U.S. Watched as a Squabble Turned Into a Showdown

By HELENE COOPER, C.J. CHIVERS and CLIFFORD J. LEVY
NY Times
August 18, 2008

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/18/washington/18diplo.html

WASHINGTON — Five months ago, President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia, long
a darling of this city’s diplomatic dinner party circuit, came to town to
push for America to muscle his tiny country of four million into NATO.

On Capitol Hill, at the State Department and at the Pentagon, Mr.
Saakashvili, brash and hyperkinetic, urged the West not to appease Russia
by rejecting his country’s NATO ambitions.

At the White House, President Bush bantered with the Georgian president
about his prowess as a dancer. Laura Bush, the first lady, took Mr.
Saakashvili’s wife to lunch. Mr. Bush promised him to push hard for
Georgia’s acceptance into NATO. After the meeting, Mr. Saakashvili
pronounced his visit “one of the most successful visits during my
presidency,” and said he did not know of any other leader of a small
country with the access to the administration that he had.

Three weeks later, Mr. Bush went to the Black Sea resort of Sochi, at the
invitation of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. There, he received a
message from the Russian: the push to offer Ukraine and Georgia NATO
membership was crossing Russia’s “red lines,” according to an
administration official close to the talks.

Afterward, Mr. Bush said of Mr. Putin, “He’s been very truthful and to me,
that’s the only way you can find common ground.” It was one of many moments
when the United States seemed to have missed — or gambled it could manage —
the depth of Russia’s anger and the resolve of the Georgian president to
provoke the Russians.

The story of how a 16-year, low-grade conflict over who should rule two
small, mountainous regions in the Caucasus erupted into the most serious
post-cold-war showdown between the United States and Russia is one of
miscalculation, missed signals and overreaching, according to interviews
with diplomats and senior officials in the United States, the European
Union, Russia and Georgia. In many cases, the officials would speak only on
the condition of anonymity.

It is also the story of how both Democrats and Republicans have misread
Russia’s determination to dominate its traditional sphere of influence.

As with many foreign policy issues, this one highlighted a continuing fight
within the administration. Vice President Dick Cheney and his aides and
allies, who saw Georgia as a role model for their democracy promotion
campaign, pushed to sell Georgia more arms, including Stinger antiaircraft
missiles, so that it could defend itself against possible Russian
aggression.

On the other side, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, National Security
Adviser Stephen J. Hadley and William J. Burns, the new under secretary of
state for political affairs, argued that such a sale would provoke Russia,
which would see it as arrogant meddling in its turf, the officials and
diplomats said.

They describe three leaders on a collision course. Mr. Bush, rewarding
Georgia for its robust troop contribution to Iraq — at 2,000, the third
highest, behind the United States and Britain — promised NATO membership
and its accompanying umbrella of American military support. Mr. Putin,
angry at what he saw as American infringement right in his backyard,
decided that Georgia was the line in the sand that the West would not be
allowed to cross. And Mr. Saakashvili, unabashedly pro-American, was
determined to show, once and for all, that Georgia was no longer a vassal
of Russia.

With a vastly more confident Russia, flush with oil money, a booming economy
and a rebuilt military no longer bogged down in Chechnya, the stars were
aligned for a confrontation in which Russia could, with a quick show of
force, teach a lesson to the United States, Georgia and all of the former
Soviet satellites and republics seeking closer ties with the West.

“We have probably failed to understand that the Russians are really quite
serious when they say, ‘We have interests and we’re going to defend
them,’ ” said James Collins, United States ambassador to Russia from 1997
to 2001. “Russia does have interests, and at some point they’re going to
stand up and draw lines that are not simply to be ignored.”

Georgia Makes Its Moves

The stage for the confrontation was set in January 2004, when Mr.
Saakashvili handily won the presidency after leading protests against a
rigged election the previous year. He made the return of separatist areas
to Georgian control a central plank of his platform.

It was a potent theme. Georgia had lost the wars against separatists in the
1990s, and Russia’s involvement stung Georgians. Mr. Saakashvili saw
international law on his side. His young government, a small circle of men
in their 30s with virtually no military experience, openly endorsed this
thinking.

Georgia increased its troop contribution to Iraq, and in return the United
States provided more military training. The Georgians clearly saw this as a
step toward building up a military that could be used to settle problems
with the separatists at home.

Whether they intended to build a military for fighting or deterrence is
unclear. American officials said they repeatedly and bluntly told their
Georgian counterparts that the Iraq mission should not be taken as a sign
of American support, or as a prelude, for operations against the
separatists. And it was obvious that Russia’s army, which at roughly
641,000 troops is 25 times the size of Georgia’s, could easily overwhelm
the Georgian forces.

