Wiki Leaks, South Ossetia and the Russian _reset

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Home > Wikileaks, South Ossetia and the Russian "reset"

Wikileaks, South Ossetia and the Russian

"reset"

Hans Mouritzen, 04th April 2011

Subjects: oD Russia [1] oD Russia [2] Conflict [3] Georgia [4] russia & eurasia [5]russia [6] conflicts [7] History [8] Foreign [9] Conflict [10] Hans Mouritzen [11]

Wikileaks has finally settled the controversy over who attacked whom first

in the Russo-Georgian war of August 2008, with papers firmly pointing toa miscalculation by Georgia and its superpower friend. For HansMouritzen, however, such historical details are dwarfed by a moresignificant subsequent development: the US-Russia great-power reset.

About the authorHans Mouritzen is senior researcher at the Danish Institute for the International Studies inCopenhagen.

A dispute still rages over who started the Russo-Georgian war of August 2008. Both sides haveled a spirited campaign to get their own interpretation accepted by the media and by other

countries. This should now be terminated: Wikileaks has provided a solid answer to thequestion. It has also shed light on the prevailing US-Russia reset and what it means to Georgia.

Let us begin with what is undisputed. It is generally accepted that the war was preceded in early

August by shooting and violence in South-Ossetia between militias loyal to the de facto regime inTskhinvali and militias loyal to Tbilisi (the Georgian government). Likewise, most agree thatGeorgia launched a massive and indiscriminate bombardment of Tskhinvali from 11:35 pm on 7

August (with GRAD artillery amongst other things). A major issue of contention has, however,been whether Georgian President Saakashvili and his associates believed that Georgia wasbeing invaded by regular Russian forces already before launching this bombardment.

Initially, a Georgian press release issued at 1:47 am on 8 August and the Foreign Ministrywebsite only mentioned para-military volunteers coming from North-Ossetia, not regular Russianforces. Three days later, however, the Georgians changed their official webpages (asdocumented by Jrgen Staun) and gave a new version that still prevails: Georgia had been

exposed to a full-scale Russian invasion at 11.30pm, thus five minutes before the bombardmentof Tskhinvali (one may wonder why Georgian resources were spent for this purpose in the faceof a foreign invasion, but that is another matter). This amended Georgian version has beendenied by Russia (dating its army invasion to 2:30pm on 8 August) and doubted by theIndependent International Fact-Finding Mission, which could find no evidence of an early

invasion. The Georgian explanation for its shift of versions (obtained in an interview conductedby this author) was that the first one was meant to provide a fig leaf for the Russians, so they

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could withdraw without losing face in front of the international community.

Russia claimed its army invaded South Ossetia at 2:30pm on 8 August; the Georgians claimed ithappened some thirteen hours earlier, at 11:30pm on 7 August. Wikileaks appear to underminethe Georgian account. (photo:Zygmunt Dzieciolowski).

The Wikileaks revelations of confidential communication from the US embassy in Tbilisi,however, gives a different picture. At 10:10 in the morning of 8 August, Ambassador John Tefftreported to Washington that if the Georgians are right, and the fighting is mainly over [i.e.Georgian victory], the real unknown is what the Russian role will be and whether there ispotential for the conflict to expand. In other words, no Russian action had yet taken place.

Moreover, Saakashvili was concerned that the South Ossetian fighting might have been aRussian pretext and a further attack could be expected[my italics]. There was also informationabout how the Georgian foreign minister had briefed the diplomatic corps in the morning andhad called on the international community to put pressure on the Russian government to takeno action. Finally, the US ambassador mentioned that the South Ossetians are reportedly nowaccusing the Russians of betraying them in other words passively watching from the sideline.

All this unequivocally contradicts the second (prevailing) Georgian version of events, uncriticallyaccepted by Ron Asmus (see the below book reference).

The US-Russia reset recognises a new status quo in southern Caucasus. The

between-the-lines message reads: We dont like what happened during and after the

war, but there is nothing we can do about it, and there are more important problems inthe world than Georgia!

This would clearly indicate, therefore, the bombing of Tskhinvali was an attempt to teach thelocal bandits a lesson, and that it was supposed Russia would not react so severely. Based onwisdom-after-the event, this assumption appears nave, but the Georgians seem to have beenmisled by US/Western assurances that a large-scale invasion was inconceivable in the 21.century. In neat harmony with this misjudgement, US satellite surveillance was instead directedtowards Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan during the critical period. The US and thereby Georgia

were largely blind to the Russian build-up on the ground close to the Georgian border (althoughGeorgia had sharply increased defence spending during the previous years, it had also reduced



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its intelligence preferring, it would seem, to trust the Americans blindly). This blindnessco-contributed to the almost suicidal decision to bomb Tskhinvali. Having contributedsignificantly to the Iraq Coalition of the Willing and having made pledges regarding Afghanistanpresence, it would be unsurprising if Georgia felt misled by its superpower friend.

Wikileaks is useful, too, for demolishing other myths, for instance the Russian allegation thatWashington orchestrated the events that led Georgia to initiate war. Quite to the contrary, theUS sought to discourage any such initiative. This is nothing new, but the cables demonstrate

that the US embassy in Tbilisi, and thereby State Department, was just as much in the dark asanybody else at the eve of war events this despite some 130 US military advisors beingpresent in the Georgian Ministry of Defence.

