June 5, 2009
EurasiaNet // Eurasia Insight
Abstract:
Given the vitriolic exchanges between Tbilisi and Moscow at the outset, the conclusion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s military exercises in Georgia was somewhat of an anti-climax.
The May 6-June 3 NATO exercises concluded with a simulation of how the world would respond to a conflict between the fictitious countries of Emerald and Onyx on make-believe Jewelry Island. NATO trainers maintain the scenario had no association with Georgia’s 2008 war with Russia. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
Georgian Defense Ministry representatives did not respond to written questions about the exercises’ significance for Georgia in time for publication. Georgian Defense Minister Davit Sikharulidze is currently on a trip to Washington, DC.
Influential Russian political scientist Alexander Dugin, a reported confidante of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, had already delivered one interpretation from Moscow, however. Emboldened by NATO’s backing, Georgia may now attempt to bring breakaway South Ossetia and Abkhazia back into its fold, Dugin told RTVi television in a recent interview. In response, Dugin advised, Moscow should pick up where it left off last year, and "wipe [the Georgian government] off the face of earth."...
May 8, 2009
The Jamestown Foundation // Eurasia Daily Monitor
Abstract:
The situation in Georgia appears to be deteriorating rapidly. Last month the Georgian opposition parties began street protests in an effort to force President Mikhail Saakashvili to resign. Since April 9 massive rallies by opposition supporters failed to compel Saakashvili to yield, and the number of demonstrators steadily decreased. Western diplomats repeatedly urged the Georgian opposition to begin a political dialogue with the authorities, but without any results, as the radical opposition continued to demand Saakashvili's unconditional resignation (www.civil.ge, April 28).
The stand-off continued without any serious violence until this week, when the Georgian authorities announced that they had thwarted a military coup. The Georgian Interior Ministry said that those involved in the plot had received money from Russia and were planning to disrupt the NATO military exercises, which began in Georgia on May 6 (Novosti-Gruzia, May 5). The mutiny occurred at a tank base at Mukhrovani -some 30 kilometers east of the capital Tbilisi. The rebels at Mukhrovani were surrounded by Interior Ministry Special units, with army artillery and armor, and Saakashvili arrived at the scene in a theatrical showdown -giving the rebels one hour to surrender, which they did without firing a shot. The rebel officers were arrested, while privates were disarmed. Saakashvili specifically praised the Georgian army artillery officers, who in his words not only surrounded the rebels with guns, but were also prepared to open fire and that their dedication facilitated the early capitulation (www.civil.ge, May 6)....
April 21, 2009
World Politics Review
Abstract:
Russia and NATO have been trying to "reset" their relations in parallel with the ongoing reconciliation between Washington and Moscow. Although progress along these lines has occurred, Russia-NATO differences over Georgia remain a major impediment. Belying Moscow's hopes that the new American administration and other NATO members might reduce support for the current Georgian government in order to secure Russian assistance regarding Afghanistan, Iran, and other issues, the alliance appears unwilling to abandon Tbilisi despite Russian threats and inducements.
NATO's decision to conduct a major military exercise, "Cooperative Longbow/Lancer-09," in Georgia from May 6 through June 1 has reignited the dispute. The drill will occur under the auspices of NATO's Partnership for Peace (PFP) program, which since 1994 has organized a series of joint defense-related activities, including military exercises, between NATO members and partner nations. Russian officials are threatening to boycott a May 7 meeting between Russian and NATO military commanders, the first since last summer, if the exercises take place.
Cooperative Longbow/Lancer-09 aims to improve interoperability among the participating militaries. Approximately 1,300 military personnel from 20 NATO member and partner countries are scheduled to take part in the two-part exercise. Cooperative Longbow-09 is a command post exercise, typically done by computer and other electronic means, involving approximately 650 military personnel. It aims to rehearse integrated staff work for large-scale crisis response actions by simulating support for a U.N.-mandated, NATO-led operation involving a multinational brigade. Cooperative Lancer-09, which will occur from May 18 to June 1, will involve field training by some 450 troops operating at the battalion level. Both stages will take place at Georgia's Vaziani military base, located 20 kilometers (12 miles) east of Tbilisi....
March 5, 2009
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
Abstract:
Officials urging displaced to go home, but they say their villages remain dangerous. Refugees from the August war with Russia say they are being pressured into returning home, despite being concerned for their own safety.
Officials say the villages are now safe and that return is voluntary, but refugees, who had been living in temporary accommodation near the capital, say they have been denied food aid, and told they can only receive more at home.
The war, when Russian troops pushed Georgian forces out of the rebel enclave of South Ossetia, left around 130,000 Georgians displaced. While many of them have returned to their homes voluntarily, 24,000 people are still sheltering elsewhere.
The government has built houses and supplied food for many of them, but others say they have been pressured to go back to their home villages, which the government has labelled as “due for repopulation”....
November 21, 2008
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
The New York Times has done it; so, recently, have European cease-fire monitors, the BBC and NPR. They, along with a host of other investigators, have looked once again into the events surrounding the Georgian incursion into South Ossetia on August 7, the incident that led to the massive Russian invasion of Georgia on August 8.
Their most important conclusion? Georgia started it and killed civilians in the process. My conclusion? We knew that already. We also knew, and have known for some time, that Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili is susceptible to extreme bouts of criminal foolhardiness. A year ago this month, he attacked demonstrators in Tbilisi with riot police, arrested opposition leaders and even smashed up a Rupert Murdoch-owned television station--possibly not, I wrote at the time, the best way to attract positive international media coverage. I'm told that Saakashvili--who did indeed overthrow the corrupt Soviet nomenklatura that ran his country--has many virtues. But caution, coolheadedness, respect for civilian lives and democratic norms are not among them.
Though Russia did not invade Georgia's capital, I have no doubt that their intention was to prove that they could have done so if they had wanted to--and that next time they will.
We knew that about him--and so did the Russians. That was why they spent much of the previous year taunting and teasing the Georgians, shooting down their planes, firing on their police officers, attacking their villages, all in an attempt to create a casus belli, either in South Ossetia or in Abkhazia, another Russian-dominated, semi-autonomous mini-enclave inside the Georgian territory. And when Saakashvili did what they were hoping he'd do, they were ready....
Georgia 
