Russia's moderate wars

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None of the originally envisaged texts is ready for primetime, so let's ponder a bit about something that's more important anyway:

Russia employs a completely different idea of warfare than the West does.

Western wars have had maximalist objectives ever since the neocons couldn't stop whining about a supposedly "incomplete" job on Iraq in 1991. The objectives were maximalist ever since, and the missions kept being renewed or replaced.

We weren't satisfied by Yugoslavia toning down its measures against UCK rebels in Kosovo; we had to rip Kosovo out of Yugoslavia, and then kept it occupied it. Kosovo is occupied to this day, by about 4,000 NATO-led troops even though there's no real risk of Serbia trying to invade and annex Kosovo.

It wasn't enough to defeat the government that gave sanctuary to the terrorist who had motivated and supported the mostly Saudi 9/11 terrorists. Ordinarily, wars where you have an issue with a government and its actions end when you have destroyed the former and ended the latter. No, in the case of Afghanistan we had to launch a 17+ year occupation, install an utterly corrupt new government and pretend that not only the actual terrorist group, but also the political faction that once had given it sanctuary would have to go extinct. Except next door in Pakistan, of course. There they could dwell for eternity, which of course eliminated the prospect of it ever going extinct. The de facto mission wasn't only maximalist, but also obviously impossible to accomplish. A recipe for a never-ending involvement in a distant civil war.

It wasn't enough that Iraq had lost most of its conventional military power in 1991-1996 and had its NBC programs disassembled, with frequent and intrusive inspections. It just had to be destroyed as a government. And then be occupied for 13 years.

Daesh? Had to be destroyed. It wasn't enough to simply tip the scales towards their destruction - they had to be destroyed (in Syria, where the real deal sat), and several cities with them. Of course, the Western troops weren't withdrawn from Syria because the West is really crappy at getting stuff wrapped up, ever.

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Let's compare Russian warfare: They, too, have their neverending missions (Abkhazia, South Ossetia), but their objectives aren't that maximalist (except in the Crimea).

They didn't rip Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia - even in the moment of total Georgian defeat in 2008 Putin didn't move his troops into Tiflis, forcing the Georgian government to cede those territories into independence.

Crimea was invaded and annexed, alright - but Donbass was but invaded, not annexed. And the war in Donbass was fought with some restraint by Russia. Russia could have used its air force for air/ground attacks - it didn't. Russia could have gone for Kiev and taken it, and dictate a peace treaty - it didn't. Russia could have gone all-in with its conventional forces in the area - instead, it rotates its forces in and out. The Neocons would have annexed not only Crimea, but also Donbass by now - and they would have installed some puppet in Kiev, maybe even helped it to maintain power with an occupation force of 100,000+, calling on CIS governments for auxiliary forces.

Russia's involvement in Syria appears to tip the scales in Assad's favour, but it's far from all that Russia could do. Russia did not send a single brigade of ground forces, and it could muster much more ground attack aircraft. It didn't even only bring much artillery to the fight.

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Russia certainly has less resources and much greater security challenges at home than the U.S. or even NATO as a whole, but the pattern of limited objectives doesn't seem to be explained by resources alone. This is most evident in Georgia (though that episode may have been unintended as a whole).

There's no extremist or maximalist faction comparable to the Neocons steering Russian foreign policy. The whole pattern rather looks like typical great power games, with a certain emphasis on the own periphery. That emphasis is often interpreted as Putin intending to re-create the Soviet Union (or Russian Empire). I have written such an interpretation before myself, and it makes a lot of sense from the partisan view of NATO and EU; better safe than sorry regarding the Baltic members.

Yet we might actually see a Russia that's -at least under Putin- not maximalist or extremist in regard to war as we in the West have become used to be under the influence of American extremism since 2001. It may be all about playing great power games instead, which opens the door for entirely different dissuasion efforts to succeed.