Nevertheless, the career foreign policy establishment worried that the wrong
signals were being sent. “We were training Saakashvili’s army, and he was
getting at least a corps of highly trained individuals, which he could use
for adventures,” said one former senior intelligence analyst, who covered
Georgia and Russia at the time. “The feeling in the intelligence community
was that this was a very high-risk endeavor.”

Mr. Saakashvili proceeded against other separatist enclaves — retaking one,
Ajaria, in 2004, and advancing high into the mountains of the upper Kodori
Gorge in Abhkazia in 2006 to sweep away bands of criminals who had long
controlled the place.

Georgia labeled it a police operation, but it was a military one: Mark
Lenzi, then the country director for the nonprofit International Republican
Institute, visited the region and says he saw that military markings on a
helicopter had been freshly painted over with the word “police.”

Mr. Lenzi, who worked with Mr. Saakashvili’s young government, says that in
retrospect, there were risks that were not adequately assessed. “It was a
combustible,” he said. “But it was a little bit of the price we were
willing to pay for the military cooperation in Iraq.”

He added: “I go back to the democracy thing. I’m not saying I gave them a
big pass here. But looking back I should have pressed harder.”

By last November, Mr. Saakashvili’s democratic credentials were becoming
checkered. Accused by the opposition of corruption, arrogance and
centralization, he struck back against demonstrators and declared a state
of emergency. After he won a snap election this year on a vote that the
opposition said was subtly rigged, Mr. Saakashvili turned his attention
back to the enclaves.

Georgia had new military equipment and the experience of Iraq. Russia had
engaged in several brief air attacks and had shot down a pilotless
reconnaissance plane over Georgian soil.

Inside the Saakashvili government, officials were seething. Batu Kutelia, a
first deputy minister of defense, framed the presence of Russia in the
enclaves with intensity. “Tell me,” he asked a reporter over dinner this
spring, “would you share your wife?”

Several Georgian officials said that night that seizing South Ossetia would
be militarily easy. But there was a difference between any operation in the
remaining enclaves and the successful reclamation of Ajaria and the Kodori
Gorge: the remaining enclaves had large numbers of Russian troops.

Russian Anger

Russia, too, was laying down its markers, strenuously protesting the West’s
intention to recognize the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo, set on
independence after the long Balkans wars of the 1990s. The Russians
insisted that independence for Kosovo would be a serious affront. Last
February, the United States and the European Union, over Russia’s vehement
objections, recognized an independent Kosovo.

Mr. Putin and other Russian officials drew a parallel with Kosovo: If the
West could redraw boundaries against the wishes of Russia and its ally
Serbia, then Russia could redraw boundaries in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

By April, before the Russians had a chance to grow accustomed to an
independent Kosovo, they were being confronted with what they saw as more
meddling in their backyard. On April 3, the night before the NATO summit
meeting in Bucharest, Romania, Mr. Bush attended a dinner with European
leaders and annoyed the Germans and French by lobbying long and hard for
Ukraine and Georgia to be welcomed into a Membership Action Plan that
prepares nations for NATO membership.

Mr. Bush lost that battle, but won two others the next day that would anger
Russia: NATO leaders agreed to endorse a United States missile defense
system based in Eastern Europe, and the Europeans said invitations to the
membership plan for Georgia and Ukraine might come in a year, at the next
summit.

NATO leaders had invited Mr. Putin to Bucharest to speak, seeking to offset
the impression that the alliance was hostile to Russia. He was cordial but
clear, saying that Russia viewed “the appearance of a powerful military
bloc” on its borders “as a direct threat” to its security. “The claim that
this process is not directed against Russia will not suffice,” Mr. Putin
said. “National security is not based on promises.”

The next day, Mr. Bush and Mr. Putin went to Sochi. “It definitely wasn’t
what I would call a ‘look-into-your-eyes-and-see-your-soul’ meeting,” said
a Bush administration official, referring to Mr. Bush’s famous line after
he first met Mr. Putin. Mr. Bush had dinner with Mr. Putin and his protégé
and successor, Dmitri A. Medvedev, at the Russian resort, which is near
Georgia. The official said the discussion centered on Ukraine and Georgia,
and Mr. Putin warned, again, against the NATO push.

Asked how Mr. Bush reacted to the warning, the official said: “It wasn’t
anything we hadn’t heard before.”

It appeared that the Bush administration misread the depth of Russia’s fury.
A Bush administration official said the Americans understood that Russia
was angry, but believed that they could forestall a worsening of the
relationship by looking for other possibilities for cooperation.

Ms. Rice offered up an 11-page “strategic framework declaration” examining
areas where the two nations could work together, which was hammered out
with Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, that night in Sochi.
The statement included language describing how they would in the future
address the issue of missile defenses the United States had proposed basing
in Eastern Europe. The United States promised to work toward “assuaging”
Russian concerns.

Washington Weighs In

Nine days later, on April 16, Mr. Putin took action. In one of his last
formal acts as president, he issued an order that Russia was broadly
expanding support for Abkhazia and South Ossetia and would establish legal
connections with the regions’ separatist governments.

