MOSCOW, August 13 (RIA Novosti)
In South Ossetia, Russia employs Western know-how - expert / War with Georgia shows Russia's intense global isolation / No sense in recognizing South Ossetia and Abkhazia / Georgia's withdrawal won't mean much to CIS - experts / Authorities pleased with troops' performance in conflict area / Most Russians support the government's actions in South Ossetia
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
In South Ossetia, Russia employs Western know-how - expert
Moscow seems to have carefully learned all the lessons taught by the world's greatest powers over the past few years, said Vladislav Inozemtsev, the head of the Center for Postindustrial Studies, a Moscow-based think tank. First, when launching its offensive on Tkhinvali Georgia had no idea how wrong it was not to expect an immediate response from Russia. That response in fact followed to the letter a scheme developed by Western powers and tested in Yugoslavia, East Timor and other hot spots.
Second, Moscow successfully used more than just rhetoric, but performed a real-life "humanitarian intervention," the expert said. Russia must have understood that the widely criticized Western doctrine could be used to its own advantage. President Dmitry Medvedev's rhetoric was a far cry from bold threats earlier issued by previous Russian governments, but a cool statement of Russia's intention to force Georgia to peace.
What we saw was a high-quality humanitarian intervention impeccably performed by Russia backed up by the UN-issued peacekeeping mandate, the expert said.
Third, Russia played within the framework of that favorite U.S. doctrine, "preemptive action." Even the strikes on Georgia's military bases located outside the conflict zone, which caused a public outcry in the West, cannot be criticized much, since those facilities could have been used against Russian forces.
This logic replicates what Israel used for the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981 and against Syria in 2007. It is what the U.S. did in Iraq in 2003 and wished it could do now to Iranian nuclear facilities.
It is the first time Russia has played Western-style, Inozemtsev argued. It did not break the limits the UN determined for its peacekeepers, as in 1999 when a Russian peacekeeping battalion stationed in Bosnia was promptly redeployed to Kosovo. It simply performed its mission insisting on purely humanitarian motives. It also pointed to its right to neutralize the opponent's fire-points if that opponent resisted the imposed peace.
As for the United States, it should reconsider its favorite maxim that democratic countries never act as aggressors.
Russia has learned its lessons well, although it might have seemed to be ignoring them in the past. This fact gives hope. There is no reason to believe that Medvedev is likely to bend to the influence to Russia's military and security chiefs, as some analysts had suggested. Using force where it has to be used to prevent the slaughter of a civilian population is evidence of the new president's highly adequate policies, the expert concluded.
Gazeta.ru
War with Georgia shows Russia's intense global isolation
The world community's response to the war in Georgia has put a logical limit on Russia's external policy of confrontation which it has pursued for the past few years.
The five-day war with Georgia has brought home to everybody that Russia lacks geopolitical resources to act as "a fair-minded international policeman." Practically no country in the world, not even in the post-Soviet space, has given direct and unqualified support to its actions, showing up the negative results of Russia's foreign policy of recent years.
With the Georgian army acting as it did in South Ossetia, there were reasons to believe that Russia really tried to make its military mission serve humanitarian values and protect a small nation against genocide. But none of the former Soviet republics, not even Belarus, gave their public support to Moscow.
All these past years Russia has been pointing to the Western world as almost its main civilization enemy. Of course, general disapproval of the Russian move can be taken as proof of the West's lack of morals. The intervention in Georgia is so much like humanitarian interventions by Western countries, and moreover is seen as such in Russia, so the worldwide condemnation of its actions appears cynical to Moscow.
Russia has failed either to buy any allies for itself or provide an example for others to follow. No one believed Russia was unwilling to topple Saakashvili, because the Kremlin had tried too hard to take part in elections now in Ukraine and now in Abkhazia, where only last-minute efforts helped to avoid a war in Abkhazia over the Putin team's refusal to concede Sergei Bagapsh's victory over their placeman Raul Hadjimba.
In such conditions, the "humanitarian military mission" is perceived only as a strong-arm development of the great-power rhetoric of a country trying to restore the worst features of the Soviet empire. When Russian troops in Georgia tried to protect the right of a people to life, so understandable in the West, the world by inertia refused to believe in the sincerity of Russian efforts.
