Why Would Russia Stand Down Now When Georgia Is Ready To Fall?
It seems that Russia has decided to stand down in Georgia, at least for now. The Russian president Dmitri Mevedev has called for a sort of vease fire:
MOSCOW – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered a halt to military action in Georgia on Tuesday, after five days of air and land attacks that took Russian forces deep into its small U.S.-allied neighbor in the Caucasus.
Medvedev said on national television that the military had punished Georgia enough for its attack on South Ossetia. Georgia launched an offensive late Thursday to regain control over the separatist Georgian province, which has close ties to Russia.
“The security of our peacekeepers and civilians has been restored,” Medvedev said. “The aggressor has been punished and suffered very significant losses. Its military has been disorganized.”
The Russian president, however, said he ordered the military to defend itself and quell any signs of Georgian resistance.
It’s not hard to read between the lines here. The “aggressor has been punished….” Translation – we’ve made our point. All you upstart democracies on our borders hear this – we won’t tolerate too much posturing on your parts and inclusion in NATO is unacceptable.
Note that he’s also opened the door for the military to “defend itself.” Translation: We’ll probably stay right where we are for now, Georgian soil or not and if you make a move against us we’ll finish what we started. You’ve just become a semi-occupied country.
And if there is any doubt about what the ultimate goal was from the first shot fired, check out this statement:
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said earlier Tuesday that Georgia’s President Mikhail Saakashvili should leave office and that Georgian troops should stay out of South Ossetia permanently.
Moscow will not talk to Saakashvili, Lavrov said; the best thing for Saakashvili to do “would be to step down.” But he said Moscow has not made Saakashvili’s departure a condition for ending hostilities.
Translation: We want a sock puppet. Period. And until you give us one we’re not going anywhere.
Russia will get away with this one. Mostly. There’s only one problem with their whole little plan. This isn’t Prague in 1968 regardless of the comparisons being made. In 1968 it was easy to tell your side of the story, stick to it, and most people would just have to swallow what you put out.
That’s not the case anymore. Now the internet and cell phones have opened up people’s access to information like never before. It’s harder to shovel the party line down people’s throats when they can pull up news sites from all over the world and get the other side of the story. I have to wonder if all the bad press they were getting is one reason the Russians stopped the actual takeover of Georgia.
It would have been an easy thing to do for them militarily. Georgia never stood a chance from the start. So…why quit when Georgia could have been in their back pocket in days? And I don’t think an attack of the conscience had much to do with it.
I think it got out of control too fast and Russia found herself the focus of some very negative attention. They’ve won militarily but have painted themselves in a corner by doing so. Now they’ll just have to hold what they have for a while before they start to pull back. They have to save face, and the best way to do that is through bluster and demands.
I could be wrong, but what the Georgian military couldn’t do, mass communication on a global scale did. The Russians may have just taught Georgia a military lesson but they may have learned one of a different sort themselves.
The days of fooling all the people all the time are over.
