Caucasus: The War That Was, The World War That Might Have Been
By Rick Rozoff, Global Research, 15 August 2009
Caucasus: The War That Was, The World War That Might Have Been
Politicizing Ethnicity: US Plan to Repeat Yugoslav Scenario in Caucasus
"An August 7 report from an Armenian news source substantiated that the
plans for last August’s war were on a far larger scale than merely
Georgia’s brutal onslaught against South Ossetia in an attempt to
conquer and subjugate it and later Abkhazia. Stating that neighboring
Azerbaijan was simultaneously planning for a war against Armenia over
Nagorno Karabakh, a political analyst was quoted as saying, "Armenia
would be in a state of war should Georgia’s plan not have failed in
2008," adding that "last year Azerbaijan thrice attempted attacks on
the NKR [the Nagorno Karabakh Republic], yet the attempts were
frustrated thanks to NKR forces."
Matthew Bryza has been one of the U.S.’s main point men in the South
Caucasus, the Caspian Sea Basin and Central Asia for the past twelve
years. From 1997-1998 he was an advisor to Ambassador Richard Morningstar,
coordinating U.S. efforts in the Caucasus and Central Asia as well as
in Southeastern Europe, particularly Greece and Turkey. Morningstar was
appointed by the Clinton administration as the first Special Advisor to
the President and Secretary of State on Assistance to the New
Independent States of the Former Soviet Union in 1995, then Special
Advisor to the President and the Secretary of State for Caspian Basin
Energy Diplomacy in 1998 and was one of the chief architects of U.S.
trans-Caspian strategic energy plans running from the Caspian Sea
through the South Caucasus to Europe. Among the projects he helped
engineer in that capacity was the Baku`Tbilisi`Ceyhan [BTC] oil
pipeline – "the world’s most political pipeline" – running from
Azerbaijan through Georgia to Turkey and the Mediterranean Sea.
Trans-Caspian, Trans-Eurasian Energy Strategy Crafted In The 1990s
In 1998 Bryza was Morningstar’s chief lieutenant in managing U.S.
Caspian Sea energy interests as Deputy to the Special Advisor to the
President and Secretary of State on Caspian Basin Energy Diplomacy,
where he remained until March of 2001, and he worked on developing what
are now U.S. and Western plans to circumvent Russia and Iran and
achieve dominance over the delivery of energy supplies to Europe.
Morningstar later became United States Ambassador to the European Union
from 1999-2001 and this April was appointed the Special Envoy of the
United States Secretary of State for Eurasian Energy, a position
comparable to that he had occupied eleven years earlier.
In 2005 the George W. Bush administration appointed Bryza Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs under
Condoleezza Rice, a post he holds to this day although he will soon be
stepping down, presumably to become the U.S. ambassador to Azerbaijan,
the nation that most vitally connects American geostrategic interests
in an arc that begins in the Balkans, runs through the Caucasus to the
Caspian Sea and then to Central and South Asia.
Last June Bryza delivered a speech called Invigorating the U.S.-Turkey
Strategic Partnership in Washington, DC and reflected on his then more
than a decade of work in advancing American energy, political and
military objectives along the southern flank of the former Soviet
Union. His address included the following revelations, the first in
reference to events in the 1990s:
"Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliyev and Kazakh President Nursultan
Nazarbayev welcomed international investors to help develop the Caspian
Basin’s mammoth oil and gas reserves. Then-Turkish President Suleyman
Demirel worked with these leaders, and with Georgian President Eduard
Shevardnadze, to develop a revitalized concept of the Great Silk Road
in the version of an East-West Corridor of oil and natural gas
pipelines.
"Our goal was to help the young independent states of these regions
[the Caucasus and Central Asia] secure their sovereignty and liberty by
linking them to Europe, world markets, and Euro-Atlantic institutions
via the corridor being established by the BTC and SCP [South Caucasus
Pipeline natural gas]pipelines….The Caucasus and Central Asia were
grouped with Turkey, which the Administration viewed as these
countries’ crucial partner in connecting with European and global
markets, and with Euro-Atlantic security institutions.
"[C]ooperation on energy in the late 1990’s formed a cornerstone of the
U.S.-Turkey strategic partnership, resulting in a successful ‘first
phase’ of Caspian development anchored by BTC for oil and SCP for gas.
