[R-G] A war waiting to happen

Mon Aug 11 11:38:24 MDT 2008

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/JG16Ag01.html
Jul 16, 2008
A war waiting to happen
By F William Engdahl

The Caucasus Republic of Georgia, as nations go, is not apparently a  
major global player. Yet Washington has invested huge sums and  
organized to put its own despot, Mikhail Saakashvili, in the  
presidency in order to close a nuclear North Atlantic Treaty  
Organization (NATO) iron ring around Russia.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited the capital Tbilisi and  
made sharp statements against Moscow for supporting the separatist  
Georgian states of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, in essence blaming  
Moscow for an imminent war Washington has incited in order to bring  
Georgia into NATO by the December NATO summit.

Western media have either tended to ignore the growing tensions in the  
strategic Caucasus region or to suggest, as Rice does, that the entire  
conflict is being caused by Moscow's support of the "breakaway"  
republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In reality, a quite different  
chess game is being played in the region, one which has the potential  
to detonate a major escalation of tensions between Moscow and NATO.

The underlying issue is the fact that since the dissolution of the  
Warsaw Pact in 1991, one after the other former members as well as  
former states of the USSR have been coaxed and in many cases bribed  
with false promises by Washington into joining the counter  
organization, NATO.

Rather than initiate discussions after the 1991 dissolution of the  
Warsaw Pact about a systematic dissolution of NATO, Washington has  
systematically converted NATO into what can only be called the  
military vehicle of an American global imperial rule, linked by a  
network of military bases from Kosovo to Poland to Turkey to Iraq and  
Afghanistan.

In 1999, former Warsaw Pact members Hungary, Poland and the Czech  
Republic joined NATO. Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania  
and Slovakia followed in March 2004. Now Washington is putting immense  
pressure on the European Union members of NATO, especially Germany and  
France, that they vote in December to admit Georgia and Ukraine.

The Georgia-Abkhazia military picture

The present escalation of tensions in the region began in May when  
Abkhazia said it had shot down two Georgian drones over its airspace.  
The announcement came two weeks after Georgia accused Russia of  
shooting down an unmanned drone over Abkhazia, which Tbilisi considers  
its sovereign territory. Moscow has denied involvement.

Russia has administered a peacekeeping contingent in Abkhazia and  
South Ossetia since bloody conflicts in the 1990s, and sent additional  
troops to Abkhazia recently to deter what it calls a planned Georgian  
military offensive. The two sides, Georgia and Abkhazia, have been in  
a state of suspended conflict since 1993, when Abkhaz separatists,  
backed by Russian forces, succeeded in driving the Georgians out of  
the province.

Tbilisi claims sovereignty over Abkhazia and South Ossetia and refers  
to both as "breakaway republics". In 2001, Georgian troops joined with  
anti-Moscow mujahideen-trained Chechyn soldiers from neighboring  
Russian Muslim province of Chechnya to mount a military attack,  
unsuccessfully, against Abkhazia.

In an analysis of what a possible military clash, short of nuclear war  
between Russia and NATO might look like, the Russian government's RIA  
Novosti military commentator, Ilya Kramnik, laid out the array of  
forces on both sides. In late 2007, the Georgian armed forces had  
about 33,000 officers and men, including a 22,000-strong army that  
comprised five brigades and eight detached battalions. These units had  
over 200 tanks, including 40 T-55 and 165 T-72 main battle tanks that  
are currently being overhauled.

Kramnik says that the Georgian military faces a 10,000-strong  
Abkhazian Self Defense Force with 60 tanks, including 40 T-72s, and 85  
artillery pieces and mortars, including several dozen with a 122-152mm  
caliber and 116 armored vehicles of different types, numerous anti- 
tank weapons ranging from RPG-7 rocket launchers to Konkurs-M anti- 
tank guided missiles (ATGMs). The Abkhazian navy has over 20 motor  
boats armed with machine-guns and small-caliber cannons.

But most decisive, as was shown in the experience of the 1992-1993  
Georgian-Abkhazian conflict, even small units can resist superior  
enemy forces in mountainous areas for a long time. Consequently, the  
outcome of any hypothetical conflict would depend on the aggressors'  
level of military training and the influence of third parties,  
primarily Russian units from the Collective Commonwealth of  
Independent States Peacekeeping Force. Georgia's armed forces are  
notoriously corrupt and poorly trained.

Although the United States has trained several crack Georgian units in  
the past few years, the fighting effectiveness of all other elements  
is uncertain. There are no trained sergeants, and troop morale is  
running low. Only about 50% of the military equipment is operational,  
and coordinated operations in adverse conditions are impossible.

The Abkhazian armed forces pack a more devastating punch because they  
would resist an aggressor that has already tried to deprive the  
republic of its independence. And Abkhazian units are commanded by  
officers trained at Russian military schools. Many of them fought in  
the early 1990s. Most analysts agree that the combat-ready Abkhazian  
army does not suffer from corruption. Moscow has recently beefed up  
the local peace-keeping contingent. Neighboring Caucasus states  
including North Ossetia side with Abkhazia and are ready to take on  
Georgia.