One example is that we could threaten a set back in one of their great power games (such as helping Georgia to push out Russians from Abkhazia and South Ossetia) as countermeasure to some new Russian aggression elsewhere. This would be considerably less promising if imperial restoration was really the end goal, for then it might escalate the conflict into a stupid Russian attempt to gain everything desired in one war.

related:
/2014/08/if-western-great-power-gaming-wasnt-so.html
/2014/05/a-western-bargaining-strategy.html
/2014/04/putins-way-of-aggression.html

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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Putin's conflicts

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Occasionally, writers express the opinion that Putin is superior in foreign policy to Western governments. The list of reasons differs, and covers a wide range.

Let's look at this in some detail for once, instead of with half a line as at other times:

_ _ _ _ _

Is he superior in foreign policy? Well, it depends - on whether he has achieved much. Honestly, I cannot see a single big success story of his in foreign policy. He has left some treaties and conquered Crimea (which is now going to be a leech on the Russian state and economy). He kept most CIS states kind of in line with Russia and prevented that all of Ukraine turned westward.

These very few and rather small successes are opposed to the costs; the economic costs of sanctions, the costs of the war in the Ukraine (and Chechnya, if  you count this as foreign policy), the (little) expenses of the war in Syria.

The balance leaves mostly symbolic successes and pathos as successes in my opinion; the illusion that Russia returned to something like the USSR's power and respect.

(more like "exploited" than "created")

Putin is fairly good (reckless) at starting or joining conflicts. He's not too shy to start a fire or to throw some more gasoline into fires.

Chechnya; this was essentially a fire in a closed room that he killed by flooding the room with gasoline. At some point there were more Russian security personnel (military and paramilitary) in Chechnya than civilians. Putin never solved this conflict; it rather went its course and eventually drowned. Chechen fighters keep causing trouble in many places, being displaced from Chechnya proper.

South Ossetia; Putin didn't solve any conflict there either. His short war over South Ossetia rather preserved the status quo ante of an unresolved secession conflict.

Abkhazia: Same here, Russia merely succeeded in keeping this open wound of Georgia open (another secession conflict).

Crimea: Yet another unresolved conflict, since the annexation hasn't been recognized by more than a few countries so far. Putin failed to at least give a real referendum a try. Instead, he held the likely rigged referendum that lacked international observers and thus carries no weight with non-allied foreign governments.

Donezk: It's fairly obvious that this is just another conflict that Putin wasn't able to end quickly, or with profit. In fact, it's still lingering and the economic sanctions and renewed political hostility of NATO and EU including neighbours of Russia were a hefty price for so far no gain whatsoever.

Syria: Putin seems to have succeeded in preserving the Assad regime and thus Russia's military base in Syria (which is of no value for its national defence). He didn't defeat daesh yet, nor even only the so-called FSA. Putin appears to lack a clear route to an end of the conflict just as do all other powers that meddle in it.

"It’s easy to start a war, but it’s always difficult to end with it"

Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus

"Every war is easy to start, but it is extremely difficult to finish"

Sallustius

Putin has no particular quality that enables Russia to profit of conflict more than Western politicians can do. He's just as unable to conclude a conflict in a desirable fashion.

There are differences in comparison to most Western politicians, though (not U.S., UK or French ones); ons is his willingness to start fires and to pour gasoline into them. Many Western politicians have learned about the benefits of cooperation (not CIS-style hegemony) and are rather seeking win-win deals. Exceptions are usually led by the relatively hawkish and more great power gaming-inclined politicians from the U.S.. France has its particular brand of interventionism, in which it somehow thinks of itself as the policeman of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Another difference is that unlike the cooperation-minded Western politicians Putin doesn't shy away from using force in an attempt to get what he wants. It's just that he -as almost everyone else - usually still fails at achieving desired end-states (which is why this method has become to unpopular).