Mobilised Georgian soldiers in Gori ready to leave for South Ossetian Front in the evening ofAugust 8. Tbilisi did not believe Kremlin would react so severely (photo: Zygmunt Dzieciolowski)

The US-Russia reset, initiated in March 2009 and still functioning two years later, meant a USrecognition of the new status quo in southern Caucasus. Between the lines, the US messagewas: We dont like what happened during and after the war, but there is nothing we can doabout it, and there are more important problems in the world than Georgia! In other words: You(Russia) can have your sphere of interest, although we would hardly, as an ex-hegemon, admit itin public. Thus, Georgias prospects for NATO-membership decreased from modest to

negligible. Apart from Americas own problems, there were issues that should preferably besolved in cooperation with Russia: the global effects of the US financial meltdown, relations withIran, Afghanistan, terrorism, organized crime, weapons control, nuclear non-proliferation, etc.

The height so far of US-Russian cooperation came with the announcement, in connection withNATOs Lisbon summit in November 2010, of plans for a NATO-Russia missile shield.

In the theoretical literature on the power of the weak, the consensus is that cooperationbetween the strong in case the US and Russia is more dangerous to the weak than amedium level of conflict; think of Sweden losing Finland after the Tilsit summit betweenNapoleon and the Russian Tsar or the fate of Poland and the Baltic countries after the Molotov-

Ribbentrop Pact. Even if the consequences are likely to be less drastic here, the states that have



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built their security on US counterweight against Russia (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland,Georgia, and to some extent Azerbaijan) have been weakened - some more, some less. Ukrainehas switched to the Russian side. The three Baltic countries saw themselves in analogy toGeorgia (Russian population or citizens within their borders) and increasingly felt their NATOmembership to be an empty shell with no physical back-up in the form of military bases, andPoland lost the planned NATO missile shield, as the US abandoned this plan in favor of theindicated solution with Russia. These states have allegedly been compensated, though hardly totheir full satisfaction; for instance, the Baltic countries got an article 5 defence plan vis--vis a

military attack from Russia (secret until it was wikileaked). Georgia has received large amounts ofUS financial assistance, but no military assistance since the 2008 war:

A decision to move towards a more robust military relationship with Georgia will imperil ourefforts to re-start relations with Russia.We see no way to neutralize the advantages ofgeography, size and capabilities enjoyed by Russia (from a wikileaked cable by US ambassadorto Moscow John Beyrle of June 2009).

The consensus is that cooperation between the strong in case the US and Russia

is more dangerous to the weak than a medium level of conflict. Following the reset,

states that have built their security on US counterweight against Russia (Estonia,

Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Georgia, and to some extent Azerbaijan) have beenweakened, while Ukraine has switched to the Russian side.

The outgoing Bush administration signed a Charter on Strategic Partnership with Georgia, butthis document is anything but strategic. If anything, it is a fig-leaf for the fact that the US has putrelations with Georgia on a backburner. Possibly as a result of this, Georgia has diversified byincreasing contacts with Turkey and Iran. US representatives have tried to comfort their Georgiancolleagues by arguing Georgia can feel safer now that a reset with Russia is functioning. Ofcourse, this forgets to say the reset is probably more vital to the US (cooperation regarding

Afghanistan and Iran) than it is to Russia.



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Sideboxes

'Read On' Sidebox:

Asmus, Ron, The Small War that Shook the World, Palgrave 2010, a well-written but biasedanalysis of the war, seeking to rehabilitate Georgian President Saakashvili in front of an

American audience. Only Georgian/Western sources are used.

Goble, Paul A. Defining Victory and Defeat: The Information War Between Russia and

Georgia, pp. 181-96 in Cornell, S. & F. Starr (eds.), The Guns of August 2008, M.E. Sharpe.

Mouritzen, Hans, Tension between the Strong and the Strategies of the Weak, Journal of

Peace Research, vol. 28 no. 2, pp. 217-30, May 1991.

Mouritzen, Hans and Anders Wivel, Explaining Foreign Policy. International Diplomacy and

the Russo-Georgian War, forthc.

Independent International Fact Finding Mission on the Conflict in Georgia, Council of theEuropean Union, http://www.ceiig.ch/Report.html [12].

http://www.wikileaks.ch/cable/2008/08/08TBILISI1341.html [13]. Ref. ID: 08Tbilisi1341.

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/12/07/wikileaked_us_ambassador_to_russia_we_cant_arm_georgia_due_to_the_reset [14].

Anxious Georgia embraces Iran, Turkey. West-forsaken Georgia boosts ties with Iran, Turkey

to counter Russian influence, The Georgian Times, 31 May 2010.

Related stories:Georgia at a crossroads: after the post-war[15]The guns of August: two years later [16]

Sakartvelo: a political prospect [17]Georgia's plan for reunification [18]Georgia, two years on: a future beyond war[19]The return of realpolitik: a view from Georgia [20]Tbilisi: Twenty Hours Before the War[21]Zugdidi: Will I ever go back? [22]Sukhumi: Caf Lika on the brink of war[23]The Russia-Georgia war: mission unaccomplished [24]

Country:Georgia

Topics:Conflict

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Created 04/04/2011 - 14:31

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Wiki Leaks, South Ossetia and the Russian _reset