FORECAST: POLITICAL SCIENTIST DELYAGIN: GEORGIA ACCOMPLISHED ITS ENDS; POST-WAR ANALYSIS: THINGS LOOK DEFINITELY BLEAK FOR RUSSIA
by Mikhail Delyagin
WPS Agency
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
August 25, 2008 Monday
Russia
The operation was apparently charted by American analysts aiming to
draw Russia into the conflict, compromise it as an aggressor, and have
the international community take over in the matter of South Ossetia
and Abkhazia. The international community in its turn would have made
an emphasis on territorial integrity of Georgia and been thoroughly
anti-Russian because the West needed the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline.
Russia in its turn will be threatened with international sanctions. It
is already drawn into conflicts with Ukraine (where it is so bad
that the Russian naval base might be left without electric power)
and with the West, the latter as united as it was in the episode with
Milosevic not long ago.
Georgia and Ukraine will be granted Membership Action Plan this
December. Moreover, the Alliance will protect them as though its
own members. Ukraine will become a full NATO member in 2011-2012,
Georgia in 2009-2010.
South Stream is history, Nord Stream suspended. Advanced European
countries have enough gas to last them 3-4 month, sufficient for
them to suspend gas import from Russia and foment a technological
and financial breakdown of the latter.
Russia’s position will be further weakened by new provocations in Gori:
servicemen of the Georgian army wearing Russian battle fatigues will
loot the township in front of TV cameras. Russia will send its army
back to restore order but the West will see it as another aggression
against Georgia following a provocation. Gori residents had better
be ready for pogroms.
Unbelievably inefficient as it is, Russian bureaucracy will be
compelled to abandon South Ossetia and Abkhazia. This act will only
facilitate the process of driving Russian-speakers out of the Caucasus
and disappearance of Moscow’s clout with the region.
Absence of the attempts to bomb the Rok Tunnel out of existence
reveals Saakashvili’s true intents. The Georgians pulled it off
and accomplished their ends including physical extermination of
the population of Tskhinvali where the death toll varies between
1,500 and 1,690. It cost the Georgians of course (almost 400 KIAs,
and 1,000 to 1,500 wounded), but it was worth it all the same.
It seems that Saakashvili got guarantees of two sorts. Representatives
of the US Administration promised him political and information
support (and kept the promise particularly in the first hours and
days when Georgia as the aggressor was particularly vulnerable). US
medium-level officials close to neo-Conservatives on the other hand
gave him guarantees of military aid. These latter had no rights to
promise anything like that as Saakashvili eventually discovered to
his dismay (hence his hysterics and use of the tie for munchies).
All the same, Saakashvili became a national hero at home and secured
unconditional support in the West. He will be given up to $2.5 billion
for revival of the national economy before long. The Georgian army
will be modernized and, 2-3 years later, become the strongest in the
region – even stronger than the Russian army. (It will happen more
or less by the moment Russia has been bullied into abandonment of
South Ossetia and Abkhazia.)
And yes, count on an attempt by the Azerbaijani regular army to settle
the score with the Armenians and conquer Nagorno-Karabakh this autumn.