Iraq War Part Of Previous Geopolitical Plans
"Today, we are focusing on the next phase of Caspian development,
looking to the Caspian Basin and Iraq to help reduce Europe’s
dependence on a single Russian company, Gazprom, which provides 25
percent of all gas consumed in Europe.
"Our goal is to develop a ‘Southern Corridor’ of energy infrastructure
to transport Caspian and Iraqi oil and gas to Turkey and Europe. The
Turkey-Greece-Italy (TGI) and Nabucco natural gas pipelines are key
elements of the Southern Corridor.
"Potential gas supplies in Turkmenistan and Iraq can provide the
crucial additional volumes beyond those in Azerbaijan to realize the
Southern Corridor. Washington and Ankara are working together with
Baghdad to help Iraq develop its own large natural gas reserves for
both domestic consumption and for export to Turkey and the EU." [1]
Bryza took no little personal credit for accomplishing the above
objectives, which as he indicated weren’t limited to a comprehensive
project of controlling if not monopolizing oil and natural gas flows to
Europe but also in the opposite direction to three of the world’s four
major energy consumers: China, India and Japan. Since the delivery of
the presentation from which the above is quoted the U.S. and its
Western European NATO allies have also launched the Nabucco natural gas
pipeline which intends to bring gas from, as Bryza mentioned, Iraq and
also eventually Egypt and possibly Algeria to Turkey where Caspian oil
and gas will arrive via Azerbaijan and Georgia.
Energy Transit Routes Used For Military Penetration Of Caucasus,
Central And South Asia
Previous articles in this series [2] have examined the joint
energy-geopolitical-military strategies the West is pursuing from and
through the sites of its three major wars over the past decade: The
Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Bryza himself made the connection in the above-cited speech of last
year:
"The East-West Corridor we had been building from Turkey and the Black
Sea through Georgia and Azerbaijan and across the Caspian became the
strategic air corridor, and the lifeline, into Afghanistan allowing the
United States and our coalition partners to conduct Operation Enduring
Freedom." [3]
His work and his political trajectory – paralleling closely that of his
fellow American Robert Simmons [4], former Senior Advisor to the United
States Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs
on NATO and current NATO Special Representative for the Caucasus and
Central Asia and Deputy Assistant Secretary General of NATO for
Security Cooperation and Partnership – has continued through four
successive U.S. administrations, those of George H.W. Bush, Bill
Clinton, George W. Bush and now Barack Obama, and has taken him from
the American embassy in Poland in 1989-1991 to that in Moscow in
1995-1997 to positions in the National Security Council, the White
House and the State Department.
While in his current State Department role Bryza has not only overseen
trans-Eurasian, tri-continental energy projects but has also been the
main liaison for building political and military ties with the South
Caucasus nations of Georgia and Azerbaijan and he remains the U.S.
co-chair of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
(OSCE) Minsk Group monitoring the uneasy peace around Nagorno Karabakh,
one of four so-called frozen conflicts in the former Soviet Union.
Although Azerbaijan is one of the interested parties in the conflict
and the nation’s president, Ilham Aliyev, routinely threatens war to
conquer Karabakh, often in the presence of top American military
commanders, aside from being a supposed impartial mediator with the
Minsk Group Bryza in his State Department role secured the use of an
Azerbaijani air base for the war in Afghanistan. In 2007 he stated,
`There are plenty of planes flying above Georgia and Azerbaijan towards
Afghanistan. Under such circumstances we want to have the possibility
of using the Azeri airfield.’ [5]
Bryza also recently announced that U.S. Marines were heading to Georgia
to train its troops for deployment to Afghanistan where in the words of
a Georgian official "First of all, our servicemen will gain combat
experience because they will be in the middle of combat action, and
that is a really invaluable experience.
`Secondly, it will be a heavy argument to support Georgia’s NATO
aspirations.’ [6]
Oil For War: US, NATO Caucasus Clients Register World’s Largest Arms
Build-Ups
During his four-year stint as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for
European and Eurasian Affairs he has focused on the South Caucasus, and
during that period Georgia’s war budget has ballooned from $30 million
a year when U.S.-educated Mikheil Saakashvili took power after the
nation’s "Rose Revolution" in 2004 to $1 billion last year, a more than
thirty fold increase.