Some time ago I mentioned that the West could have countered the Russian "force concentration" (a petty ~80,000 troops actually) on the Ukrainian border by deploying forces into Georgia. These forces could have threatened to destroy the Russian position in the Caucasus region (South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Berg-Karabagh conflicts) in absence of the Russian army forces. Putin would have been forced to react to this diversion by recalling about half of the troops from the Ukrainian border in order to stabilize the situation in the Caucasus region.

This would have been a fairly ordinary strategic move in the 19th or 18th century, but it was beyond the horizon of most Western politicians, obviously. Such a counter-escalation doesn't suit well to "War as last resort" attitudes and a general emphasis on avoiding war by being peaceful yourself. Such an extended tool set in which counter-escalation may actually save the peace and end up bringing de-escalation was simply not within their repertoire.

This points out the predictability of Western strategy; the Americans are obsessed with their pet region Near/Mid East and their phony war on errorism in general, and demonstrably largely incapable of quick reaction to anything Putin does. Some European governments are disrespectful enough to small powers to bomb or occupy them, but respectful enough of Russia to never be more escalating than non-violent sanctions and parades.

This leaves Putin much freedom of action. He can predict the primitive reactions (tripwire forces, show of force exercises, sanctions, angry statements to the press) to his actions and for some reason or another he often comes to the conclusion that starting or joining a conflict is still worth it. Except s far it really wasn't, for he is no von Bismarck at all. He's good at maintaining power in a stagnating, commodity-prices-depending kleptocracy, and reckless enough to play great power games - which he really isn't all that good at, since he doesn't know how to end the game with profit.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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If Western great power gaming wasn't so incompetent

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One of the extra reasons for opposing Western great power gaming is the West's incompetence at it. The Americans messed so many great power games, we've become used to it. The war of aggression against Panama with its rather fine aftermath (save for the dead and maimed people, of course) is a pleasant exception. Just look at the IS/ISIS mess, a consequence of the war of aggression against Iraq!

 The West's dealing with the Ukrainian territorial crisis is no different. again, incompetence abounds.

I've offered rather diplomatic strategies and some observations on the conflict before

2014-05 A Western bargaining strategy concerning Putin

2014-04 Putin's way of aggression

2014-01 The Ukrainian question

now here's a great power gaming strategy for it. I'm not in favour of great power games, so this is not a recommendation (would be a few months too late for it anyway), but an example meant to show how relatively inept the West is at these games. Obama, Merkel, Hollande are playing a league or two below Putin in these affairs (and Erdogan appears to be disinterested).

So this was for the situation at the end of the Crimean secession, when it became obvious Putin was having designs for Eastern Ukraine, too:

Putin/Russia is understood to try to grab some continental Ukrainian territory while the new government in Kiev is still incapable of decisive resistance.

Economic sanctions and the like were probably if not certainly factored into Putin's deliberations already, and can be dismissed as non-decisive for this reason. Something unanticipated is needed for additional deterrence effect.

Why not force Putin to lose two long-running great power games as the price for merely trying to play a great power game in the Eastern Ukraine?

Get Turkey and Georgia to agree with your strategy, then concentrate air and (suitable) land power in Turkey, threatening to move into Georgia, defeat the separatists in Abkhazia and South Ossetia and to kick out the Russian 'peacekeepers' there. Make sure Putin believes this by adding forces to the deployment which would only be necessary against Russia, not against militias; such as SEAD (suppression enemy air defences), much Electronic Warfare forces in general, battlefield air defences and substantial anti-armour firepower.

(c) Ssolbergj

Putin/Russia would be forced to keep Russian troops in the Caucasus and to even reinforce them in order to deter an actual Western intervention there with the risk of a messy NATO-Russia conflict on proxy territory (it would be similar to how American and Russian pilots fought each other over North Korea during the Korean War).

Russia would be hard-pressed to reinforce the troops in the Caucasus with more than air-deployable forces only, but assuming it did succeed, it could attempt to sway Western public opinion by threatening Estonia with some additional brigades south of St. Petersburg.

