The Trouble With Insurgency
It’s interesting to ponder under what circumstances a smaller country being attacked by a stronger country will attempt to mount an insurgent-type campaign against the larger one. History shows that insurgent warfare can be extremely effective at driving great powers out, but the price tends to be very high — the insurgents destroy their own country. The United States lost the Vietnam War, but it was Vietnam and not the United States that wound up devastated by years of conflict. Under the circumstances, simply giving in might be the best solution. Certainly that seems to be Mikhail Saakashvili’s take on the matter:
“We had a choice here,” he said. “We could turn this country into Chechnya — we had enough people and equipment to do that — or we had to do nothing and stay a modern European country.”
He added: “Eventually we would have chased them away, but we would have had to go to the mountains and grow beards. That would have been a tremendous national philosophical and emotional burden.”
That’s kind of a funny way to put it, but it seems basically correct to me.
44 Responses to “The Trouble With Insurgency”
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August 25th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Also, in this case, Russia might have actually been able to hold on to it, by destroying it. Georgia is a lot smaller than Russia, and right on its border.
And, last time I checked, Chechnya is still part of the Russian Federation.
August 25th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
In other words, he is a moral coward who does not believe that what he was fighting for (control of Georgian sovereign territory and stopping an alleged genocide of Georgian people in South Ossetia, as he accused Russia of doing) is worth his own skin or hardship for himself personally.
And to think, he expected us to come to his rescue.
August 25th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
It would also be extremely difficult to mount a popular insurgency in areas where the populous are predominently very pro-invader.
August 25th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
What are you talking about? It was we who had to put up with all the post-Vietnam war movies, and the POW/MIA signs from people who thought there were thousands of vets being held in basements all across Vietnam, and it was we who had to put up with the last 3+ decades of Republicans trying to scream that if only teh libruls hadn’t stabbed them in the one arm tied behind their backs, we could have kept fighting and made Vietnam awesome one day. Surely Vietnam and the rest of Indochina suffered far less. I can’t think of comparing minor consequences, say, of the U.S.’ having bombed and carpet-bombed Cambodia for nearly a decade 1965 – 1973 and handing power to the formerly marginalized Khmer Rouge lunatics, compared to the feelings of hurt & loss felt by right wing hawkish Americans.
August 25th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
1) Er.. aren’t the people living in the mountains of Georgia and wearing beards the ones who are pro-Russian? Wasn’t Saakashvili’s attempt to invade the mountains where the trouble started?
2) I wish the reporters would stop referring to Saakashvili
as “American-educated”. Guy’s an embarrassment.
August 25th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
“We had a choice here,” he said. “We could turn this country into Chechnya — we had enough people and equipment to do that — or we had to do nothing and stay a modern European country.”
I kinda doubt they have the equipment, since most of it would have been destroyed in the offensive.
He added: “Eventually we would have chased them away,but we would have had to go to the mountains and grow beards. That would have been a tremendous national philosophical and emotional burden.”
Yeah, but if they were going to go into the mountains, they’d run into the Ossetians.
That’s kind of a funny way to put it, but it seems basically correct to me.
He wanted to retake Ossetia by force, but he wasn’t actually going to go to war for it unless it was cheap. He thought that the US was going to back him, because we (almost certainly) said we would. In fact, I’m pretty sure we told him he was all set and he HAD to go for it or he’d never get into NATO or something like that. It went badly for him, particularly since it turned out we were lying to him.
In the end, what the fuck does he care about controlling two areas that Georgia hasn’t run in 16 years? Ain’t no money in that!
max
['Lots of money tho, in getting into NATO and getting them to pay for everything.']
August 25th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Let me recommend a great non-fiction book about Chechnya (mostly) called ‘The Man Who Tried to Save the World: The Dangerous Life and Mysterious Disappearance of an American Hero’. The book covers the life of American Fred Cuny who was an expert in crisis management and consulted with the US military and NGOs. He went to Chechnya in the 90s and disappeared and is presumed dead. GREAT BOOK.