In the same year, 2008, Azerbaijan’s military spending had grown from
$163 million the preceding year to $1,850,000,000, more than a 1000%
increase. In the words of the nation’s president last year, "And it
will increase in the years to come. The amount envisaged in the 2009
state budget will be even greater.’ [7]
Much of the money expended for both unprecedented build-ups came from
revenues derived from oil sales and transit fees connected with the BTC
pipeline Bryza was instrumental in setting up.
Pentagon’s Role In Last August’s Caucasus War
Regarding neighboring Georgia, a German press report on the second day
of last August’s war between that nation and Russia stated that "US
Special Forces troops, and later US Marines replacing them, have for
the last half decade been systematically training selected Georgian
units to NATO standards" and "First-line Georgian soldiers wear NATO
uniforms, kevlar helmets and body armour matching US issue, and carry
the US-manufactured M-16 automatic rifle…." [8]
On the first day of the war the Chairman of the Russia’s State Duma
Security Committee, Vladimir Vasilyev, denounced the fact that the
Georgian President Saakashvili "undertook consistent steps to increase
[Georgia’s] military budget from $US 30 million to $US 1 billion –
Georgia was preparing for a military action.’ [9]
An Armenian news source the same day detailed that "Most of Georgia’s
officers were trained in the U.S. or Turkey. The country’s military
expenses increased by 30 times during past four years, making up 9-10
per cent of the GDP. The defense budget has reached $1 billion.
"U.S. military grants to Georgia total $40.6 million. NATO member
states, including Turkey and Bulgaria, supplied Georgia with 175 tanks,
126 armored carriers, 67 artillery pieces, 4 warplanes, 12 helicopters,
8 ships and boats. 100 armored carriers, 14 jets (including 4
Mirazh-2000) fighters, 15 Black Hawk helicopters and 10 various ships
are expected to be conveyed soon." [10]
"The procurement in recent years of new military hardware and modern
weapons systems was indeed in line with Georgia’s single-minded
commitment to joining NATO." [11]
In addition to the country’s standing army the Saakashvili regime has
introduced a 100,000-troop reserve force, also trained in part by NATO.
In 2006 Saakashvili mandated a system of universal conscription in
which "every man under 40 must pass military trainings" [12] and every
citizen should `know to handle arms and if necessary should be ready to
repel aggression.’ [13]
Ten months later the government announced `a doctrine on total and
unconditional defense’ and that "service in the reserve troops would be
compulsory for every male between the ages of 27 to 50." [14]
Matthew Bryza and his colleagues in the State Department and the
Pentagon have served American and NATO interests in the South Caucasus
and adjoining areas well over the past decade.
First US-Backed War In The South Caucasus: Adjaria
On August 10 Bryza, "who, as he himself put it, was a more frequent
guest to Georgia than any other U.S. official," [15] was awarded the
Order of the Golden Fleece by Georgia’s Saakashvili in Tbilisi.
"Saakashvili thanked Bryza for assistance rendered in 2004 while
solving problems in Adjaria." [16]. The allusion is to events early in
that year when Saakashvili, flanked by then U.S. Secretary of State
Colin Powell, was inaugurated president after the putsch that was
called the Rose Revolution and introduced his party flag as that of the
nation, which as British journalist John Laughlin remarked at the time
had not been done since Hitler did the same with the swastika in 1933.
Less than two months later Saakashvili threatened to invade the
Autonomous Republic of Adjaria (Adjara), which had been de facto an
independent country, and to "shoot down my plane" as Adjarian president
Aslan Abashidze reported.
An Agence France-Presse report in March of 2004 said, "The situation
was made all the more explosive because Russia has a military base in
Adjara….Saakashvili warned in televised comments that ‘not a single
tank can leave the territory of the base. Any movement of Russia’s
military equipment could provoke bloodshed.’" [17]
An all-out war was only avoided because Russia capitulated and even
flew Abashidze to Moscow, after which it withdrew from the Adjarian
base.
Bryza’s assistance to the Saakashvili government has also extended to
backing it in its armed conflicts with Abkhazia and South Ossetia,
which in the second case escalated into all-out war a year ago.
State Department Passes The Baton To Veteran Balkans Hand
Now Bryza, the nominal mediator, is going to pass his role as Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs to Tina
Kaidanow.
