The Bear's backyard

It was Europe's war of shame. It revealed a hopelessly divided European Union consumed in "how many angels on a pinhead" debates over a vague Lisbon Treaty but unable or unwilling to find a coherent voice in condemnation of an invasion.

Just as the Olympic Games opened a year ago, Russian tanks rolled into Georgia. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush were in Beijing watching the opening ceremony as Georgian forces, after weeks of skirmishes, attacked the enclave of South Ossetia, setting in motion a chain of events that would be called, with the emphasis on contradiction, the Olympic War.

The pre-invasion skirmishes are shrouded in the fog of the subsequent war. Did Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili tell Washington of his plans to retake the breakaway republic of South Ossetia? Did the Russians order South Ossetian militias to open fire on Georgian peacekeepers in a well-prepared trap?

Russia was ready, and it had been since another breakaway region provided the pretext for retaliation. Georgia's fate appears to have been settled by Moscow's fury over the recognition of Kosovo in February 2008. The West's recognition of Kosovo's independence was one thing, while ignoring Moscow's threats when it specifically mentioned recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as retaliation is another.

The fighting in Georgia was over before the Olympics got serious - five days that shook the world or at least rattled it.

August has been a cruel month in politics. The Great War, the Prague Spring invasion, Russia's failed coup and Iraq's invasion of Kuwait all took place during its sweltering days. Just like in 1914, the Georgian war showed how it is possible for a local dispute to flare up into war between military giants with events gathering their own momentum - or, at least, that's the hymn sheet Washington and Europe sung from. Unlike during the 1914-18 conflict, that is now an excuse to end all wars. The truth is that Georgia was abandoned and both Europe and the United States could have been firmer in their response without endangering regional peace.        

In Beijing, as news filtered through that Georgian forces had been involved in fighting in South Ossetia, Putin managed to get Bush to acknowledge that the United States would not get involved. Georgia's fields of dreams opened up for Putin, giving him the opportunity to redress in some small way Russia's Cold War defeat, which was, in his words, the "greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century." And so Russia invaded a European country for the first time since 1968.

The 1990s under Boris Yeltsin were a period of Russian humiliation, a decade of shame for Putin, in which a weakened Russia was forced to accept Western economic help and saw former members of the Warsaw Pact embrace NATO, the West's military club.

Georgia was Putin's chance, to use an asinine phrase that has recently gained currency, to push the reset button.

But why did Putin risk so much for, on the face of it, so little?

The past was relevant, but the Georgian war was not just about Georgia or Moscow's reduced status or even making up for past. It was about Ukraine and the strategic western Georgian port of Poti more so than the breakaway regions of South Ossetia or Abkhazia.

Ukraine has made it clear that it will not renew the Russian lease on the naval base at Sevastopol on the Black Sea when it runs out in 2017. But the Russians have their own agenda.

The mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov, once called Sevastopol "a region of Moscow." Luzhkov has also demanded the return of the Crimean peninsula to the Russian Federation. (Crimea was "gifted" to Ukraine by Nikita Khrushchev in 1954 to celebrate the 300th anniversary of Ukraine's voluntary integration into the Russian empire.)

"We have not set ourselves a goal of leaving Sevastopol," Russian General Nikolai Makarov said last month, adding, "We also plan to build Black Sea fleet facilities near Novorossiisk."

Even if the Russians were to leave Sevastopol and take up residence a few hundred kilometers away in Novorossiisk, it is difficult to imagine Moscow letting a NATO country or aspirant the unquestioned use of a naval base in Poti, just 500 kilometers from Novorossiisk.

Russia's Black Sea fleet, wherever it is based, will not tolerate NATO ships sheltering in the same waters. That is why it was so convenient for Russia to invade Georgia and keep the world's attention on South Ossetia and Gori as its army and Abkhazian allies dug in near and around Poti.

When the invasion took place, most eyes were on South Ossetia. Once the tanks rolled, focus then turned to Gori, Stalin's birthplace in central Georgia and of obvious symbolic significance.  

In just a few days, the Russian bear prowled across at least a third of the country. At one stage, it was within 20 kilometers of the capital, Tbilisi. But the real theater was in western Georgia, where Abkhazian irregulars looted behind the advancing Russians.

NATO was hopelessly divided. In April 2008, just months before the invasion, Germany and France both opposed the United States and the United Kingdom by blocking Georgian negotiations to join NATO. The division was noted in Moscow just as the failure of Washington to quickly sort out this past June's Honduran coup fiasco has also been met with broad grins by those who consider themselves heirs to the Kremlin legacy. Whatever visiting U.S. politicians tell Georgians, the Russians know that if the White House cannot deal efficiently with Honduras in Central America, there is little chance that any future Black Sea crises will be met with resolve from Washington.

Black Sea ports have always been one of Moscow's most sought-after possessions whether under the rule of a czar, politburo or ex-KGB prime minister.

The port of Poti, under Russian control or indirect influence, as it is now, will allow Moscow to increase pressure on Ukraine and embolden Russian citizens in Crimea. If Ukraine becomes too pro-Western for Moscow's liking, then the Crimean peninsula could become the next South Ossetia.

There is a new political landscape in Europe, but it does not have an imposing Checkpoint Charlie. It does not have barbed wire nor does it have goose-stepping soldiers. Instead, it has mobile checkpoints made up of military vehicles, deserted villages and gun-slinging irregulars in western Georgia. But, for all its informality, these new checkpoints mark a definitive line where Moscow wants its influence to be paramount. Europe, with or without a Lisbon Treaty, and Washington need to get their act together long before the Olympic year of 2016, the year before the Sevastapol lease expires.

- The author is the news editor of The Prague Post. He reported from western Georgia in August 2008.

Tom Clifford can be reached at
tclifford@praguepost.com