Moscow's possible strategy

Moscow has stepped up ties with the two small republics against the  
backdrop of Georgia's NATO bid and Western recognition of Kosovo's  
independence from Serbia. Russia, however, has not formally recognized  
Abkhazia or South Ossetia.

Moscow has long backed Abkhazia's de facto independence however. It  
has granted Russian citizenship to many of its residents and recently  
legalized economic ties with the separatist republic. For Russia, the  
conflict provides a source of leverage on both Abkhazia and Georgia.  
The more Georgia seeks to distance itself from Russia, the more Russia  
throws its weight behind Abkhazia.

However, Georgia under Washington's man, strongman President Mikhail  
Saakashvili - a pretty ruthless dictator as he recently showed against  
domestic opposition - refuses to back off its provocative NATO bid.

Georgia is also a strategic transit country for the Anglo-American  
Caspian oil pipeline from Baku in Azerbaijan through Georgia to the  
Turkish port of Ceyhan. As well, the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas pipeline  
has been key to Azerbaijan as an alternative to the control of the  
Russian state monopoly Transneft in order to convey its oil and gas  
resources toward the West. The entire Caucasus is part of what can be  
described as a new Great Game for control of Eurasia between  
Washington and Russia.

As the Moscow Times sees it, "One way to disrupt Georgia's NATO  
aspirations would be to heat up the conflict in Abkhazia to a level  
that would make it unacceptable for the Western alliance, which acts  
by the consensus of all members, to offer membership. Georgia's  
leadership could be escalating tensions in hope of prompting Abkhazia  
and Russia to make a move that would leave the West with no chance but  
to intervene.

"Regardless of the motivation, whoever is stoking the conflict must  
realize that they are playing with fire. This brinkmanship can lead to  
a full-fledged war. Georgia would probably lose a war if Russia backed  
Abkhazia, while Russia would lose its hope of becoming a benign global  
player and would risk seriously straining its ties with the European  
Union and the United States."

Rice adds gasoline to the fire

The George W Bush administration is adding gasoline to the fire in the  
Caucasus. In Tbilisi on July 10, Rice told the press, "Russia needs to  
be a part of resolving the problem and solving the problem and not  
contributing to it. I have said it to the Russians publicly. I have  
said it privately."

The effect of her comments, blaming Moscow for the escalating  
tensions, is to signal US support for the Georgia side in their  
efforts to force Russian troops from South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

In May, Abkhaz President Sergei Bagapsh said he was willing to  
conclude a military treaty with Moscow similar to that between the US  
and Taiwan. "Abkhazia will propose to Russia the signing of a military  
treaty that would guarantee security to our republic," Bagapsh stated.  
"We are also prepared to host Russian military bases on our territory  
within the framework of this treaty. I would like to emphasize that  
this would not go against the precedents already existing in  
international practice. For instance, this treaty could be analogous  
to the treaty between the US and Taiwan."

Just as Moscow refuses to recognize the sovereignty of Kosovo, so  
Washington refuses to admit the sovereignty of Abkhazia. In May, a  
senior US State Department delegation was in Abkhazia, meeting with  
local non-governmental organizations (NGOs)there as well as the  
president. In the past, from Serbia to Georgia to Ukraine, Washington  
intelligence agencies have used NGOs, including the George Soros- 
financed Open Society foundations, the US Congress-financed National  
Endowment for Democracy, the Central Intelligence Agency-linked  
Freedom House and Gene Sharp's misleadingly-named Albert Einstein  
Institution to steer a wave of regime changes which became known as  
"color revolutions".

In each case, the new regime was pro-Washington and anti-Moscow, as in  
the case of Saakashvili in Georgia and Viktor Yushchenko in Ukraine.  
Both countries began seeking NATO entry after the success of the US- 
financed color revolutions.

In all this, Washington is definitely playing with potential nuclear  
fire by escalating pressure to push Georgia and Ukraine into NATO.  
Czech Foreign Minister Karl Schwarzenberg on July 8 signed an  
agreement allowing US deployment of special radar facilities on Czech  
soil as part of the top-secret US "missile defense" it alleges is  
aimed at rogue missile threats from Iran.

As even former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger recently pointed  
out, the Bush administration's categorical refusal to pursue the 2007  
counter-offer of then-president Vladimir Putin to station US radar at  
the Russian-leased reconnaissance facility in Azerbaijan instead, was  
a provocative mistake.

It makes abundantly clear that Washington is aiming its military  
strategy at the dismantling of Russia as a potential adversary. That  
is a recipe for a possible nuclear war by miscalculation. Rice's  
latest Caucasus and Czech visit only added to that growing danger.

F William Engdahl is author of the book A Century of War: Anglo- 
American Oil Politics and the New World Order and is finishing a book,  
provisionally titled, The New Cold War: Behind the US Drive for Full  
Spectrum Dominance. He may be reached via his website, www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net