But he will continue until next month as the US co-chairman of the OSCE
Minsk Group on Nagorno Karabakh, where as recently as August 12 he met
with Azerbaijani President Aliyev and either arbitrarily expanding the
format of discussions or combining his dual functions he also discussed
"bilateral relationship between Azerbaijan and the United States,
energy cooperation and regional and international issues." [18]
It was also Bryza who recently announced that U.S. Marines were headed
to Georgia to train troops for the war in Afghanistan. "Matt Bryza, the
outgoing US deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and
Eurasian affairs, said the US would provide training and equipment for
Georgian servicemen bound for Afghanistan." [19]
As seen earlier, a Georgian official said of the development that
"First of all, our servicemen will gain combat experience because they
will be in the middle of combat action, and that is a really invaluable
experience," [20] which training under fire could only be intended for
future combat operations against Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Russia.
Bryza has also played a role in attempting to insinuate European Union
and American observers into the South Caucasus conflict zones.
His successor in the State Department position, Kaidanow, possesses a
political curriculum vitae which provides insight into what can be
expected from her.
This April, before getting the nod to replace Bryza, Kaidanow said "I
Aworked in Serbia, in Belgrade and in Sarajevo, then in Washington, and
I went back to Sarajevo and am now in Kosovo. I don’t know where my
next challenge will be. It is under discussion." [21]
Ms. Kaidanow is a veteran Balkans hand. She "served extensively in the
region, as Special Assistant to U.S. Ambassador Christopher Hill in
Skopje [Macedonia] 1998-1999, with specific responsibilities focused on
the crisis in Kosovo…." [22] Before that she served in Bosnia from
1997-1998.
Prior to that her first major post in the U.S. foreign policy apparatus
began under President Bill Clinton, where she served as director for
Southeast European Affairs at the National Security Council.
Kaidanow: From Rambouillet To Ambassador To Kosovo
After transitioning from advising the National Security Council on the
Balkans to implementing the U.S. agenda there, Kaidanow attended the
Rambouillet conference in February of 1999 where the American
delegation headed by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright threw down
the gauntlet to Yugoslavia with the infamous Appendix B ultimatum and
set the stage for the 78-day war that began on March 24.
From 2003-2006 she was back in Bosnia, this time as Deputy Chief of
Mission at the U.S. Embassy, from where she departed to become the
Chief of Mission and Charge d’Affaires at the U.S. Office in Kosovo
from July 2006 to July 2008; that is, while the Bush administration put
the finishing touches to the secession of the Serbian province which
resulted in the unilateral independence of Kosovo in February of 2008.
Despite concerted pressure from Washington and its allies, a year and a
half later 130 of 192 nations in the world refuse to recognize its
independence and those who do include statelets like Palau, the
Maldives, the Federated States of Micronesia, Samoa, San Marino,
Monaco, Nauru, Liechtenstein and the Marshall Islands, presumably all
paid handsomely for their cooperation.
Last year the Bush administration appointed Kaidanow the first U.S.
ambassador to Kosovo, a post she took up on July 18, 2008.
Reproducing Kosovo In Russia’s Southern Republics
On August 12 Russian political analyst Andrei Areshev spoke about her
new appointment in reference to the lingering tensions over Nagorno
Karabakh which pit Azerbaijan against Armenia and warned that "it is an
attempt to sacrifice [Nagorno Karabakh’s] interests to Azerbaijan’s
benefit and in regard to Moscow to give a second wind to the
politicization of ethnicity in the North Caucasus with the possibility
of repeating the ‘Kosovo scenario,’" [23] adding that the same threat
would also target Iran.
By the North Caucasus Areshev was referring to the Russian republics of
Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia and North Ossetia where extremist
secessionist violence has cost scores of lives in recent months,
including those of leading officials. The writer’s message was not that
the U.S. would simply continue its double standard of recognizing
Kosovo’s secession while arming Georgia and Azerbaijan to suppress the
independence of Abkhazia, Nagorno Karabakh and South Ossetia – none of
which "seceded" from anything other than new post-Soviet nations they
has never belonged to – but that a veteran of the U.S. campaign to
fragment and ultimately destroy Yugoslavia may be planning to do the
same thing with Russia. As the author added, "the existing realities in
the Caucasus, including the existence of three de facto states, two of
which are officially recognized by Russia, still create plenty of
opportunities to build different combinations, which would ultimately
result in a long-term military and political consolidation of the
United States in the region." [24]
With reference to Areshev including Iran along with Russia as an
intended target of such an application of the Yugoslav model, the clear
implication is that the West could attempt to instigate separatist
uprisings among the nation’s Azeri, Arab and Baloch ethnic minorities
in an effort to tear that nation apart also.
