Another August 8 Anniversary: Georgia, 2008

I am referring, of course, to the Georgia of Tbilisi, not Atlanta.  Ten years ago today, during the Olympics in Beijing, Russia invaded Georgia.  Robert Kagan recalls what happened: 

“Vladimir Putin struck one of the first major blows [against the liberal world order] when he sent Russian forces into South Ossetia in neighboring Georgia in support of Russian-backed separatists.  The Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, fearing a full-blown invasion, ordered his troops to attack [i.e., attack the Russians who were in Georgia], thus springing Putin’s trap.  Using the Georgian attack as a pretext, Putin launched that full-blown invasion, with tens of thousands of troops, fighter aircraft and elements of the Black Sea Fleet all pre-positioned and ready to move the instant Saakashvili acted.”

The West pretty much ignored the Russian attack.  Even though Georgia had contributed more troops to the war in Iraq than any other non-NATO country, George W. Bush refused to provide military equipment.  We only provided humanitarian aid (like the Obama administration did in Ukraine).

Mr. Kagan criticizes the U.S. response to the Russian attack.²   At the time, I wrote that I did not know if Georgia was a place we could take a stand.  I asked whether the situation in Georgia was the equivalent of Berlin 1948 (when we launched the Airlift in response to Stalin’s blockade of West Berlin) or Berlin 1961 (when we allowed the Wall to stand).  If the invasion of Georgia was Berlin 1961, I said, “we will need to accept that fact [of Russia’s invasion and occupation of Georgian territory] – and try harder to be ready the next time.”  Obviously, we weren’t ready the next time; i.e., when Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea.

There is a saying, “Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.”  If Georgia was the former, Ukraine was the latter.  While Georgia may have been “shame on [Putin]”, Ukraine was “shame on [us]”.³  All we can do now is make sure that, the next time Vladimir Putin acts, it is not shame on us again, whether in the Baltics or somewhere else.
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¹ For those noting the pattern of anniversaries in my prior post and this one – 10 years, 30 years, and 50 years, I note that 70 years ago, August 8, 1945, was between the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima (August 6) and Nagasaki (August 9).
² While it is not an excuse, in August of 2008, the Bush administration was fully occupied with the war in Iraq.  The surge and the switch to a strategy of counterinsurgency war was working (in spite of what Democrats like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were saying at the time), but our military was stretched to the limit.  I don’t know what kind of a position we were in to provide much aid to Georgia.  (A reason to make sure our military has sufficient resources that doesn’t get that stretched again.)
    On the other hand, in today’s Wall Street Journal, Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgian president from 2004 to 2013, wrote appreciatively of what the U.S. did: “[T]he international community played a critical role in halting the Russian offensive. The Bush administration notably sent a ‘humanitarian convoy’ to Georgia, deterring further aggression with cruise-missile-armed warships and military aircraft.”
³ At least the Trump administration, unlike its predecessor, is finally providing military aid to Ukraine.
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UPDATE (8/9/18 1:05 pm): The article by Robert Kagan in The Washington Post that I referred to yesterday was critical of the George W. Bush administration’s response to the invasion of Georgia by Russia.  Condoleezza Rice wrote a response in today’s Post.  You can find it here.  It makes some very important points and tells a somewhat different story than Mr. Kagan told.