The non-involved NATO and EU countries could respond by deploying some suitable forces in an 'exercise' to Lithuania (which has no border with Russian mainland), and subsidise an Estonian partial mobilisation (another 'exercise').

The elegance in this; nothing in this strategy even only requires a violation of the Charter of the United Nations, since no recognised country would be threatened.

_____________

So this is how great power hardball could or would look like if the West was playing at the same level as Putin.

It's not. Instead, Western great powers bully weak countries (up to an actual invasion and occupation) for no gain and annoy other delinquents with sanctions if they're disinterested in doing more.

Very little good came of this, ever. The sanctions on apartheid South Africa were probably effective and a good idea, and Panama was mentioned before. Other than that, Western great power games aren't merely cost-inefficient, but often even disastrous. The Iranian theocracy can be traced back to an American-supported coup in the 50's, for example. Many Cold War great power games were ill-fated because of sheer Western ignorance and self-delusion (categorizing independence and unification movements as communist and pushing them into Moscow's arms). Nowadays the USA are supporting both Saudi-Arabia (top ten worst states world-wide) and Pakistan (ditto), both were no doubt more to blame for 9/11 than Saddam's Iraq.

I expect (hope) my readers to recoil in horror at the aforementioned counter-Putin deterrence strategy, for it is risky gaming, expensive gaming and well, it depends on Turkish cooperation which would make it even more expensive (such as a promise never to support the Kurds or even an intervention in Syria). And the Abkhazians seek independence legitimately, so an actual move against them would be unethical.

It's fine if it looks like a bad idea; that's my point. Great power games are bullshit.

What's even worse bullshit is if one's government does play such games, but sucks at them even more than the adversary. And that's the status quo.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

P.S.: After I wrote this I saw an "expert" suggest to move NATO forces into Ukraine itself to counter Russian aggression. That's exactly what I mean; so stupid (and primitive), a ten year-old would come up with the same 'advice' within seconds. 

Edit: I'm fully aware that even if they tried, they couldn't get the public to support the strategy. Western politicians can't do bluffs of this scale well. And again, that's my point: They're incapable, incompetent - but they still want to play the game. There's no von Bismarck anywhere, but it would take one to succeed.

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Putin's way of aggression

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Putin's approach to aggressions is an interesting one. It appears he has recognised the limitations of his freedom of action, found and began to exploit loopholes.

An all-out conventional invasion, 1914-style, is apparently out of question to him. Russia lacks the forces to pull this off on a grand scale, at least without exposing itself too much.

His exploits appear to range up to army corps size instead (South Ossetia 2008) - with all other power being held in the back, as a political equivalent to a "fleet in being". This restricts the freedom of action of other great powers. Small powers can probably not pull off the same risky games for they lack this component - even if they could easily muster forces equivalent to the ones employed actively.

Traditional Cold War deterrence rested on the fear that a too bold move might lead to World War III, and the demise of European civilisation. There were no aggressive moves done in Europe proper after the Berlin blockade; both blocs were content with keeping their own line*. Bold moves were largely restricted to Asia, with proxies and at times small numbers of opposing great power troops fighting against each other**.

There as a fear that some bold, yet incremental, moves could be dared in Europe - and it was difficult to define when exactly such incremental offenses should lead to mobilisation or war. A British satire (a "Yes, Prime Minister!" episode, see 7:04 minutes and after) explained this better than articles or books ever did. Also remember the metaphor of boiling frogs.

Putin appears to have thought of this incremental approach when he decided to send paramilitary troops without national insignias into the Crimea.

He did apparently also take into account that the Ukraine is not allied with any country.

Finally, the third ingredient; international law had been stretched somewhat prior to the move.

Putin did stretch his freedom of action in face of International Law proponents prior to the conflict with Georgia in 2008 by exposing 'peacekeeper' troops. Georgia proceeded to attack South Ossetia at some point and this included firing on peacekeepers. At that point Putin had a semi-plausible excuse for intervention. His intervention was not as blatant as the intervention of Kuwait 1990, for example. Him withdrawing after fait accompli avoided troubles as well.