It is the politicizing of ethnic, linguistic and confessional
differences that was exploited by the West to bring about or at any
rate contribute to the dissolution of Yugoslavia into its federal
republics and then yet further on a sub-republic level with Kosovo and
Macedonia (still in progress).
Having worked under the likes20of Christopher Hill and later Richard
Armitage in the Rice State Department, Kaidanow surely knows how the
strategy is put into effect. Much as does her former Balkans colleague
Philip Goldberg, U.S. ambassador to Bolivia until that nation expelled
him last September for fomenting subversion and fragmentation there
based on the Balkans precedent.
Only a week before the announcement of Kaidanow’s transfer from
supervising the "world’s first NATO state" (as a former Serbian
president called it) in Kosovo, where the U.S. has built its largest
overseas military base since the Vietnam War, Camp Bondsteel, Russian
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov again warned of the precedent Kosovo
presented and admonished nations considering legitimizing it through
diplomatic recognition to "think very carefully before making this very
dangerous decision that has an unforeseeable outcome and is not good
for stability in Europe." [25]
The situation Kaidanow will enter into is one in which a year ago a war
had just ended and currently others threaten.
A Year Later: Resumption Of Caucasus War Threats
A year after the beginning of the hostilities of 2008, August 8,
Russian President Dmitri Medvedev warned:
"Georgia’s actions in the Trans-Caucasian region continue to cause
serious anxieties. Georgia does not stop threatening to restore its
‘territorial integrity’ by force.
"Armed forces are concentrated at the borders near Abkhazia and South
Ossetia, and provocations are committed." [26]
On August 1 the Russian Defense Ministry expressed alarm over renewed
Georgian shelling of the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali and
stated: "Events in August 2008 developed in line with a similar
scenario, which led to Georgia unfolding military aggression against
South Ossetia and attacking the Russian peacekeeping contingent." [27]
Two days later South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity announced that
"Russian troops will hold drills in the republic. These will be
preventive measures, everything will be done in order to ensure
security and keep the situation under control." [28]
The following day Andrei Nesterenko, spokesman for Russia’s Foreign
Ministry, said that "Provocations from the Georgian side ahead of the
anniversary of the August events last year are not stopping. In
connection with this, we have stepped up the combat readiness of
Russian troops and border guards." [29]
On August 5 Russian Duma Deputy Sergei Markov wrote:
"Western countries’ accountability for the war in South Ossetia is not
recognized altogether. Politically, the West, primarily NATO, supports
Saakashvili, and this support made him confident in the success of his
military venture. Moreover, during the war preparations and onset of
combat, high-ranking officials in Washington did not answer their
telephone calls although they must have been in the office at 9 p.m.
and 10 p.m. Moscow time….
"The U.S. Congress did not make any inquiry into the conduct of Vice
President Dick Cheney or presidential nominee John McCain during the
start of the war. Georgian troops were equipped with NATO weapons, and
trained in line with NATO standards." [30]
At the same time the above-mentioned Andrei Nesterenko also said that
"Georgia continues to receive Western arms and help in modernizing its
army….Lasting peace…is way, way off. Over the past 12 months, the
Georgians were responsible for about 120 firing incidents. Over the
past seven days alone, South Ossetian villages came under Georgian
mortar attacks multiple times." [31]
As a reflection of how thoroughly Georgian leader Saakashvili is an
American creature and how inextricably involved Washington has been and
remains with all his actions, a commentary of early this month reminded
readers that:
"Under George Bush, Washington already committed itself to put all
Georgian bureaucrats on its payroll, having paid a little more than $1
billion as a compensation for Saakashvili’s small war. The first
tranche of $250 million has already been transferred….[A]
considerable part of these funds will be allocated for compensation and
salaries of government officials of all ministries…. In other words,
all of Georgia’s government officials are already on the U.S. payroll,
a fact which nobody even tried to conceal during the last few years of
Bush’s term." [32]
Russia wasn’t alone in attending to the anniversary of the war. A U.S.
armed forces publication reported a year to the day after its start
that "U.S. European Command has its eyes firmly focused on the volatile
Caucasus region, where tensions between Georgia and Russia continue to
mount on the anniversary of last year’s five-day war….[C]ommanders
are on guard for any sign of a repeat.