PS – The Russians still control the only decent port in Georgia. My guess is they aren’t leaving, period.
August 25th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Can you find a picture Mikhail that makes him look less like Kyle Orton with a shave? I keep thinking I’m over at Ta-Nehisi’s.
August 25th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
picture OF … sorry I can’t type this morning.
August 25th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
wow, Saakashvili has some brains after all, and he’s actually using them.
August 25th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
joejoejoe is right. It is a great book.
August 25th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Yes, I agree with Dan (and Matt): the first signs of intelligence in Saakashvili.
August 25th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
What part of Georgia is modern or European? It’s basically Russia’s Eurasian shithole (Belarus being its European shithole, Kazakhstan its central Asian one, and so on).
August 25th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
The United States lost the Vietnam War, but it was Vietnam and not the United States that wound up devastated by years of conflict.
I’m not so sure this is the result of the strategic decision by the nationalists to wage an insurgency, so much as a callous psychopathy on the part of the Americans who thought nothing of indiscriminately bombing Vietnam (and its neighbours) into the Stone Age.
August 25th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
In the end, what the fuck does he care about controlling two areas that Georgia hasn’t run in 16 years? Ain’t no money in that!
Tell that to the Israelis and Palestinians. Irrationality seems to be a recurring theme in a lot of “frozen conflicts.”
And, last time I checked, Chechnya is still part of the Russian Federation.
The US would funnel money and guns to Georgian guerrillas and it would be like Afghanistan. (Last time I checked Georgia wasn’t part of the Russian Federation.) The country would be levelled like Chechnya and there would be mass slaughter of civilians (maybe the US should have done that in Iraq, and decimated the insurgency????). Saakashvili made the right call. He shouldn’t have attacked in the first place, obviously, but the Russians (a la the Israelis) were doing a creeping annexation of the 2 enclaves, so they provoked it. Or set the trap.
Saakashvili has time on his side seeing how things have been going since the Cold War ended. I mean it was laughable to hear the Russians go on about human rights and genocide.
August 25th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Apparently Mikhail Saakashvili has a very interesting idea of what a “modern European country is like. In fact, both Georgia and Osetia have been notorious hotbeds for organized crime.
For a flavor of what has actually been going on between Russia, Georgia, and Osetia, read The Atlantic Monthly story A Smuggler’s Story
Here is an excerpt:
August 25th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Also, Its important to note that the Russia gave Saakashvili the option of taking the loss. They just took a bite of Georgia. They didn’t occupy the whole Country or try and annex parts that didn’t want to leave anyway. If Russia tried for the whole cake I’m pretty sure they would have themselves an insurgency pretty fast.
August 25th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
I’ve grown a beard and it’s not really that much of a hardship. Only problem is people keep asking me, have you sold any wine before its time. Other than that, it’s all good.
August 25th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
As with several others, I don’t get the analogy. Who would the insurgents be, the Georgians or the minority groups in the provinces? Nor do I see the smartness of Saakashvili’s comments.
August 25th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Big Pimping,
Belarus may be a “s–thole” from the point of view of political freedom, but its people are doing decently well economically, and in terms of health, education, etc. They also have one of the lowest Gini coefficients in the world, last I checked. I’m not sure they particularly care about the lack of political freedom so much. I’m also not sure why you consider Kazakhstan a ’s–thole’, they have plenty of natural gas after all.
Although my sympathies are generally pro-Russian I dearly wish they would just let Chechnya go its separate way. Spending blood and money trying to hang on to a crime-ridden, mountainous statelet full of heavily-armed, pissed-off Islamic fundamentalists, who have hated and fought against the Russians for two hundred years, does Russia not a whit of good. Russia needs to be more concerned about the growing Muslim proportion of its population, and the best way to deal with that problem would be to grant independence to all the Muslim-majority areas of Russia, including the Chechens, Dagestanis, Tatars, and the others.