Dmitry Medvedev's responsible and courageous decision to end the war is perhaps the first that he made on his own, without looking over his shoulder at the prime minister, which gives Russia a historical chance to clearly formulate its values, and not to base its policy on the denial of others', as it has done until now. Russia will gain allies only when Russian diplomats persuade the world of the justice of its interests, rather than be rude and point to the gas tap.
Vremya Novostei
No sense in recognizing South Ossetia and Abkhazia
Russia will not spur the formal recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia's independence after its military conflict with Georgia, Russian analysts say.
"I do not think Russia will hasten to determine the status of both South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Georgia may go through the change of power and demilitarization and may remain a neutral state," said Alexei Arbatov, director of the Center for International Security of Institute for World Economics and International Relations.
"In this case, there will be no need to dispute Georgia's territorial integrity - although of course both enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia will have a special status, being de facto self-governed."
"What is currently happening in the Caucasus region shows a very significant tendency for 'resetting conflicts', to use a computer term," said Sergei Markedonov, head of the department for interethnic relations of the Institute for Political and Military Analysis.
"The first territorial rearrangement occurred after the U.S.S.R.'s collapse, and now we are witnessing the beginning of the second rearrangement caused by conflicts of the independent countries' development. Russia could establish its own rules of the game - however I think that any formal recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia is not a task of prime importance, even after the events that have occurred. The two regions leaving Georgia will be enough, with the time further being on their side. Back in the day, Israel was put a great deal of pressure upon as well for its activities in the Middle East, but the country's interests were finally recognized."
"It is now important for Russia to show that we did not send our troops to Tbilisi, and this will break some of the West's stereotypes," he said.
"It is too soon to initiate any discussion on the two territories' status. The further events will speak for themselves," said Konstantin Kosachyov, head of the State Duma's international affairs committee.
"Even after this war, fomenting tensions over the status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, let alone recognizing their independence, would be absurd. For Russia it would mean a steel trap in the south, the country staying alone. We cannot do this - if anything, we cannot be so hasty about it," said Alexei Malashenko, member of the scientific council for the Carnegie Moscow Center.
Gazeta.ru
Georgia's withdrawal won't mean much to CIS - experts
The termination of the South Ossetian war announced by the Russian president Tuesday coincided with [Georgian President] Mikheil Saakashvili's statement that Georgia was pulling out of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and call for Ukraine and other former Soviet republics to follow suit.
Although the CIS pullout rhetoric is psychologically and politically important for the Georgian president, it isn't for the CIS, analysts said.
A comment by Anatoly Adamishin, former minister for CIS affairs, boiled down to one phrase: "It doesn't mean anything to us."
"It is a purely political demarche," said Vladimir Zharikhin, deputy director of the CIS Institute. "Georgia will have all the problems, but other CIS countries won't."
"It won't affect Russia at all," said Alexei Vlasov, deputy head of the Moscow-based Center for Social and Political Processes in Post-Soviet Countries. "The CIS has long turned into an official negotiation table for bilateral projects and integration groups like the Eurasec." According to him, the CIS isn't functional anyway and it will remain so with Georgia or without it.
Experts doubt the CIS will eventually collapse by virtue of a domino effect, although they admit that all the CIS leaders are still thinking of what happened in Georgia. "But who will go?" Vlasov wondered. "Apart from Saakashvili, there are Azerbaijan, Moldova and Ukraine. Unlike in Georgia, Ukraine's political elite is disunited, and the decision to withdraw from the CIS might not go through parliament. Moldova is ready to compromise on the Transdnestr area. And Azerbaijan, which is highly concerned over its own position and the oil transportation contracts through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, won't venture any radical moves either."
Vedomosti
Gazeta.ru
Authorities pleased with troops' performance in conflict area
The Russian leadership believes military service personnel have fulfilled their task in the South Ossetian conflict zone. Their success came from rapid marching in, supremacy in the air, and throwing the enemy's support structures into confusion.
Independent analysts disagree.