"[W]ith Georgia prepared to commit troops to the effort in Afghanistan
as early as 2010, pre-deployment counterinsurgency training will be
taking place. EUCOM also will be working with the Georgians to develop
the Krtsanisi National Training Center outside of Tbilisi into a modern
pre-deployment combat training center….Following the war, EUCOM
conducted an assessment of Georgian forces, which uncovered numerous
shortcomings related to doctrine and decision-making." [33]
Last year’s war began immediately after the completion of the NATO
Immediate Response 2008 military exercises which included over 1,000
American troops, the largest amount ever deployed to Georgia. The day
after the drills ended Georgia shelled the South Ossetian capital and
killed several people, including a Russian peacekeeper.
The War That Was, The World War That Might Have Been
What a resumption of fighting between Georgia and South Ossetia will
entail is indicated by an examination of the scale of the catastrophe
that was narrowly averted a year ago.
A few days ago the government of Abkhazia shared information on what
Georgia planned had its invasion of South Ossetia proven successful.
The plan was to, having launched the war on the day of the Olympic
Opening Ceremony in Beijing while world attention was diverted, have
Georgian troops and armor rapidly advance to the Roki Tunnel which
connects South Ossetia with the Russian Republic of North Ossetia and
prevent Russia from bringing reinforcements into the war zone.
Then a parallel assault on Abkhazia was to be launched. The government
of Abkhazia documented Georgia’s battle plans earlier this week,
stating "the attack could have been carried out from the sea and from
the Kodori Gorge, where Georgian special forces were building their
heavily fortified lines of defense.
"Most people in Abkhazia were almost certain that if Georgia succeeded
in
conquering Tskhinvali, their republic would have been next….Military
intelligence issued a warning that the Georgian army was planning to
invade Abkhazia from the sea. Another possibility was that the enemy
would come from the Kodori Gorge, an area that Georgian special forces
entered in 2006, violating international peace agreements.
"On August 9 last year, the Abkhazian army launched a preventive attack
against Georgian troops in the Kodori Gorge." [34]
Last week Abkhazian Foreign Minister Sergei Shamba demonstrated that
Georgia was not alone in the planned attack on and destruction of his
nation when he said "[W]e have always emphasized that the U.S. bears
considerable responsibility for the events that took place in August
2008 in South Ossetia.
"Therefore, we do not trust the Americans. All these years the U.S. has
been arming, equipping and training Georgian troops and continues to do
so, again restoring military infrastructure, and again preparing the
Georgian army for new acts of aggression.
"What were the American instructors training the Georgian army for
here, on Abkhazia’s territory, at the upper end of the Kodori Gorge?
For an attack on Abkhazia." [35]
An August 7 report from an Armenian news source substantiated that the
plans for last August’s war were on a far larger scale than merely
Georgia’s brutal onslaught against South Ossetia in an attempt to
conquer and subjugate it and later Abkhazia. Stating that neighboring
Azerbaijan was simultaneously planning for a war against Armenia over
Nagorno Karabakh, a political analyst was quoted as saying, "Armenia
would be in a state of war should Georgia’s plan not have failed in
2008," adding that "last year Azerbaijan thrice attempted attacks on
the NKR [the Nagorno Karabakh Republic], yet the attempts were
frustrated thanks to NKR forces." [36]
A coordinated attack by Georgia on South Ossetia and Abkhazia and by
Azerbaijan on Nagorno Karabakh would have led to a regional
conflagration and possibly a world war. As indicated above, Armenia
would have been pulled into the fighting and the nation is a member of
the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) along with Russia,
Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
A week ago the secretary general of the CSTO, Nikolai Bordyuzha, was
quoted as asserting:
"How will the CSTO react if Azerbaijan wants to get back Nagorno
Karabakh in a military way and war begins between Azerbaijan and
Armenia?"