August 25th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Re Hector’s comment “Although my sympathies are generally pro-Russian I dearly wish they would just let Chechnya go its separate way. Spending blood and money trying to hang on to a crime-ridden, mountainous statelet full of heavily-armed, pissed-off Islamic fundamentalists, who have hated and fought against the Russians for two hundred years, does Russia not a whit of good. ”
————–
I KEEP telling you people –you have to look beyond the bullshit morality plays and look at the REAL interests involved. Which means you have to realize that the Washington Post and New York Times make their money by lying to you, not by providing you with information.
IN its coverage of Chechnya, did the NY Times EVER talk about Chevron’s exploitation of the Caspian Sea oil, Dick Cheney’s membership on Kazakhstan’s Energy Board or the fact that SOMEONE kept blowing up the RUSSIAN OIL PIPELINE that runs through CHECHNYA?
Of course they didn’t. You don’t get dumbshit American farmboys to sign up and give their lives for the sake of Chevron’s profits. You have to dress it up a little. Talk about Russian brutes and massacres of innocent Chechnyans.
My guess is that US operatives are already trying to provoke another Chechnya. The stakes are just too fucking high for some of our plutocrats. The Caspian Sea is the world’s third largest oil reserve, Peak Oil is coming, and the Russians are holding a knife against the throbbing carotid carrying Chevron/BPs product to the west.
A fuel train carrying petro from Azerbaijan’s refineries to South Ossetia blew up this morning when it hit a land mine.
Something tells me its going to get fucking cold in South Ossetia this winter unless the Russians take over Tbilisi and the rest of Georgia.
August 25th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
cube:
As with several others, I don’t get the analogy. Who would the insurgents be, the Georgians or the minority groups in the provinces? Nor do I see the smartness of Saakashvili’s comments.
From NYT: “He also said that he had made a decision not to continue to fight Russia during the invasion, and not to have his army organize an insurgency against Russia, because he hoped to save the country.”
As the Russians pushed far into Georgia, they could have fought them guerrilla-style but Saakashvili apparently told them to stop fighting.
Also from NYT: “The Russian troops stationed in South Ossetia and Abkhazia before that date may stay, and may continue to send out patrols into a “security zone,” a thin buffer roughly five miles beyond the enclaves’ borders.
But the Russians are not allowed to set up fixed positions in the security zone — an agreement that Russia has not adhered to, Mr. Sarkozy said Friday in a telephone call with President Bush.”
They could hit them in the “security zone.” Touching to see all of this new-found sympathy for the South Ossetians. I’m sure the Russians appreciate all those jumping on the bandwagon.
August 25th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Hector, you may be right about the Chechens, but you’re way off about the Tatars, who are not extremists, do without beards or veils, live smack in the center of Russia and make great contributions to Russian Society:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Tatars
August 25th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Don Williams:
My guess is that US operatives are already trying to provoke another Chechnya. The stakes are just too fucking high for some of our plutocrats. The Caspian Sea is the world’s third largest oil reserve, Peak Oil is coming, and the Russians are holding a knife against the throbbing carotid carrying Chevron/BPs product to the west.
Peak oil is coming!!! Drama!!!
Iraq, China to ink Ahdab oil deal next week
By SINAN SALAHEDDIN, Associated Press Writer
Thu Aug 21, 7:00 AM ET
BAGHDAD – Iraq and China will sign a deal next week to develop the Ahdab oil field, restoring an agreement that was canceled after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, an Iraqi spokesman said Thursday.
The governor of Wasit province, where the billion-barrel field is located, left Wednesday for China to join Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani at the ceremony in the next few days, provincial spokesman Majid al-Atabi said.
“The governor will discuss the logistic cooperation with the Chinese company, especially the security side,” al-Atabi told The Associated Press in a phone interview.
The Shiite-dominated Wasit province, about 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, has been the scene of sporadic attacks since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
Saddam Hussein’s regime defied United Nations sanctions that limited direct dealings with Iraq’s oil industry and signed a deal in 1997 with the state-owned China National Petroleum Corp.
