Georgia on my mind
By
Conn Hallinan Read Spanish Version
Taken
from Counterpunch
One
of the major causes of the recent war in Georgia has nothing to do
with the historic tensions that make the Caucasus such a flashpoint
between east and west. Certainly the long-stranding ethnic enmity
between Ossetians and Georgians played a role, as did the almost
visceral dislike between Moscow and Tbilisi. But the origins of the
short, brutal war go back six years to a June afternoon at West
Point.
Speaking
to the cadets at the military academy, President George W. Bush laid
out a blueprint for U.S foreign policy, a strategy lifted from a
neocon think tank, the Project for a New American Century. In
essence, the West Point Doctrine made it clear that Washington would
not permit the development of a "peer competitor," and
that, if necessary, the U.S. would use military force to insure that
it maintained the monopoly on world power it had inherited after the
collapse of the Soviet Union. The 21st Century was to be an American
century.
Some
of the building blocks of this strategy were already in place before
the President’s address. Rather than dismantling the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) following the disintegration of the East
bloc’s Warsaw Pact in 1991, the alliance was expanded to include
former Pact members Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. Latvia,
Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Bulgaria followed in 2004. On the
eve of the latest Caucasus war, Washington was lobbying hard to
recruit Georgia and the Ukraine.
It
is important to keep in mind the deep paranoia — a state of mind
well founded in historical experience — that the Russians have over
their borders. Those borders have been violated by Napoleon, and by
Germany in both WW I, and WW II. In the later conflict, the Russians
lost 27 million people.
Besides
expanding NATO from a regional military pact to a worldwide alliance
— the organization is deeply engaged in Afghanistan and is currently
moving into the Pacific Basin — the Bush Administration began
dismantling East-West agreements, including the Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty (ABM). The demise of the Treaty allowed the U.S. to
deploy an ABM and to recruit nations to sign up for the system,
including Japan, India and Australia. Lastly, NATO has just agreed to
build an ABM system in Eastern Europe.
In
spite of the way it is portrayed, an ABM is not a defensive system
and is certainly not aimed at ‘rogue-states’ — since none of
them have missiles than can threaten the U.S. or Europe. An ABM is
designed to absorb a retaliatory attack following a first strike.
U.S. nuclear doctrine is based on this first strike, or counterforce
strategy.
Russia
and China — currently the only two nations that can seriously
challenge the idea of an American century — find themselves
surrounded by U.S. bases from northern Europe, through the Middle
East and Central Asia, to the north Pacific. At least in theory, the
U.S. ABM system pretty much cancels out China’s modest nuclear
capability, and, fully deployed, a European system could neutralize
much of Russia’s.
The
Bush Administration says that its ABM system is not large enough to
stop Russia’s thousands of nuclear warheads, but it fails to
mention that a first strike would destroy all but about five percent
of those weapons. All an ABM would have to do is handle the handful
of warheads that survived a counterforce strike.
The
Russians and the Chinese have made it quite clear that they consider
the ABM system a threat to their nuclear deterrence ability.
The
Russians are also deeply angry over the European Union and NATO’s
support for dismembering Yugoslavia and the forcible removal of the
province of Kosovo from Serbia.
“I
think we have underestimated the anger in Moscow over the increasing
NATO involvement in Russia’s backyard,” says Christopher Langton
of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
This
is the context in which the recent fighting took place. While the
western media has largely portrayed the war as the mighty Russian
bear beating up on tiny Georgia, Moscow sees Tbilisi’s attack on
South Ossetia as yet another move aimed at surrounding it with
hostile powers.
U.S.
non-governmental organizations, some, like the National Endowment for
Democracy, close to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, played a
key role in helping to bring Georgia’s current president Mikhail
Saakashvilli to power. For all the Bush Administration touts him as a
‘democrat’ the Georgian president has exiled his political
enemies, closed down opposition newspapers, and turned his police on
peaceful demonstrators.
Following
his election, the U.S. and Israel poured military aid and trainers
into Georgia. Some 800 U.S. and 1,000 Israeli trainers are currently
working with the Georgian military.
While
the U.S. claims that it strongly advised the Georgians not to use
force in Ossetia and Abakhzia, just a few weeks before the attack
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Tbilisi and made it clear
that the Bush Administration fully supported Georgia claim over the
two provinces.
The
U.S. pledge was made despite the fact that Saakashvili broke a 2005
agreement not to use force in the two provinces. In 2006, the
Georgian president sent troops into Abkhaza to occupy the Kodori
Valley. Did it occur to the U.S. that backing Saakashvili’s
adventurism in Abkhaza might encourage him to consider a similar move
in South Ossetia?
Besides
the trainers, 1,000 U.S. troops recently carried out joint exercises
with the Georgian military. How would Americans feel about Russians
troops training in Mexico, particularly if the latter government was
demanding back the lands seized by the U.S. in the Mexican-American
War? And what were those troops training for? An invasion of South
Ossetia? Defense against a Russian counterattack?
U.S.
trainers say they had no inkling that the Georgians were going to
attack Ossetia, a denial that is hard to swallow given the buildup of
ammunition, armored vehicles, and supplies that the Georgians must
have made in preparation for the invasion. It strains credibility to
think that U.S. advisors did not know what was up, but if they did
not, it bespeaks a sobering level of incompetence on the American
military side.
The
Israelis are not so coy. According to the DEBKA File, a publication
close to the Israeli military and intelligence agencies, Israeli
advisors "were undoubtedly deeply involved in the Georgian
Army’s preparations to conquer the South Ossetian capital."
The
Israeli interest in Georgia is over the two oil and gas pipelines
that transit the country, bypassing Russian pipelines to the north.
Israel takes on oil at the Turkish port of Ceyhan and ships it to a
refinery at Ashkelon.
So
who knew what, and when did they know it? This is not an abstract
exercise. Had Georgia been admitted to NATO, the war would have
triggered Article 5 requiring alliance members to use "collective
force" against Russia. Such a scenario could well have led to a
worldwide thermonuclear war.
Did
the Georgians think they could attack Ossetia, kill civilians and
Russian peacekeepers, and get away with it? Unless President
Saakashvili and the people around him are snorting something that
turns reality upside down, they must have known that Georgia’s army
was no match for Russia’s.
Could
the Georgians have been working under the illusion they had the full
backing of the U.S? What Rice told Saakashvili during her July 10
trip becomes critical. Did she really tell the Georgians in private
not to attack as she claims? Or did Tbilisi take Rice’s public
rhetoric supporting Georgia’s claim of sovereignty at face value?
Shortly
before Georgia attacked, the Russians tried to get a resolution
through the UN Security Council calling on Ossetia and Georgia to
renounce the use of force. The U.S., Britain, and
Saakashvili
torpedoed it. Why?
Might
the U.S. have snookered the Georgians into making an attack
Washington knew would end in disaster? Political commentator Robert
Scheer suggests the war was a neocon election ploy aimed at getting
John McCain elected president. On one level the charge seems
far-fetched, but as Scheer points out, the McCain campaign is filled
with neocons and Georgia boosters, and some of McCain’s recent
statements seem as if they were lifted from the depths of the Cold
War.
Is
the Georgia War the "October surprise" for the fall
elections as Scheer suggests? The Republicans need a crisis so they
can argue that only McCain has the experience to handle it. The Iran
bugaboo is wearing thin, and the polls show overwhelming opposition
to a war with
Teheran.
China is playing nice, and, in any case, it is not a good idea to
pick a fight with someone who can call in its loans and bankrupt you.
But
there is always the big, bad Russian bear.
This
is an inordinately dangerous situation. The Bush Administration has
sent U.S. troops into Georgia, and it is not inconceivable that
Russians and Americans might end up shooting at one another. Wars
have a tendency to get out of hand, which is one reason why it is
good to avoid them.
But
avoiding war means avoiding the kind of policies that make war a
possibility. If you have a strategy that says you have the right to
determine what happens in the world, and then go about surrounding
your potential competitors with military bases and destabilizing
weapons systems, sooner or later someone is going to push back. A
hundred years ago that would lead to tragedy. In today’s
nuclear-armed world, it is an existential issue.
In
the short run the solution is a ceasefire, withdrawal of troops, and
a pledge not to use force in the future.
But
the problem that brought about the recent war is the result of
policies that the U.S. and its allies have followed since the end of
the Cold War. A real solution would be:
-
Dissolve
NATO; -
Revive
the ABM Treaty; -
Enforce
the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, which means dismantling the
world’s supply of nuclear weapons and embarking on a course of
general disarmament.
To
do less it to hold the world hostage to the actions of a few who
might at any moment hurl us all into a war that none would survive.
Conn
Hallinan
is an analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus.