The stretching of International Law for the invasion(s) of the Ukraine wasn't done by Putin himself. This damage was done by Western great powers which had a fit of arrogance and short-sightedly decided that rule of force suits them better than rule of law. Rule of law was supposedly a concept to be applied on other powers only.

Except that the "other powers" includes some great powers which evidently can behave arrogantly as well.

2014-02 Hypocrisy in effect

It would help if the same Western great powers reaffirmed the importance of international law in a non-hypocritical way. They could admit guilt, seek and accept a ruling about compensations and - most importantly - refrain from further violations. 

This won't happen, of course. Only losing aggressors have to show regret in this world.

Another approach to close the loopholes would be to expand the collective defence systems; offer an alliance of some kind to the Ukraine. This is most unlikely as well. It would lead to further conflict and might end up being much too expensive. The Ukraine is not too big to fail, after all. Nothing in there is really crucial to the West (for historical reasons), while much in there is crucial to Russia.

Finally, one could tune up the reaction to incremental moves and effectively turn incremental moves into too big moves thereby. This appears to be the preferred approach among Western great power governments.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

*: The Greek Civil War already ended in 1949, being the last major attempt to keep Western countries in line.

**: Soviet and Western fighter pilots battled in a couple proxy wars.
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Hypocrisy in effect

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Kerry on Russia: “You just don’t” invade another country “on a completely trumped up pretext”

Salon

We should not have done the Kosovo Air War. They should not have done the Iraq invasion.

Now the U.S. cannot really claim that Russia is doing anything unusual, even through they violate the sovereignty of another country and a multinational treaty. At least not without being completely hypocritical.

U.S.:

Violated the Charter of the United Nations repeatedly (Panama 1989, Iraq 2002, Yugoslavia 1999)

Violated the North Atlantic Treaty repeatedly (same)

Invaded countries repeatedly (Panama 1989, Iraq 2002)

Did not bring any responsible individuals to justice for these violations

Many EU members:

Violated the Charter of the United Nations (Yugoslavia 1999; UK and Poland also Iraq 2002)

Violated the North Atlantic Treaty repeatedly (same)

(UK and Poland: Invaded a country (Iraq 2002))

Did not bring any responsible individuals to justice for these violations

Russia:

Violated the Charter of the United Nations repeatedly (Georgia 2006, Ukraine 2014 apparently)

Violated the Budapest Memorandums repeatedly

Invaded a country (Georgia 2006)

Did not bring any responsible individuals to justice for these violations

I don't need to talk with someone who has a Russian perspective to see that the Obama administration's line is hypocritical. It's the same old story again; 'we' do what we want, rules apply only to others. Grow up.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

P.S.: The lists are not meant to be comprehensive, nor do they include domestic behaviour. I think they prove the point that the West and the U.S. in particular don't own the moral high ground without being comprehensive. Putin could even invoke the Grenada excuse for an invasion.

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Missing a statement...

The South Ossetian War of 2008 begun eight days ago.

I've seen, heard or read about statements by the governments of Russia, Georgia, USA, Germany and France. Hey - I even heard the statements about this war of two wannabe-presidents from another continent.


Reality check: Have a look at the map!
That huge marked country south-west of tiny Georgia is Turkey.
Germany is barely visible, France and USA not at all - and this map covers a pretty large chunk of the earth's surface.

Germany, France & the USA have little to say in the conflict.
One really, truly important country in this conflict - especially in the long term - is Turkey.
Maybe I had bad luck and missed its government's statement, but Turkey surely wasn't mentioned as influential power in any discussion about the war that I observed.

