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LAW PUNDIT Tuesday, August 12, 2008 8/12/2008 11:24:00 AM [Home]
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HEADLINE UPDATE : Russia Ends War with Georgia over South Ossetia : The Roots of the Conflict by Anatol Lieven
UPDATE : RUSSIA ENDS WAR
Just minutes ago, via CNN from Moscow:
"Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced Tuesday that he has ordered an end to military operations against Georgia. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has called a halt to the advance of Russian troops in Georgia.
The announcement came minutes before French President Nicolas Sarkozy was to land in Moscow to meet with Medvedev to negotiate terms for a possible cease-fire.
__________
The best analysis that we have seen in discussing the immediate origins of the conflict between Georgia and Russia is found at the Times Online in an August 11, 2008 article by Anatol Lieven titled Analysis: roots of the conflict between Georgia, South Ossetia and Russia. Lieven is "a professor at King’s College London and a senior Fellow of the New America Foundation in Washington DC. In 1990-96 he was a correspondent for The Times in the former Soviet Union, including Georgia".
Lieven writes in conclusion of his article, which should be recommended reading for all the ill-informed commentators one currently finds on the web:
"Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin made it clear again and again that if Georgia attacked South Ossetia, Russia would fight. Georgian advocates in the West claimed that Moscow was only bluffing. It wasn’t."
Many Europeans think that Georgia was at fault for the war, having intentionally and unforgivably chosen the opening days of the Olympic Games (when Bush and Putin were in China) to attack Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia .... thinking they could get away with it.
The Russian response was quite clear and expected. The actions of Georgia really left the Russians no other choice. Putin had been quoted as saying that the Russians would take this matter to its "logical conclusion". There is no way that the Russians could tolerate the destruction of Tskhinvali in this manner and the killing of thousands of people, many of them civilians, that it regards to be its citizens. It had no option but to take measures to protect South Ossetia and also Abkhazia.
Some of the responsibility for this entire conflict can be placed right at the feet of Western politicians, who, through their naive and gullible NATO posturing, led the Georgian regime into a sense of security that the actions that they took against Tskhinvali were not dangerous to them, because the West would protect them (the Baltic nations in past history always made this mistake of relying too much on the West for protection), and this would mean that the Russians would not or could not retaliate as they must do if they are to retain respect in their own immediate geographic region.
Unfortunately, this kind of numb diplomacy by the United States has precedent. The entire matter reminds one of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, which would not have happened if the USA had not given Iraq the wrong diplomatic message:
"On Wednesday July 25, 1990, the U.S. Ambassador in Iraq, April Glaspie, asked the Iraqi high command to explain the military preparations in progress, including the massing of Iraqi troops near the border. The American ambassador declared to her Iraqi interlocutor that Washington, “inspired by the friendship and not by confrontation, does not have an opinion” on the disagreement which opposes Kuwait to Iraq, stating "we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts". She also let Saddam Hussein know that the U.S. did not intend "to start an economic war against Iraq". These statements may have misled Saddam into believing he had received a diplomatic green light from the United States to invade Kuwait (New York Times, September 23, 1990)."
We need a higher learning curve in world politics in the Western nations.
__________
UPDATE
CNN picked up on this LawPundit posting at their featured From the Blogs (we clipped part of that CNN page and present it below):
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 8/12/2008 11:24:00 AM
HEADLINE UPDATE : Russia Ends War with Georgia over South Ossetia : The Roots of the Conflict by Anatol Lieven
UPDATE : RUSSIA ENDS WAR
Just minutes ago, via CNN from Moscow:
"Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced Tuesday that he has ordered an end to military operations against Georgia. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has called a halt to the advance of Russian troops in Georgia.
The announcement came minutes before French President Nicolas Sarkozy was to land in Moscow to meet with Medvedev to negotiate terms for a possible cease-fire.
"I have reached a decision to halt the operation to force the Georgian authorities to peace," Medvedev said. "The aggressor has been punished and has incurred very significant losses. Its armed forces are disorganized."
...
The Russians say Saakashvili attacked first in an attempt to gain control of South Ossetia. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an earlier news conference Tuesday that Russia wanted a demilitarized zone to be created in Georgian territory before a cease-fire took effect."__________
The best analysis that we have seen in discussing the immediate origins of the conflict between Georgia and Russia is found at the Times Online in an August 11, 2008 article by Anatol Lieven titled Analysis: roots of the conflict between Georgia, South Ossetia and Russia. Lieven is "a professor at King’s College London and a senior Fellow of the New America Foundation in Washington DC. In 1990-96 he was a correspondent for The Times in the former Soviet Union, including Georgia".
Lieven writes in conclusion of his article, which should be recommended reading for all the ill-informed commentators one currently finds on the web:
"Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin made it clear again and again that if Georgia attacked South Ossetia, Russia would fight. Georgian advocates in the West claimed that Moscow was only bluffing. It wasn’t."
Many Europeans think that Georgia was at fault for the war, having intentionally and unforgivably chosen the opening days of the Olympic Games (when Bush and Putin were in China) to attack Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia .... thinking they could get away with it.
The Russian response was quite clear and expected. The actions of Georgia really left the Russians no other choice. Putin had been quoted as saying that the Russians would take this matter to its "logical conclusion". There is no way that the Russians could tolerate the destruction of Tskhinvali in this manner and the killing of thousands of people, many of them civilians, that it regards to be its citizens. It had no option but to take measures to protect South Ossetia and also Abkhazia.
Some of the responsibility for this entire conflict can be placed right at the feet of Western politicians, who, through their naive and gullible NATO posturing, led the Georgian regime into a sense of security that the actions that they took against Tskhinvali were not dangerous to them, because the West would protect them (the Baltic nations in past history always made this mistake of relying too much on the West for protection), and this would mean that the Russians would not or could not retaliate as they must do if they are to retain respect in their own immediate geographic region.
Unfortunately, this kind of numb diplomacy by the United States has precedent. The entire matter reminds one of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, which would not have happened if the USA had not given Iraq the wrong diplomatic message:
"On Wednesday July 25, 1990, the U.S. Ambassador in Iraq, April Glaspie, asked the Iraqi high command to explain the military preparations in progress, including the massing of Iraqi troops near the border. The American ambassador declared to her Iraqi interlocutor that Washington, “inspired by the friendship and not by confrontation, does not have an opinion” on the disagreement which opposes Kuwait to Iraq, stating "we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts". She also let Saddam Hussein know that the U.S. did not intend "to start an economic war against Iraq". These statements may have misled Saddam into believing he had received a diplomatic green light from the United States to invade Kuwait (New York Times, September 23, 1990)."
We need a higher learning curve in world politics in the Western nations.
__________
UPDATE
CNN picked up on this LawPundit posting at their featured From the Blogs (we clipped part of that CNN page and present it below):
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 8/12/2008 11:24:00 AM
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