That contract, worth $1.2 billion, gave a subsidiary of the Chinese company concessions to develop the field on a production-sharing basis for 22 years.
The new agreement will be a service contract, under which China will not be a partner in profits and instead will be paid for its work.
Once the contract is signed, it will be the first Saddam-era oil deal to be honored by the new Iraqi government. A number of companies say they signed deals with Saddam’s regime and demand that those be honored, or the countries involved be given priority on new agreements.
The ministry has consistently denied giving any advantage to companies with which Saddam signed deals, instead insisting that oil and gas fields and exploration blocks will be offered up for bids.
Iraq sits on more than 115 billion barrels of oil, but decades of wars, U.N. sanctions, violence and sabotage have battered its oil industry.
As security improves, Iraq is trying to bring in foreign companies to help increase crude output from the current 2.5 million barrels a day to 3 million barrels a day by the end of 2008, and 4.5 million barrels a day by the end of 2013.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080821/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_china_oil
August 25th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Hmmm. I may have to correct my earlier post re the Fuel Train explosion. It may have been the Russians blowing up a train headed to the Export port of Poti, not Georgians blocking fuel from reaching South Ossetia.
Problem is that the news reporters are incompetents. The explosion occured between Gori and the village of Skra. However, the railroad splits in that area , with one branch running to Poti and one to the capital of South Ossetia.
If the explosion occurried West of the split, it was to screw up shipments to Poti. If it occuried east of the split, it screws South Ossetia. We’re talking about a 3 mile distance and the reporters don’t even seem to know of the rail split and it’s significance.
If the Russian’s understanding of a right to patrol a 5 mile buffer zone outside of South Ossetia holds, then that zone reaches to the railroad on which the explosion occurred. But not to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline.
August 25th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Re Peter K’s comment “BAGHDAD – Iraq and China will sign a deal next week to develop the Ahdab oil field, restoring an agreement that was canceled after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, an Iraqi spokesman said Thursday.”
————
Peter K doesn’t recognize the concept of CONTROL. Dick Cheney is happy for China to become DEPENDENT on Iraq oil — since the US now controls that oil. That was the purpose of the 2003 invasion and the purpose of those huge PERMANENT US military bases in Iraq that Bush is currently acquiring from Maliki.
Chevron will be happy to sell oil to CHina — given where US dollars are located, it can probably make more money there than in selling to US consumers bankrupted by the cost of Oil Empire ($5 Trillion more in debt and a collapsing currency.)
The Oil biz is like the Heroin biz. You don’t withhold the product from the customers — quite the contrary. you want them hooked. That way you get their money later by squeezing the supply.
August 25th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
I think that you are missing an even bigger point: The Russians want South Ossetia and Abkhazia, not Georgia.
All they want for Georgia is for it to stay out of NATO, which happens unless Georgia renounces South Ossetia and Abkhazia, because ambiguity of borders prevents the process from going forward.
The idea that the Georgians are going to mount an insurgency in Georgia and Abkhazia, or even in the 10-15 km buffer zone the Russians are claiming is nuts.
Not only would it not work, the Ossetians and Abkhazians hate the Georgians, and without support of the populace, there is no insurgency, but it also shows that Mikhail Saakashvili is nuts.
Saakashvili is like Benazir Bhutto in your earlier post, in that he is supported because he speaks English well, and went to Columbia University.
Bhutto and her entire family are corrupt, Saakashvili is nuts, but we support them because of Western tribalism, defined as going to the right schools.
August 26th, 2008 at 4:59 am
The insurgents almost never “destroy their own country”. It’s the people they are fighting against – whether foreign invaders or the local government – who end up destroying the country in trying to destroy the insurgents.
That’s certainly the case in Iraq and was the case in Vietnam, too.
Besides, the Arabs have a saying, “When you threaten the prince, you must draw your sword and fling the scabbard as far away as you can.” In other words, go for broke.
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