No new Russian casualty figures were officially released on Tuesday, while those for Sunday were announced by Deputy Chief of the General Staff Anatoly Nogovitsyn: 33 people killed and 12 missing. Four planes were shot down. The Georgian side did not disclose its losses, but, according to Georgia's Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili, hundreds died.
The Russian army has lost several dozen armored vehicles, counting peacekeepers' equipment destroyed in the early hours of the Georgian attack on Tskhinvali, said a Defense Ministry source, but this had no effect on the fulfillment of combat tasks. They were achieved because considerable forces had been introduced into South Ossetia two days previously, otherwise Georgian forces could have sealed the Rok Tunnel, the only access route to the region, and invasion would have lost any sense, said a Vedomosti source.
The Georgian army is a serious opponent. It was trained by American advisers as a modern professional army, its soldiers are well-motivated and it is even better equipped than the Russian army, especially as regards night-vision devices and personal equipment, said Igor Korotchenko, a member of the Defense Ministry's Public Council.
The fact that Russia has been able to turn the tables shows that the troops of the North Caucasian Military District have also been well trained in recent years. Among other factors, supremacy in the air helped the Russian army, allowing it to throw the Georgian army's support structures into confusion, he said.
Command and control of the Georgian army was partially lost, as Monday's panic in Gori showed: Georgian troops abandoned their equipment as they fled the town, even though Russians did not attack, said a Defense Ministry source.
The opinions of independent analysts about the Russian army's actions are directly opposite. "The nature of hostilities causes much puzzlement because it points to the sides being of about the same strength," said Alexander Krylov, leading research fellow at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of World Economy and International Relations.
According to him, "this points to the pitiable state of our army. The most important thing is that for three days running our army has been unable to silence artillery guns that shell the road."
"From a military point of view, our army has not demonstrated an overwhelming edge over the enemy. Rather, it looks as though the sides are equal, and the war is likely to run for a long time yet," the analyst said.
Kommersant
Most Russians support the government's actions in South Ossetia
A survey conducted by sociologists at the analytical Levada-Center on August 9-10 shows that the overwhelming majority of Russians sympathize with South Ossetia and approve of the Kremlin's line in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict.
Political analysts believe that the current consolidation of society allows the Kremlin to translate any initiative in internal or external policy into life.
However, such "nationwide approval" is not lasting as a rule.
Russians have been traditionally sympathetic to South Ossetia and Abkhazia. They regard these self-proclaimed republics as "Russia's allies and partners," while Georgia is seen in mass consciousness as a "threat to Russia's interests," and a larger threat than the United States. In June 2008, 53% of the respondents thought so about Georgia and 49% about the United States.
Since the start of military operation, only 2% of the respondents retained their sympathy for Georgia (3%, as adjusted for statistical error). In September 2004, only 36% of the respondents admitted their sympathy for South Ossetia, while the present figure is 71%.
Russians are also pondering the future of the self-proclaimed republic: 46% think that the best way for South Ossetia is to enter the Russian Federation (against 34% in July 2007), while 33% see it as an independent state (32% in 2007). Only 4% of the respondents recommend that it should stay within Georgia (9% in 2007).
Political analysts call this consolidation of public opinion, which was recently confirmed by the parliamentary parties' approval of President Dmitry Medvedev's actions, "rallying round the flag."
Boris Makarenko, deputy director general of the Political Technologies Center, says that this always happens when the country finds itself in a difficult situation, like it was, for example, after the blasts in Moscow in 1999 that destroyed apartment houses and the terrorist attack in Beslan in 2004.
The analyst says that the "rallying round the flag" effect gives the authorities "the right to take any decisions." However, this right is not a license for erroneous decisions, because "such rallying is not lasting."
Later, Russians diametrically changed their opinion of the military operation in Chechnya approved by them after the Moscow blasts in 1999. In the same way, people now are revising their attitude to the cancellation of gubernatorial elections favored by most of them after the Beslan tragedy.
Therefore, Makarenko says, the Kremlin decisions "must be cleverly devised now, and the policy of the last few years pursued by Russia in relations with South Ossetia fully revised."
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