Georgia

You don’t pay attention too much over the weekend, and a country gets invaded by Russia.

Over the last few days the simmering tensions in the break away Georgian region of South Ossetia broke into outright hot war.

The region has declared itself independent since 1993, although on the map it has been part of Georgia, although after the fall of the Soviet Union the newly created country of Georgia has never had the capability to do much about it.

Russia has claimed to support the people of South Ossetia, and has had peacekeeping troops in the province.

This changed when the Georgian military launched an offensive last Thursday. I suspect that they thought that they could pull it off without Russian intervention. This was certainly the opinion of Douglas Muir over at ‘A Fistful of Euros’ who argued:

That last point bears emphasizing. There’s just one road, and it goes through a tunnel. There are a couple of crappy roads over the high passes, but they’re in dreadful condition; they can’t support heavy equipment, and are closed by snow from September to May. Strategically, South Ossetia dangles by that single thread.
So, there was always this temptation: a fast determined offensive could capture Tsikhinvali, blow up or block the tunnel, close the road, and then sit tight. If it worked, the Russians would then be in a very tricky spot: yes, they outnumber the Georgians 20 to 1, but they’d have to either drop in by air or attack over some very high, nasty mountains. This seems to be what the Georgians are trying to do: attack fast and hard, grab Tsikhinvali, and close the road.

They seem to have underestimated the size and power of the Russian response, as Robert Farley reported over at ‘Lawyers, Guns and Money’ the Russians managed to move 650 armoured vehicles into South Ossetia, more than that possessed by the entire Georgian military. In addition CNN have been reporting Russian plans bombing the capital of Georgia.

Obviously things have not turned out well for Georgia, which was a one stage angling for membership of NATO. But the bigger message here is the willingness of Russia to go to war with its neighbours. This was not a police action, but a full scale invasion of another country. Russia is regaining its mojo after the fall of the Soviet Union, and I don’t think anything good can come of it.