Turkey has a combined military personnel strength of more than a million man, comparable military technological level as Russia and it has the majority of the NATO bases that could be used to exert any influence in Georgia.
The conflict happens in its backyard and certainly touches its interests more realistically than the interests of many other NATO nations.
It does also control the Bosporus and is certainly indispensable as base for any credible long-term guarantees if Western countries intended to give any.

Seriously, I want to know the Turkish government's take on this conflict.
Their position and intents concerning Georgia are more interesting and relevant than German, French and U.S. American ones combined.

S O

Aftermath of the South Ossetian War('s hottest phase so far)

The Western nations have realized that Russia's government is now self-confident again. We cannot treat Eastern Europe policy as a low-priority project anymore, it requires some serious attention and effort to achieve further successes in face of Russia.

There's a lot that can be done about the countries whose status is in question; Georgia, Ukraine, Moldavia. Even Belarus might become a hot spot if sometime its government loses power. The strategy formulation for this area will be very challenging.
One option that I would prefer would be a buffer zone of neutral states (comparable to Finland) between NATO and CIS.

But it's not only about the countries that are neither firmly integrated into NATO nor the Russian influence zone.

We have some 'new' NATO allies in Eastern Europe, and never publicly discussed how to secure them against Russia. The NATO border was sufficiently deterring in the past, but the feeling of insecurity seems to be present - especially in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.
This is understandable despite Poland's and Lithuania's distance to the Russian mainland because Belarus is politically extremely close to Russia.

A forward deployment of alliance forces as done during the Cold War when occupation troops in Germany were turned to forward-deployed alliance troops would be a costly option. This option could be used as deterrent, as a price for Russia to pay if it steps over the Rubicon somewhere. Russians don't like foreign armies close to Moscow at all.

To secure Poland requires relatively few efforts in my opinion:
The Polish army needs to be competent in delaying actions, have a good morale and readiness. The German, French, Dutch, Belgian and Danish armies need to be competent in conventional warfare on Polish soil, have a good readiness, good land-bound long-range logistical capabilities and be prepared for quick deployments by rapid deployment exercises (unheralded, whole division and annual if possible).
That should be enough deterrent to secure Poland.

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are more challenging; these countries and their armies are rather small. It's unlikely that they could sustain (on their own) an army strong enough to delay an invasion long enough for reinforcements to save the day.
Forward deployment of allied forces would be a simple answer, but that's not really preferable in my opinion.
I suggest to apply the same concept as for Poland, but with some additional physical obstacles in the defensive plan and with enough military aid to enable these alliance members to sustain an army that's strong enough for a long delay of an invasion (they have really only a short distance to trade before they would lose their capital). The logistical supply for the reinforcements should be pre-deployed and supplied by sea. This is especially challenging in Estonia because the Baltic Sea freezes there during the winter.

To add the Baltic states to NATO did certainly not enhance the old alliance member's national security. Such moves do really deserve much more thorough public discussions.

The present situation is that we have the alliance obligation to protect the Eastern NATO members. That should be done in reality, not just on paper. It's about time.

Sven Ortmann

edit 2008-10-14:
Two interesting articles
"Nato commanders to draw up plans to defend ex-Soviet bloc members from Russia"
"NATO split over Baltic defense"

edit 2008-12-15:
I made a more detailed analysis of the Baltic scenario. The seaports are surprisingly capable, but there are very few icebreakers and the only permanently free harbor is Klaipeda - easily rendered useless by ground forces direct fire and not very far north. It could help for a counter-offensive, but not in the initial delay& stopping phase.
The river Daugava in Latvia was difficult to cross in past wars - another argument for an invasion during winter.
The seaports will likely not play a major role, just like naval actions in general would have little utility.
The road connection between Poland and Lithuania needs to be improved.
I'll likely post the analysis sometime in the next few months.

Turn of opinions : Comeback of conventional warfare

I observed a very wide-spread opinion during the past years; most interested people assumed that counter-insurgencies, small wars would be the face of war in the future. few others meant that the experiences or Iraq and Afghanistan were so negative that politicians would avoid such conflicts for some time (till the political lessons learned are forgotten).

