Conflict in the Caucasus

The latest Russian invasion of Georgia--following the examples provided by tsars Paul I and his successor Alexander I (in 1801) and Soviet dictator Vladimir Lenin (in 1921, three years after Georgia first gained modern independence)--has fully revealed the character of post-Soviet neo-imperialism under Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

The Kremlin's master, his puppet president Dmitry Medvedev, and their supporters are obviously committed to reversing the dissolution of the Soviet empire after 1991, with an ambition and ferocity previously absent among the successors to the Communist dictators. But no one can really have been surprised by the assault on Georgia. It was clearly on the Russian agenda beginning early in 2004, when American-educated and Western-oriented attorney Mikheil Saakashvili was elected Georgia's president after the peaceful "Rose Revolution." Military expert Ralph Peters, in a briefing at the American Enterprise Institute on August 13, argued persuasively that the speed of Russia's latest rape of Georgia demonstrated that the aggressor's armed forces were ready and waiting for Putin's signal to act.

Georgia's transition toward democracy coincided with the similar Orange Revolution in Ukraine and Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan. All of them piqued the anger of Putin, who wanted less rather than more self-determination in the former Soviet states. But Georgia and Ukraine had taken further measures to consolidate their Western alignment, by applying for membership in the NATO alliance. Some commentators imply that Russian interference in Georgia was spurred by Western recognition of the independence of Kosovo in February 2008. But a much more serious contributing fact was NATO's decision at the Bucharest conference in April, impelled by Germany and France under Russian influence, to reject Georgian and Ukrainian membership in the defense organization.

President George W. Bush had lobbied for the eastward extension of NATO. Georgia had joined the Partnership for Peace--considered by most countries a step toward NATO membership--in 1992, and applied for full accession in 2002, but Ukraine had delayed its application until early this year. Exclusion of the two former Soviet possessions was a clear signal to Putin that Moscow could begin a brutal reassertion of domination over them.

In pursuing this aim, Putin, trained as an officer of the Soviet secret police, carried out a series of actions, each of which should have been enough to warn the world of his intentions. Secessionist movements had been subsidized by the Russians since the early 1990s in Abkhazia, where Russian "peacekeepers" were stationed in 1993, and in South Ossetia, where some residents took Russian rather than Georgian citizenship, even though Ossetians are not Slavs, but a Christian people of Iranian origin. Both of these territories have belonged to Georgia for millennia. But they had been granted fake "autonomy" under Soviet rule, to fragment the Georgian majority, which is also non-Slav. The Abkhazians are related to the Georgians, and include Muslims as well as Christians.

The years since the Rose Revolution, and especially since the rejection of Georgian and Ukrainian admission to NATO, have seen a rising Russian policy of provocation against Georgia, the weaker of the two aspirants to Western defense links. In 2006, mysterious explosions cut off the Russian supply of natural gas to Georgia. Mainly rhetorical tensions continued until April 2008, when Russian harassment increased.

Russia announced that it would recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia as separate entities from Georgia, integrating Abkhazia's Black Sea transport facilities into the Russian air and maritime infrastructure, and proposing construction of a new gas pipeline in the coastal region. The same month, Russia's Abkhazian agents shot down a Georgian air force drone. In July, respected Russian military journalist Pavel Felgenhauer warned that a Russian-provoked war would break out in Georgia in August. His prediction was ignored in the West.

As for Saakashvili's responsibility in the situation, the Georgian president had been pressed to a point where a failure to act to protect his country's territorial integrity would have indicated surrender to Moscow without a fight.