IN THE JAWS OF THE BEAR
by Mindy Belz

World Magazine

Au g 29 2008
NC

Georgia: With a weak allied response, Russia extends its reach
into Georgia

As Russia continued to escalate the conflict with the West over
its invasion of Georgia, words seemed to fail. "Russia recognizes
breakaway Georgia regions" is how most wire services headlined the
Aug. 26 vote by Russia’s parliament to, in effect, begin a process
of annexation of the pro-Russia regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia
in Georgia. The Associated Press called them "rebel regions."

By unilaterally declaring independence for two regions within another
country’s borders, the Russian government began yet another advance: to
negotiate a separate peace with these areas and to continue supplying
them while Georgia proper faces $1 billion in damages from Russia’s
five-day invasion and a Russian blockade on aid. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice called Moscow’s decision to claim independence for
the two enclaves "extremely unfortunate." Later she said Moscow’s
actions were "regrettable."

Western leaders are at a loss for words to deal with what is arguably
a crisis nearly a month after Russia’s surprise invasion of Georgia
and over a week after Moscow failed to comply with terms of withdrawal
contained in a signed ceasefire agreement. Instead, in a page from
the satirical Onion–which famously reported, "in other news . . . an
earthquake wiped out much of Etchasketchistan"–the West seems resigned
to see Moscow erase parts of Georgia’s borders. Russian occupation
of Georgia’s Black Sea port at Poti forced U.S. naval vessels loaded
with humanitarian supplies twice, on Aug. 24 and Aug. 27, to dock
south of war-damaged areas at Batumi.

And Russia’s August march into Georgia now seems more premeditated
than ever: Its forces quickly subdued Georgian units in South Ossetia
and it launched a three-day aerial assault on Kodori Gorge, giving
Abkhaz troops an opportunity to seize the agriculture-rich region that
is the gateway to Abkhazia. Along the way Russian forces managed to
hamper or shut down Georgia’s oil and gas pipelines.

Summarizing the helplessness many feel in Eastern Europe and among
the former Soviet satellites, an editorial in a Latvian newspaper
concluded: "Russia took what it could take."

Experts on the region, however, point out that the start of Russian
designs in Georgia extend well back of its Aug. 8 invasion. Georgia
is the birthplace of Joseph Stalin, and the Communist leader long
ago redrafted Georgian borders and forcibly mixed the area ethnically
as part of his plan to make a new nation of "Soviets." Abkhazia, in
fact, is now majority Armenian run by a small minority of pro-Moscow
Abkhazians. South Ossetia, meanwhile, is at least one-fourth Georgian
(and many human-rights groups remain unsure of their present status
after Russia’s military blocked the region last month from monitors
and journalists).

In 1991-93, with Georgia asserting its independence from the
disintegrating Soviet Union, Moscow officials showed up in Abkhazia and
South Ossetia to dispense Russian passports, according to Yuri Maltsev,
economics professor at Wisconsin’s Carthage College and a leading
researcher at the Academy of Sciences in Moscow before he defected in
1989. "They carried Polaroid cameras to make issuing passports easy,"
he said. That was the first step to sowing seeds of strife within
Georgia. Later the UN also upped the tension by giving to Russia a
mandate of providing peacekeepers to the–not surprisingly–restive
provinces. "That is the same as giving a goat a mandate to protect
a cabbage," said Maltsev. Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has used
that mandate to keep "peacekeeping" troops on the ground in Georgia
beyond an Aug. 16 truce.

What’s next? Maltsev says Abkhazia and South Ossetia will now apply
for membership in the Russian Federation. With Russian troops in
control of both areas, it could remain difficult if not impossible
for outsiders to assess the fate of residents in the two regions who
lack Russian citizenship or other ties to Moscow.

And faith-based groups in the region are feeling pressure to keep
quiet also. Wheaton-based Russian Ministries has worked among Ossetian
churches, but spokesman Jean Zatulovsky told WORLD last week: "Because
of the sensitivity of the situation we are unable to give information
about the situation or our work there."

Western leaders are similarly hamstrung. "All of the West has been
so busy post-9/11 with how to address asymmetrical warfare. Suddenly
we are faced with a conventional threat and our capacity to meet
it has suffered," said Sally McNamara, senior policy analyst at the
Heritage Foundation.

"What you are seeing is a huge divergence between Old Europe and New
Europe," said McNamara. Central and Eastern European countries of
New Europe "see the real threat" of Russian aggression, she said,
but Western European nations, with backing from the United States,
put intervention off the table weeks ago. Both U.S. Defense Secretary
Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, with Russian
troops still occupying Georgian cities, ruled out military action in
mid-August. Said McNamara: "One thing that has become very clear is
that countries like Russia are willing to engage in something very
old-fashioned–military confrontation–and European military capacity
is degraded to the point it cannot respond."

Key dates in the Georgia-Russia crisis Aug. 7: Georgia launches an
offensive to seize control of South Ossetia, a province that broke
from Georgia in the early 1990s.

Aug. 8: Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili says most of South
Ossetia has been "liberated." Russia sends tanks and troops, promising
to defend its peacekeeping troops and residents with Russian passports.

Aug. 9: Russian warplanes bomb targets in Georgia including the Black
Sea port of Poti. This is followed by aerial assaults on the city
of Gori and near the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline. Russia
also launched a three-day air attack on Kodori Gorge, linking the
territory of Abkhazia to Georgia.

Aug. 10: After claiming control of most of South Ossetia, Russia
starts bombing areas near the Georgian capital Tbilisi for the first
time, targeting a military airfield. Georgia admits losing the South
Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali.