In the process of protecting its peacekeepers, Moscow has bombed and/or occupied and demolished the garrison of every single Georgian army maneuver unit, every major military airfield, and Georgia’s command-and-control centers. Russian units have been systematically destroying barracks, other buildings, and equipment at Georgian brigade garrisons at Senaki and Gori. The Russians announced that they had seized or destroyed almost every single tank the Georgians once possessed, as well as a great deal of artillery, and even rifles and small-arms ammunition — all on the soil of Georgia, not South Ossetia or Abkhazia. There has been no parallel to this military operation since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990. It is an assault on the fabric of international law fully as devastating as Saddam’s. But even Saddam never claimed that Kuwait posed a threat to Iraq.
The problem is that Russia is much bigger and stronger than Iraq, and Putin is much smarter than Saddam ever was. He knows that the U.S., to say nothing of Europe, is not going to send troops to Georgia. Washington has been unwilling even to send military equipment to an ally whose troops were fighting alongside of ours in Iraq just a few weeks ago — although it’s not clear that such a move would make any sense, to be sure, since the Russians would likely just destroy anything we sent anyway. He does not believe that Russia will be kicked out of the G-8, stalled at the WTO, or pay any real price at all for this act of naked aggression. He believes that Russia will shortly recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states — take that, Kosovo! — and no one will react.
He seems to intend to bring Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili to trial either in the Hague or in Moscow or both for war crimes and genocide, and Russian spokesmen rail against America’s refusal to “recognize” those war crimes and the genocide that did not occur in South Ossetia (where even inflated Russian figures put the death toll at around 1,600 people — far too many deaths, to be sure, but certainly not a genocide). All this will likely lead to Russian pressure on Georgia — did I mention that Russian forces have possessed themselves of the hydroelectric power station that supplies most of Georgia’s electricity on the pretext of protecting it from Georgian terrorism? — to remove Saakashvili and submit to Moscow’s will. And then who knows? Ukraine’s pro-Western president is bringing charges against the pro-Russian prime minister. The Baltic states are panicking, as well they might. For facing the Russian challenge is much harder and more complicated than was facing Saddam Hussein in 1990 — not that that was easy.
But we must find a way. The alternative is to permit Putin to turn international law into the law of the jungle. Russia has not pursued so overtly an aggressive and imperialistic goal since the days of Catherine the Great. Putin’s naked ambition may leave us longing for the days of Soviet sublety. After the invasion of Afghanistan, Jimmy Carter boycotted the 1980 Winter Olympics, imposed economic sanctions on Russia, sent military aid to Afghanistan, and embarked on what would become the Reagan military build-up. So far, the United States has canceled joint naval exercises with Russia and sent humanitarian aid to Georgia. It seems unlikely that that will be enough to deter Putin from further aggression.
— Frederick W. Kagan posts regular updates on the Russo-Georgian conflict at www.aei.org and www.understandingwar.org. < Back 1 2 
