So Georgia invaded South Ossetia today.
Brief history lesson: Georgia has two provinces, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, that have been trying to break off since the collapse of the USSR. A bloody and haphazard war in the early 1990s led to a stalemate; both provinces now conduct their own affairs, but they’re not recognized as nations by the international community. Through all of this, Russia has been interfering in order to maintain its influence in the region. It supports the “independence” of the two provinces, has a force of “peacekeepers” there, and regularly engages in little bombing missions. Needless to say, the ceasefire has always been shaky at best.
Well, today someone broke it with a vengeance (exactly who started this round of fighting will be the eternal debate of both sides’ propaganda services). Georgian troops have apparently occupied the Ossetian capital after a brief shelling campaign, and Russia has retaliated by sending a column of “peacekeeping” tanks.
What can we expect? Well, unless cooler heads prevail, expect Russia to gain a better position of influence in the Caucuses, or even a bit of extra territory (North Ossetia is part of the Russian Federation, so they’ve got a claim there). Georgia’s been boldly staring down the bear since its independence, scrabbling to join NATO before Russia inevitably tries to re-absorb it…it looks like the time for that could be now. How NATO responds to this could say a lot about the future direction of the alliance.
Any projections for the future?
Take this with a grain of salt:
Expect Russia to occupy South Ossetia with a substantially larger number of permanent peacekeepers. The conflict will mostly involve bombing and ground strikes against Georgian targets (this has already begun, apparently); the US will denounce both nations, not-so-transparently take Georgia’s side, but offer no legitimate aid. In the end, an “agreement” will nominally take everything back to where it started, but will in actuality place South Ossetia more clearly under Russian influence. Some time down the road, expect Gazprom to unexpectedly gain more pipeline contracts through Georgian territory.