Earlier today, the Georgian national assembly overwhelmingly voted to declare war against Russia and to impose martial law. 15 days of martial law, for those of you who believe that Georgia's President Saakashvili is using this as a pretext to make himself dictator. This seems to indicate that the Georgians view this situation, win or lose, as a two week-long affair. But to me, the oddest aspect of all to this situation is the calmness and near-unanimity with which the Georgians have taken this momentous step. How on earth can they expect to fight, much less win, a war with their huge and well-armed neighbor? What do they know that we don't? Or is this is just a case of hysterical mass-delusion?

One of the boring and irritating things about being a geezer is that you remember other times and other places. I well remember the nationalistic hysteria that swept through Pristina, the little-known capital of Serbia's Kossovo province in the late '80s, when a group of school-girls claimed they were being posioned by the authorities. Serbian friends of mine laughed over this, dismissing it as nonsense. "The Serbian authorities would never do such a thing," they told me. "The Albanians in Kossovo are crazy if they think they can make their own country." Now Kossovo is a country, and Serbs are on trial for mass-murder in three separate wars.

My mind drifts back further, to the fall of Allende in '73, widely seen in the USSR as a payback engineered by the CIA out of revenge for Soviet sponsorship of the Vietnamese. Within a few short years, the Soviets had crafted their own domino, the invasion of Afghanistan. When they were booted out of Chechnya decades later, many saw that as a rerun of the Afghan experience; yet the bedrock of Putin's popularity with the Russian people is that he re-invaded the breakaway state and reduced it to compliant rubble. But Georgia is not a breakaway state--it is in fact a separate nation. Even when its most famous son, Djugashvili, ruled the USSR with an iron hand, he made no attempt to legally incorporate Georgia or the other former republics into Russia itself. So what is to be Georgia's fate over the next 15 days? That of the first Chechnya? The second? Afghanistan? Or Poland, perhaps, half its territory permanently peeled off, the other half a compliant vassal state? There are no Islamic Wahhabist oil millions to bankroll prolonged resistance, so the latter option seems the likeliest. Yet thousands of Georgians still live in the Russian capital--will the war be taken into the Russian heartland over the next few days, as the Chechens did, with acts of terror? Can a modern war be fought without terrorist reprisals? We are about to find out. This war seems to have been unplanned, almost casual, and caught both sides by surprise. But the Russians, at least, have appeared well prepared for such a surprise.

Whatever the outcome, it will have a ripple effect. Already this is pushing the nuclear-armed Ukraine firmly into NATO's camp. Look for them to quietly strengthen their ties with the West and beef up their military over the next year. Look for Poland and the Czechs to become serious about missile defense. Look for the Turks, frustrated by this obvious assault on their Caspian oil pipeline ambitions, to woo Turkic republics like Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan with renewed ardor. And most obviously of all, look for the Israelis to bomb Iran during this window of opportunity, before the scheduled delivery in a few months of Russian S-300 SAM air defense missiles to Tehran. When the dogs of war are loosed, many uncontrollable and unexpected dogfights ensue; what most people fail to realize is that, viewed with the icy detachment of the historian, the past few years, while they have appeared bloody to the American public with small wars ongoing in Iraq and Afghanistan, have by the standards of the convulsive holocausts of the 20th century, been a period of relative peace and calm. That may be about to change. The next 15 days will provide us all with some clues.

UPDATE: DAY 2

Never has the fog of war been so instantly pierced by a million candles of rumor as by the internet. Rumors are flying everywhere today--that the Georgians have almost completely leveled the capital town of South Ossetia which is why they've 'redeployed' rather than retreated, that the Georgians have butchered the first Russian brigade into South Ossetia, critically wounding the commanding general, that they have mined and partially closed down the tunnel from Russia into South Ossetia. Or conversely that the tunnel has been cleared, and that the Russian columns are massing to attack Gori (which would sever all communications, including the oil pipeline, if captured), and that Georgian forces have pulled back to fight a desperate defensive battle there. In the west, the sole pass held by the Georgians in Abkazhia is under intense shelling, and if the Russians break through they will be able to smash through all the way down the Georgian seacoast. Russian forces have already been landed just north of the coastal city of Poti, which has been attacked by air, and Russian ships have blockaded the entire coastline. The Ukraine has supposedly threatened to close its naval bases against them, and there are accusations that the Ukraine has supplied the georgians with the SAMs that have brought down either 2 or 10 Russian aircraft, depending on who you believe. There is growing fear that the Ukraine will be next. Poland and the Baltic republics have issued strong statements of support for georgia, and there are rumors that Turkish ships are on their way to break the Russian blockade. There is also a rumor that the Turks and the US are resupplying the Georgians by air.