Washington was quick to rally around Mr. Saakashvili. Senator John McCain,
whose campaign foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, had represented
Georgia as a lobbyist, was the first to blast Russia. Mr. McCain, who
already was the Republicans’ presumptive presidential nominee, telephoned
Mr. Saakashvili to offer support, and then told reporters on April 17
that “we must not allow Russia to believe it has a free hand to engage in
policies that undermine Georgian sovereignty.” On April 21 came a statement
from a “deeply troubled” Senator Barack Obama, the leading Democratic
candidate.

“There’s no doubt that the Georgians have carefully cultivated a broad base
of support in Washington,” said Stephen Sestanovich, a senior fellow at the
Council on Foreign Relations and foreign policy adviser to the Obama
campaign who has hosted dinner parties for Mr. Saakashvili in Washington.

Within the Bush administration, “the fight between the hawks and the doves”
erupted anew, said one administration official. In this case, the people he
called the “hawks” —Mr. Cheney and the assistant secretary of state for
Europe, Daniel Fried — argued for more American military aid for Georgia;
the “doves” — Ms. Rice, Mr. Hadley, Mr. Burns — urged restraint.

The United States was already providing Georgia with military aid, equipment
and training, and Ms. Rice, for the time being, won the fight against
adding American-provided Stinger missiles to Georgia’s arsenal.

On April 21, Georgia accused Russia of shooting down the pilotless Georgian
plane over Abkhazia and released what it said was a video of the encounter.
Mr. Putin responded that he had expressed “bewilderment” to Mr. Saakashvili
at Georgia’s sending reconnaissance planes over Abkhazia.

A senior adviser to Mr. Saakashvili said Mr. Cheney’s office was more openly
critical of the Russians after the episode than was the State Department,
which struck a more balanced tone, asking Russia to explain their actions.

Bush administration officials have been adamant that they told Mr.
Saakashvili that the United States would not back Georgia militarily in a
fight with Russia, but a senior administration official acknowledged
that “it’s possible that Georgians may have confused the cheerleading from
Washington with something else.”

In May and June, Russia increased the number of troops in South Ossetia and
sent troops into Abkhazia, who Moscow said were going for humanitarian
purposes, Georgian and American officials said.

Ms. Rice traveled to Tbilisi, Georgia, in July, where, aides said, she
privately told Mr. Saakashvili not to let Russia provoke him into a fight
he could not win. But her public comments, delivered while standing next to
Mr. Saakashvili during a news conference, were far stronger and more
supportive.

And when she brought up NATO membership, mentioning that the Bush
administration had pushed for it in Bucharest, Mr. Saakashvili jumped on
the opportunity to get a public commitment that the administration would
bring the matter up again with NATO before leaving office.

“So are you going — I understood you are going to give a tough fight for us
in December,” he said.

Ms. Rice: “Always, Mr. President. We always fight for our friends.”

The Buildup

The Russians and the Georgians give different accounts of who provoked whom
in the weeks before Aug. 7. Each side accuses the other of premeditated
attack. While the public line from the Bush administration has been that
Russia and Mr. Putin are largely to blame, some administration officials
said the Georgian military had drawn up a “concept of operations” for
crisis in South Ossetia that called for its army units to sweep across the
region and rapidly establish such firm control that a Russian response
could be pre-empted.

They note that in January, the Georgian Ministry of Defense released
a “strategic defense review” that laid out its broad military planning for
the breakaway regions. As described by David J. Smith of the Potomac
Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, the document sets out goals for
the Georgian armed forces and refers specifically to the threat of conflict
in the separatist regions.

American officials said that they had clearly told their Georgian
counterparts that the plan had little chance of success, given Kremlin
statements promising to protect the local population from
Georgian “aggression” — and the fact of overwhelming Russian military force
along the border.

The shelling from South Ossetia to Georgia proper increased significantly in
August. On the morning of Aug. 1, five Georgian police officers were
wounded by two remotely detonated explosions on a bypass road in South
Ossetia, Georgian officials said. Troops from Georgia battled separatist
fighters, killing at least six people; the Georgians accused the South
Ossetian separatists of firing at Georgian towns behind the shelter of
Russian peacekeepers.

On Aug. 6, the separatists fired on several Georgian villages, Georgian
officials said. The Russian Defense Ministry and South Ossetian officials
say that Georgians provoked the escalation by shelling Russian peacekeeping
positions in the region’s capital of Tskhinvali, along with civilian areas.

The Georgians said the separatists stepped up their shelling. Foreign
Minister Eka Tkeshelashvili of Georgia called Mr. Fried and told him that
her country was under attack, and that Georgia had to protect its people.
Mr. Fried, according to a senior administration official, told the Georgian
not to go into South Ossetia. The Georgians moved in on Aug. 7.
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