Rezonansi, Georgia
Aug 12 2008

‘One should not start war that one is bound to lose’

by Giorgi Tavdgiridze, military analyst affiliated with Georgia’s
opposition New Right party

Conflict threatens balance of power in Caucasus

What could stop Russia’s campaign of aggression against Georgia? What
kinds of results could the escalation of conflict produce? Who started
the combat operations? Why is the West not offering us military
support? How important is it to tell the truth now? Rezonansi
discussed these questions with military analyst Giorgi Tavdgiridze who
is also a member of the [opposition] New Right party.

[Rezonansi] What are Russia’s goals? Does it want to seize
territories?

[Tavdgiridze] The fact that strategic facilities like military
airfields and other elements of the military infrastructure are being
bombed is not sufficient grounds for us to say that Russia aims to
occupy Georgia. Russia’s military objectives seem to be limited at
this point though they aim to gain as much as possible in political
and geostrategic terms. Russia has strengthened its influence in the
South Caucasus which is part of its southern flank. The United States
has suffered a blow and its position has become weaker. Europe has
also found it difficult to understand what is going on and to react
appropriately so far. The situation has become quite dangerous and it
is not about Georgia alone: The situation affects Armenia, Azerbaijan
and the entire area that links [Europe] with the Central Asian
economic region and its rich oil deposits. Moreover, there is Iraq and
there is the problem of Iran, while Turkey is also part of this area
to some extent.

The balance of power in this region is fragile and could change any
time if one of the sides makes a mistake. There is a danger that
Europe will face balkanization within the sphere of its interests.

[Rezonansi] It has been suggested that this war would have started
regardless of how Saakashvili’s government acted.

[Tavdgiridze] It does not look like the West was secretly encouraging
Georgia [to start military operations]. Neither does it look like
Russia wanted to trigger a large-scale war. They found themselves in a
very difficult situation initially. Our actions could have been more
successful if not for the Georgian side’s mistakes and the delay in
the military operations.

[Rezonansi] Are you trying to say that it was the Georgian government
that started the combat?

[Tavdgiridze] The Georgian government decided to use the armed forces
to avert an act of provocation.

[Rezonansi] Is this your observation or do you have some concrete
information?

[Tavdgiridze] You do not need any [concrete] information to see
this. It is obvious that it was the Georgian side that started the
combat operations. Whether it was forced to do this, was provoked into
doing this or there was some kind of an agreement that was violated by
one of the parties is a different question. The time will come when we
will have to find the culprit.

Conducting military operations is not the Defence Ministry’s sole
responsibility. One of its primary objectives is to identify military
threats, analyze them and inform the country’s political leadership
about them. Had this been done, the stir that the current events have
created in the West would have arisen much earlier and we would have
avoided the casualties and the escalation of armed conflict.

It is a different matter if we started the combat operations in order
to restore the constitutional order. Since the Russian and the
Ossetian sides had violated certain agreements, the Georgian
government had a legal right to start a military operation in the
region in order to protect its citizens. However, while we may have
had the right to do it, we should have thought of the consequences
before starting a war. One should not start a war that one is bound to
lose.

Government started military operation to meet public expectations

[Rezonansi] Why did Saakashvili start the war that he was "bound to
lose"?

[Tavdgiridze] There could have been a lot of different reasons for
this. It could have been an emotional decision. It could also have
been the result of the military rhetoric which created an expectation
among the Georgian people that territorial integrity was to be
restored. In a democratic country, the future of any government
depends on the opinion of the voters, the popularity of the government
among the people and the demands of the people. Since there was this
kind of expectation, things could not remain as they were for
long. The Georgian people wanted the territorial integrity to be
restored.

Either the government had to meet the people’s expectations or it had
to say that it could not meet those expectations (and step down). I
believe that the ruling group became a hostage to its own rhetoric. It
had to choose between saying that it could not reclaim this territory
by military force and doing what it eventually did. However, it was
probably also possible to postpone the military action until the time
when Georgia would have been prepared for it.

In a democratic country, you make a political decision and you reap
the benefits if you succeed (it also depends on the price of success
of course). If you lose, you are naturally held responsible. This is
normal. It does not mean that we are going to stab someone in the
back. It is no secret that we proved to be unprepared for airborne
combat. We knew that we did not have the kind of aircraft that would
have made it possible to gain air superiority but we were constantly
told that we had good air defence systems.

[Rezonansi] Why did we not use those systems?

[Tavdgiridze] I do not know. The government needs to explain why such
a collapse has occurred and the air defence systems cannot
operate. When you start a war, dominating the air space is one of the
primary objectives. Whoever controls the sky has the tactical, the
operational and the strategic advantage. Since we could not have
gained the advantage in the air, our strategy should have been focused
on preventing the enemy from dominating the sky.

[translated from Georgian]