THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

October 1, 2009

Editorial-Georgia on Their Minds

Russia's war against Tbilisi didn't start with invasion.

On the morning of Aug. 8, 2008, soldiers from Russia's 58th Army poured into the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia and then rapidly fanned out into Georgia itself, coming to within a few miles of Tbilisi. The ensuing war displaced more than 100,000 people and killed some 850. Today, thousands of Russian troops still occupy South Ossetia and its sister breakaway, Abkhazia, giving every appearance of Russia having permanently annexed the Georgian lands.

So who is to blame for this war? Both sides, according to a 1,000 page report commissioned by the European Union and released earlier this week. Don't expect this exercise in moral equivalence to chasten the Kremlin as it pursues further adventures in its "near abroad."

In a New York Times op-ed published Thursday, the report's lead author, Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagliavini, said that Georgia's shelling of the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali, was the "proximate cause" for the fighting. The Georgian government hotly disputes this claim, arguing that Russian soldiers were already coming into Georgia on Aug. 7, and thus that it was acting in self-defense.

But whatever the case, the fighting didn't begin in a vacuum. Instead, it was the culmination of years of deliberate and repeated provocations by Russia following Georgia's 2003 "Rose Revolution," which overthrew a pro-Kremlin regime in favor of the pro-Western (and pro-American) government of Mikheil Saakashvili.

Since then, the Kremlin has expelled more than 2,000 Georgians from Russia and raided and shuttered several Georgian-owned businesses. Moscow has also intermittently halted air, land and sea traffic with Georgia, and banned its vegetables, mineral water and wines from the Russian market.

Meanwhile, the price of Russian energy has skyrocketed for Georgia, with the net result being that Georgian exports to Russia shrank 9.9% from 2003 to 2006, while the value of Russian trade to Georgia ballooned by 249%, according to Georgian figures. In 2006, Mr. Saakashvili accused Moscow of setting the pipeline blasts that cut off gas supplies to Georgia and Armenia during an exceptionally cold January.

The final phase of Russia's campaign against Georgia came in the spring of 2008, when Moscow established official ties with Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and followed up with a troop and weapons buildup in the rebel territories. In April 2008 a Russian plane shot down an unmanned Georgian drone over Abkhazia, which even Moscow at the time recognized as Georgian air space. It is difficult to recall that period and not conclude that Russia meant to provoke a war—ideally by goading Mr. Saakashvili into it. Little wonder that when Georgian shells began falling on Tskhinvali, Russian troops were able to "react" in record time.

Ms. Tagliavini's report takes note of this backdrop. Yet it shrinks from drawing the obvious conclusion, which is that this is a war the Kremlin wanted, schemed for, and got. That Mr. Saakashvili fell for this bear trap may reflect poorly on his tactical acumen and strategic judgment. But it does not alter the moral fundamentals.

Nor does it alter the Kremlin's larger purpose, which is to reassemble the pieces of the old Soviet Union in a way that suits its needs. In this sense, the war in Georgia is merely of a piece with Russia's now-routine winter gas offensives against Ukraine, and with a 2007 cyberattack on Estonian Web sites that is widely believed to have come from Russia. In the latter case, the victim was a member state of the EU.

That's something that ought to be of deep concern to Europe, particularly as Russia plays its energy cards with countries ever farther to its west. Perhaps the next time the EU decides to commission a 1,000-page report, it might consider examining where, and how, the Kremlin will pounce next.