The Russian bombing is accused of being both bloody and inefficient. The two apartment houses destroyed in Gori were apparently mistaken for an air control center, and the pipeline bombings were also aimed at C&C centers, since the pipeline itself is underground. Generally, military experts are scoffing at the antiquated tactics and equipment of the Russians. The general feeling seems to be that they will win any real war, but their initial attempt at 'shock and awe' has been a failure. Some or all of the 2,000 Georgian troops in Iraq appear to already have been flown home by the US, possibly by military charter. Rather than the 18,000 troop total widely quoted here and elsewhere, the Georgians have in fact 28,000 full-time soldiers and up to 250,000 reservists, though these are poorly armed and trained and few have been called up, though many are in uniform. There are anywhere from 130 to 1,000 US military advisers still in Georgia and between 100 and 1,000 Israeli "GAL" subcontractors in the country, further complicating matters.

There is a great deal of geopolitical speculation online. Despite the strong evidence that the Georgians were ill-prepared for this event--they hadn't even called up their reservists or recalled 2,000 troops from Iraq, and the fact that Russia instantly mobilized a massive tank force nearby to invade, many claim that the timing was prompted by 'neo-cons' in Washington to coincide with Olympics coverage. Others accuse the Russians of instigating it, pointing out that Georgia invaded after being fired upon repeatedly by South Ossetian militia. This last detail does indeed appear to be a fact. Most opinion regards the Russian attack as 'payback' for Kossovo and an attempt to smash the Caspian-to-Black Sea BTC oil pipeline that bypasses Russian control. The main beneficiary of this pipeline is Turkey. Several people point out that Russia waited until oil prices were beginning to plunge before launching a series of actions that were sure to raise them dramatically again. Many feel that the US will continue to clandestinely arm and aid the Georgians, perhaps even with satellite intelligence and JDAMs, and will retaliate geopolitically by blockading Iran in the Straits of Hormuz and allowing the Israelis to bomb its nuclear installations. Several sites carry long lists of the US battle fleets on their way to the Persian Gulf now.

UPDATE: DAY 3

The news today is that there is no new news. The Russians seem to have to have stopped at the limits of South Ossetia for now. Whether this is for resupply or whether it comes as a result of VP Cheney's hotline phone call to PM Putin is anyone's guess. Whether it's actually the case at all is also anyone's guess. I've read one rumor that Putin and Bush were seen exchanging angry words in Beijing before Putin flew back to Russia. British newspapers are full of the 'it's all about the oil pipeline' meme, while the New York Times has an eyewitness account of Georgian forces on the retreat, bitterly blaming the US for failing to come to their aid. The rest of the news, including the capture of a Georgian base in western Abkhazia (isn't that a Harry Potter location?) and details of bombings in and around Gori and Tbilisi, are rehashes of yesterday's events.

The Russia Blog has a pro-Russian opinion piece detailing how the Georgians started the war. La Russophobe, the blogosphere's most anti-Russian site, points out that as a curious result of this year's military enlistment, 50% of all Russian soldiers will soon be non-Russians. 30% will be Chechens. La Russophobe believes, though they present no evidence for it, that the Georgians will fight a long-term guerilla war and become a second Chechnya.

Meanwhile, the notoriously (yet unreliably) unreliable Debkafile features a full list of the 5 warship groups on their way to the Persian Gulf. Will the US sacrifice Georgia in order to attack Iran? Or will the price of a free Georgia be a nuclear Iran down the road? Now is an excellent time to invest in all those arms manufacturer stocks you've been holding off on. If it's about oil, oil prices have risen only very slightly in response to the crisis, and the Russian stock market is down.

