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Dug In

By Lt Col P

All indications are that ~~Imperial Russia~~ ~~the Soviet Union~~ modern Russia's seizure of a good part of Georgia is taking on an air of permanence. Even if we grant the nine-tenths of the law (!) that is possession, and accept Russian hegemony over Abkhazia and greater Ossetia, their occupation of Georgia proper is ugly, unacceptable, and at the moment unanswerable. Even if they pull back completely, their ability to dominate the scene has been established.

Unfortunately, it's also unsurprising. This crisis has had me asking, like Ted Nugent grasping a bloody arrow, "Where have we seen this before?" This is a recreation of the old Czarist quest for empire, and the re-enactors are frightfully realistic. By chance I was scanning one of my favorites, Peter Hopkirk's The Great Game; the parallels are striking. Hopkirk describes the slow, steady, calculated, three-steps-forward-and-two-steps-back advance of the Czar's armies, and British government's repeated realizations that St Petersburg could willingly say one thing while its generals in the field did quite another. (And in Theodore Rex, Morris describes how TR was astonished during the negotiations over the end of the Russo-Japanese War, at how the Russian delegates would pile lies on top of lies utterly without shame.)

Once installed, difficult to dislodge. Where have we seen this before?

The Georgia campaign also sent me rummaging through my shelves for another old favorite, On Infantry, because I recalled the author's discussion of the Russian soldier as "the master digger." It only took me a few minutes to find the passage-- the actual quote is "the champion digger"-- and to confirm my recollections. The German found that the stolid Russian peasant soldier had a talent for going to ground, and with no more than his entrenching tool and ox-like endurance he could turn a small gain into a strongpoint overnight. And once installed he was difficult, almost impossible, to dislodge. The obvious lesson was that if you give them an inch, they'll take at least a mile. And you won't soon get it back. Of course, this was all meant in the tactical sense, but I think we can safely extend the analogy up the chain through operational all the way to strategic.

The Russian seizure of the parts of Georgia that the Kremlin deems part of Mother Russia was planned well in advance, and carefully kept in hand until the most advantageous time presented itself. It was done in the knowledge that it would embarrass the U.S., put gas-starved Europe on notice, and send an oh-so-subtle message to the various old satrapies of the Czar.

We can expect more of the same. Let's hope that we are up to the challenge.

August 24, 2008 10:54 AM Russia