Well, the past days gave us photos of tank columns in a war, burnt-out and decapitated tank wreck photos and apparently some classic conventional warfare.

The Russians have reached a region of Georgia that's better suited for armoured warfare than mot of South Ossetia, the type of warfare and its perception will likely not change much before the war ends.

(Putin seems to intend a much more direct replacement of the Georgian government than I expected, asking for its resignation directly as condition for a cease-fire - a probably politically very costly choice in the long run).

The Georgia war has even seen air attacks, a naval blockade and sinking of a naval warship (missile boat) and the use of modern anti-air defenses.

The equipment in use was 20-40 years old and the combat experiences won't tell much about modern military technology, but the shape of war as a conventional war directly involving a superpower that's not being called "USA" impresses some people.

I've read several remarks that mocked about the "future of war = COIN" assumption in the past few days.

The West-East struggle finally got some attention as well, we will likely see some political efforts aimed at the Ukraine quite soon.

It's no new Cold War, but we're back at obvious Great power politics - this time about alliance definition and conventional war prevention/preparation, not about kicking around some non-industrialized countries.

S O

Georgia

Well, I hate it when my fears come true.
The South Ossetia crisis looks almost like a real, conventional war.

It's ridiculous how much the public pays attention to South Ossetians. Those people are unimportant for Putin and their cessation from Georgia is not the real reason why we see a limited scale war in the Caucasus.

It's also not about oil. Pipelines don't become magic, even not if you call them "oil pipeline". Some people get mad over anything associated with oil, but an oil business in the region would be a reason for Russia to establish good relations, not to feed internal conflicts.

In my opinion it's all about the definition of the Russian sphere of influence. Georgia (and btw, also Ukraine) is still neutral ground.

Putin wants to at least keep influence in all former Soviet Republics. That failed grossly in the Baltics. It worked very fine in Byelorussia and most Southern states (although the U.S. presence that were established for the Afghanistan war questions that). It never worked fine in Georgia since Shewardnadze lost power.

What may be Russia's intent in this conflict?
My guesses;

(1) Weaken the Saakashvili government (Western-friendly), achieve a government change towards a government that's at least neutral between NATO/USA and Russia.

(2) Keep the conflict alive for later opportunities to meddle in Georgia if (1) is no complete success.

The probably most important and most interesting detail of the conflict are the allegations of excessive violence of Georgia's troops against civilians or civilian settlements.

This could be exploited by Russia for two purposes:

a) Keep the Western powers from intervening openly in Georgias favour. Strong support is almost impossible to justify if Georgia is suddenly being painted as bad guy in our medias.

b) Weaken the Saakashvili government by exposing its wrongdoings in this case.


The conflict will remain local in my opinion. A full-scale war would need to be launched by Russia, but it's not in Russia's interest. Georgian nationalism might be fuelled against Russia by a full-scale war (so far, it's more on the level of a border skirmish). Such a nationalism would undermine any Russia-friendly government for one generation at least.

My expectation: The fighting wills top soon once the Georgian government realizes that its operation failed and that Russian troops keep its army from taking (and keeping) full control of South Ossetia.
A cease-fire and (additional) peacekeepers will be arranged by using the institutions of the U.N..
Russia will do its best to press all Georgian wrongdoings into Western and Georgian public discussion, and the South Ossetians (Russians) will help a lot in this info campaign.


The struggle for the neutral countries Ukraine and Georgia that happens between NATO/USA and Russia needs to become a hot topic for our public discussions.
It's not acceptable that our supposedly democratic states handle such elementary matters without public supervision, with intelligence services and diplomacy alone.
It was a shocking move by the USA some months ago when it attempted to get Georgia into the NATO - without any discussions in the public.

This struggle for Ukraine and Georgia deserves public attention and discussion in NATO countries.

S O