead continue its informal autonomy, which was the same thing in
practical terms. Russia's requests were ignored.
>From the Ukrainian experience, the Russians became convinced that the
United States was engaged in a plan of strategic encirclement and
strangulation of Russia. From the Kosovo experience, they concluded that
the United States and Europe were not prepared to consider Russian
wishes even in fairly minor affairs. That was the breaking point. If
Russian desires could not be accommodated even in a minor matter like
this, then clearly Russia and the West were in conflict. For the
Russians, as we said, the question was how to respond. Having declined
to respond in Kosovo, the Russians decided to respond where they had all
the cards: in South Ossetia.
Moscow had two motives, the lesser of which was as a tit-for-tat over
Kosovo. If Kosovo could be declared independent under Western
sponsorship, then South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the two breakaway regions
of Georgia, could be declared independent under Russian sponsorship. Any
objections from the United States and Europe would simply confirm their
hypocrisy. This was important for internal Russian political reasons,
but the second motive was far more important.
_Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin once said that the fall of the
Soviet Union was a geopolitical disaster_. This didn't mean that he
wanted to retain the Soviet state; rather, it meant that the
disintegration of the Soviet Union had created a situation in which
Russian national security was threatened by Western interests. As an
example, consider that during the Cold War, St. Petersburg was about
1,200 miles away from a NATO country. Today it is about 60 miles away
from Estonia, a NATO member. The disintegration of the Soviet Union had
left Russia surrounded by a group of countries hostile to Russian
interests in various degrees and heavily influenced by the United
States, Europe and, in some cases, China.
*Resurrecting the Russian Sphere*
* *
Putin did not want to re-establish the Soviet Union, but he did want to
re-establish the Russian sphere of influence in the former Soviet Union
region. To accomplish that, he had to do two things. First, he had to
re-establish the credibility of the Russian army as a fighting force, at
least in the context of its region. Second, he had to establish that
Western guarantees, including NATO membership, meant nothing in the face
of Russian power. He did not want to confront NATO directly, but he did
want to confront and defeat a power that was closely aligned with the
United States, had U.S. support, aid and advisers and was widely seen as
being under American protection. Georgia was the perfect choice.
By invading Georgia as Russia did (competently if not brilliantly) ,
Putin re-established the credibility of the Russian army. But far more
importantly, by doing this Putin revealed an open secret: While the
United States is tied down in the Middle East, American guarantees have
no value. This lesson is not for American consumption. It is something
that, from the Russian point of view, the Ukrainians, the Balts and the
Central Asians need to digest. Indeed, it is a lesson Putin wants to
transmit to Poland and the Czech Republic as well. The United States
wants to place ballistic missile defense installations in those
countries, and the Russians want them to understand that allowing this
to happen increases their risk, not their security.
The Russians knew the United States would denounce their attack. This
actually plays into Russian hands. The more vocal senior leaders are,
the greater the contrast with their inaction, and the Russians wanted to
drive home the idea that American guarantees are empty talk.
The Russians also know something else that is of vital importance: For
the United States, the Middle East is far more important than the
Caucasus, and Iran is particularly important. The United States wants
the Russians to participate in sanctions against Iran. Even more
importantly, they do not want the Russians to sell weapons to Iran,
particularly the highly effective S-300 air defense system. Georgia is a
marginal issue to the United States; Iran is a central issue. The
Russians are in a position to pose serious problems for the United
States not only in Iran, but also with weapons sales to other countries,
like Syria.
Therefore, the United States has a problem -- it either must reorient
its strategy away from the Middle East and toward the Caucasus, or it
has to seriously limit its response to Georgia to avoid a Russian
counter in Iran. Even if the United States had an appetite for another
war in Georgia at this time, it would have to calculate the Russian
response in Iran -- and possibly in Afghanistan (even though Moscow's
interests there are currently aligned with those of Washington).
*In other words, the Russians have backed the Americans into a corner.*
The Europeans, who for the most part lack expeditionary militaries and
are dependent upon Russian energy exports, have even fewer options. If
nothing else happens, the Russians will have demonstrated that they have
resumed their role as a regional power. Russia is not a global power by
any means, but a significant regional power with lots of nuclear weapons
and an economy that isn't all too shabby at the moment. It has also
compelled every state on the Russian periphery to re-evaluate its
position relative to Moscow. As for Georgia, the Russians appear ready
to demand the resignation of President Mikhail Saakashvili. Militarily,
that is their option. That is all they wanted to demonstrate, and they
have demonstrated it.
The war in Georgia, therefore, is Russia's public return to great power
status. This is not something that just happened -- it has been
unfolding ever since Putin took power, and with growing intensity in the
past five years. Part of it has to do with the increase of Russian
power, but a great deal of it has to do with the fact that the Middle
Eastern wars have left the United States off-balance and short on
resources. As we have written, this conflict created a window of
opportunity. The Russian goal is to use that window to assert a new
reality throughout the region while the Americans are tied down
elsewhere and dependent on the Russians. The war was far from a
surprise; it has been building for months. But the geopolitical
foundations of the war have been building since 1992. Russia has been an
empire for centuries. The last 15 years or so were not the new reality,
but simply an aberration that would be rectified. And now it is being
rectified.
--
Sean Gabb
Director, The Libertarian Alliance
sean@libertarian. co.uk
Tel:
http://www.libertar ian.co.uk
http://www.seangabb .co.uk
http://www.hampdenp ress.co.uk
http://libertariana lliance.wordpres s.com
FREE download of my book - "Cultural Revolution, Culture War: How Conservatives
Lost England, and How to Get It Back" - http://tinyurl. com/34e2o3
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Monday, 18 August 2008
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