The Georgia Crisis: Implications for the Partnership for Peace

Abstract

On 7 August 2008, Georgia attacked Tskhinvali, the capital city of South Ossetia, with heavy artillery, rocket launchers, and ground troops in an attempt to take control of the breakaway republic, which contained bases of both Russian and OSCE peacekeepers. Russia, claiming to be acting under the mandate of peace enforcement, pushed Georgia out of both South Ossetia and another breakaway Georgian republic, Abkhazia, and deep into Georgian territory. This created the potential for regime change, as the Russian Army appeared to be moving on Tbilisi with the intent of overthrowing Georgia’s democratically elected government. On 8 August 2008, Russian military forces crossed the Georgian border into South Ossetia and Abkhazia in a successful effort to repulse Georgian troops. The immediate casus belli for Russia was genocide, with claims that “over two thousand” South Ossetians had been killed by Georgian troops, along with the shooting of ten Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia, which necessitated a humanitarian and peace enforcement operation. The Russian advance included ground troops, tanks and armored personnel carriers, and air and sea operations, combined with coordinated kinetic and cyber attacks. Russian forces also crossed into Abkhazia in defense of their compatriots – 70 percent of the Abkhaz population of 220,000 are Russian passport holders, and 90 percent of the South Ossetian population of 70,000 are also Russian citizens. Russia continued its assault beyond the borders of the breakaway republics, advancing well into Georgia, capturing the strategic military base near Senaki, and proceeding as far as the Black Sea port city of Poti, to sink Georgian vessels and complete its naval blockade, destroying or removing military hardware and materiel along the way. The United States, along with the member states of NATO and the EU, understood this advance to constitute an escalation of the conflict and questioned Russia’s need to establish a “security zone” beyond the South Ossetian and Abkhazian borders inside Georgia proper. The short-term international response focused on brokering a ceasefire, sending humanitarian aid to Georgia and North Ossetia, increasing the presence of international monitors in the region, and returning the parties to their pre-conflict positions. Longer-term responses focused on analyzing the geo-strategic impact of the crisis on regional stability and on relations between Russia and the West, and consequently on developing an appropriate policy response. Both sides in the conflict attempted to claim legitimacy for their actions. For Georgia, the breakaway republics