"The 4th term of the Collective Security Treaty says that aggression
against one member of Collective Security Treaty Organization will be
regarded as aggression against all members." [37]
Even if the CSTO had not responded to an Azerbaijani assault on
Karabakh which would have ineluctably dragged member state Armenia into
the fighting as it was obligated to do, Turkey would have intervened at
that point on behalf of Azerbaijan and being a NATO member could have
asked the Alliance to invoke its Article 5 military assistance clause
and enter the fray. Russia would not have stood by idly and a war could
have ensued that would also have pulled in Ukraine to the north and
Iran to the south. In fact the U.S. client regime in Ukraine had
provided advanced arms to Georgia for last year’s conflict and
threatened to block the return of Russian Black Sea fleet ships to
Sevastopol in the Crimea during the fighting.
Along with synchronized attacks on South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Nagorno
Karabakh, Ukraine may well have been ordered to move its military into
the site of the fourth so-called frozen conflict, neighoring
Transdniester, either in conjunction with Moldova or independently.
A year ago Russian maintained (and still has) peacekeepers in
Transdniester, Abkhazia, South Ossetia and, while not in Karabakh, also
in Armenia. Over 200 Russian soldiers were killed and wounded in the
fighting in South Ossetia and if those numbers had been matched or
exceeded in three other battle zones Russian forbearance might have
reached its limits quickly.
After Yugoslavia, Afghanistan And Iraq: Pentagon Turns Attention To
Former Soviet Space
In June of 2008 the earlier quoted Russian analyst Andrei Areshev wrote
in article titled "The West and Abkhazia: A New Game" that "The
prevention of a military conflict is Russia’s priority, but it is not a
priority for our ‘partners.’
"This should not be forgotten….As for experiments undertaken by the
United States that acted so ‘perfectly’ in Kosovo, Iraq and
Afghanistan, they do not spell any good." [38]
Two months before he had written "The U.S., the ground having slipped
from under its feet in Iraq and Afghanistan, is now preoccupied with
gaining control over the most important geopolitical regions in the
post-Soviet territory – Ukraine, Transcaucasia and Central Asia….
"The regions of Transcaucasia, integrated in NATO, Georgia in the first
place (especially in case of the successful annexation of South Ossetia
and Abkhazia), will serve U.S. interests aimed at destabilization of
the North Caucasus." [39]
Last week a group of opposition Georgian scholars held a round table
discussion in the nation’s capital and among other matters asserted:
"The whole August war itself…served the interests of the US. The
Americans tested Russia’s readiness to react to military intervention,
while at the same time ridding Georgia of its conflict-ridden
territories so it could continue its pursuit of NATO membership.
"[H]ad Russia refrained from engaging its forces in the conflict, the
nations [republics] of the Northern Caucasus would have serious doubts
about its ability to protect them. This would in turn lead to an array
of separatist movements in the Northern Caucasus, which would have the
potential to start not only a full-scale Caucasian war, but a new world
war." [40]
What the West’s probing of Russia’s defenses in the Caucasus may be
intended to achieve and what the full-scale application of the Yugoslav
model to Russia’s North Caucasus republics could look like are not
academic issues.
Armed attacks in the republics of Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia
have been almost daily occurrences over the last few months. In June
the president of Ingushetia, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, was seriously wounded
in a bomb attack and two days ago the republic’s Construction Minister
was shot to death in his office.
Similar armed attacks on and slayings of police, military and
government officials are mounting in Dagestan and Chechnya.
The shootings and bombings are perpetrated by separatists hiding behind
the pretext of religious motivations – in the main Saudi-based
Wahhabism. Until his death in 2002 the main military commander of
various self-proclaimed entities like the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria
and the Caucasus Emirate was one Khattab (reputedly born Samir Saleh
Abdullah Al-Suwailem), an ethnic Arab and veteran of the CIA’s Afghan
campaign of the 1980s, who also reportedly fought later in Tajikistan
and Bosnia.
Assorted self-designated presidents and defense ministers of the above
fancied domains have been granted political refugee status by and are
living comfortably in the United States and Britain.
That plans for carving up Russia by employing Yugoslav-style armed
secessionist campaigns are not limited to foreign-supported extremist
troops was demonstrated as early as 1999 – the year of NATO’s war
against Yugoslavia – when the conservative Freedom House think tank in
the United States inaugurated what it called the American Committee for
Peace in Chechnya. By the middle of this decade its board of directors
was composed of Zbigniew Brzezinski, Alexander Haig, Steven Solarz, and
Max Kampelman.
Members included the three main directors of the Project for the New
American Century: Robert Kagan, William Kristol and Bruce P. Jackson.
Jackson was the founder and president of the US Committee on NATO
(founded in 1996) and the chairman of the Committee for the Liberation
of Iraq (launched months before the invasion of that nation in the
autumn of 2002).
Other members of the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya included
past CIA directors, National Security Advisers, Secretaries of State
and NATO Supreme Allied Commanders like the previously mentioned
Zbigniew Brzezinski and Alexander Haig and James Woolsey, Richard V.
Allen and a host of neoconservative ideologues and George W. Bush
administration operatives with resumes ranging from the Committee on
the Present Danger to the Project for the New American Century like
Morton Abramowitz, Elliott Abrams, Kenneth Adelman, Michael Ledeen,
Richard Perle, Richard Pipes and Norman Podhoretz.
The American Committee for Peace in Chechnya has evidently broadened
its scope and is now called the American Committee for Peace in the
Caucasus. Its mission statement says:
"The American Committee for Peace in the Caucasus (ACPC) at Freedom
House is dedicated to monitoring the security and human rights
situation in the North Caucasus by providing informational resources
and expert analysis. ACPC focuses on Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan,
North Ossetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachayevo-Cherkessia and Adygeya,
as well as the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia."
Abkhazia and South Ossetia are of course in the South Caucasus and not
in Georgia20except in the minds of those anxious to expel Russia from
the Caucasus, North and South, and transparently have been included as
they are targets of designs by U.S. empire builders to further
encircle, weaken and ultimately dismantle the Russian Federation.
Russian political leadership has been reserved if not outright
compliant over the past decade when the U.S. and NATO attacked
Yugoslavia, invaded Afghanistan and set up military bases throughout
Central and South Asia, invaded Iraq in 2003, assisted in deposing
governments in Yugoslavia, Georgia, Adjaria, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan to
Russia’s disadvantage and brazenly boasted of plans to drive Russia out
of the European energy market.
But intensifying the destabilization of its southern republics and
turning them into new Kosovos is more than Moscow can allow.
Notes
1) U.S. Department of State, June 24, 2008
2) Black Sea: Pentagon’s Gateway To Three Continents And The Middle East
amp;aid=12400
Eurasian Crossroads: The Caucasus In US-NATO War Plans
amp;aid=13101
Azerbaijan And The Caspian: NATO’s War For The World’s Heartland
amp;aid=13938
West’s Afghan War And Drive Into Caspian Sea Basin
amp;aid=14316
3) Ibid
4) Mr. Simmons’ Mission: NATO Bases From Balkans To Chinese Border
lresearch.ca/index.php?context=va &aid=12554
5) PanArmenian.net, March 31, 2007
6) Russian Information Agency Novosti, August 6, 2009
7) AzerTag, January 1, 2008
8) Deutsche Presse-Agentur, August 9, 2008
9) Russia Today, August 8, 2008
10) PanArmenian.net, August 8, 2008
11) The Financial, June 27, 2008
12) Prime News (Georgia), August 10, 2006
13) Civil Georgia, April 2, 2007
14) Civil Georgia, December 7, 2006
15) Civil Georgia, August 11, 2009
16) Trend News Agency, August 11, 2009
17) Agence France-Presse, March 14, 2004
18) AzerTag, August 12, 2009
19) Rustavi 2, August 11, 2009
20) Russian Information Agency Novosti, August 6, 2009
21) World Investment News, April 22, 2009
22) Azeri Press Agency, August 12, 2009
23) PanArmenian.net, August 12, 2009
24) Ibid
25) Black Sea Press, August 6, 2009
26) Itar-Tass, August 8, 2009
27) Russian Information Agency Novosti, August 1, 2009
28) Interfax, August 3, 2009
29) Daily Times (Pakistan), August 5, 2009
30) Russian Information Agency Novosti, August 5, 2009
31) Voice of Russia. August 5, 2009
32) Russian Information Agency Novosti, August 6, 2009
33) Stars and Stripes, August 8, 2009
34) Russia Today, August 9, 2009
35) Russian Information Agency Novosti, August 4, 2009
36) PanArmenian.net, August 7, 2009
37) Azeri Press Agency, August 6, 2009
38) Strategic Culture Foundation, June 12, 2008
39) Strategic Culture Foundation, April 18, 2008
40) Russia Today, August 7, 2009
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