Reading the various websites covering this event, I am forcibly reminded of the old O. Henry short story about the New York fire department that was following the Russo-Japanese War through the newspapers. The fire chief had put up a huge map of the region into which he stuck little colored pins showing the progress of the war. For some reason, the firemen all favored the Japanese, but then one day a small child was about to be run down by a trolley outside, when a bearded Cossack leapt onto one of the fire-wagon horses and rode off to save him. After that, the fire department changed sides. My feeling is that the Georgians are waiting for a similar event.

BREAKING: The Washington Post and Yahoo both have huge updates now. Gori, claims the AP, has now fallen, and the 'country is cut in two', according to Georgian sources. Both the Post and AP report eyewitnesses seeing large numbers of Georgian dead in South Ossetia. Georgian casualties are described as 'massive'. Medvedev has reportedly said the mission is 'all but complete', while a senior Russian general is quoted as saying that there are no Russians in Gori. Communications to the city, however, have been cut off. If all of this is true, it represents a massive defeat for Georgia. Other reports claim that this is a hoax, based entirely on wild statements by Saakashvili. By claiming the Russians had cut his country in half and were about to attack Tbilisi, he was, they say, attempting to force the US into some act of overt support. Gori, has been evacuated, but the Russians have pulled back from it, as well as returning to their lines in Abkhazia. This is contrary to Fox News' latest report, but I suppose we'll all know more tomorrow.

UPDATE: Day 4

While the major media seem to believe that the Russians have inflicted a crushing defeat on Georgia, having taken Gori, and are on the road to Tbilisi, President Medvedev has issued an order freezing Russian troops at their Abkhazian and South Ossetian borders, though the tanks attacking the now-empty Gori, are demonstrably on Georgian soil. The Russians are repeating that Saakashvili 'must go', and in the strangest part of the statement, Medvedev said the Georgian military must be 'partially demilitarized'. What to make of this? Conspiracists are having a field day. Some are insisting that it means the Russians will continue their advance, others that it means that Israeli or US anti-tank weapons have been so effective that they have in fact halted the Russian advance. There are uncomfirmed claims that Russia has lost nearly 50 tanks and armored vehicles to them and suffered 'massive casualties'. Other reports say that the opposite is true, that it's Georgia which has suffered heavy casualties. Some laud the Georgians' skill at withdrawing to fortified positions around Tbilisi, others decry it as a rout. Two strange anomalies: during a Putin interview in Ossetia on TV, a Georgian plane could clearly be seen flying overhead--and Tskhinvali, which supposedly had been cleared of fleeing Georgian forces, was reported as having ongoing 'artillery duels'. Between whom? There seems little doubt Russia flattened parts of Gori in revenge for Tskhinvali, though the atrocities Russia is now highlighting on TV appear to be staged like Qana, since most of the city's residents had already fled to North Ossetia before the firing started. Agence France-Presse reports that US military experts are stunned at the speed and ruthless precision of the Russian advance. Other military analysts suggest instead that the Russian colmuns have ground to a halt because of lack of re-supply.

Others point out that Russian stock market sank to a 22-month low, and the ruble crashed against the euro and the dollar; the military halt, they say, was mandated by the 'oligarchs'. Some sites claim that Bush's ultimatum called the halt--others attack his weakness and ineffectuality savagely. In the absence of facts or new military activity, geopolitical speculation has now taken over. Some commentators believe that the Republicans instigated the whole war as a favor to the McCain campaign. The retaliatory Iran-attack angle is gaining wide play. Even more space is devoted to talk of the West's weakness, the Georgians' stupidity, and Bush's stupidity and/or perfidy. Did Bush encourage the Georgians to go to war just to make Putin look like Hitler? Putin's genius is lauded, and Spengler in the New Asia Times goes so far as to cynically suggest he run for US president. Meanwhile, an academic movement led by Dr Charles King and swiftly adopted by Glenn Greenwald suggests that Russia is genuinely the aggrieved party in this and has behaved with restraint and moral rectitude.

Oceans of speculation about the Ukraine. Will the Ukraine be next? several blogs scream. The president of the Ukraine, along with those of two other neighboring states, is reportedly in Georgia right now. Did the Ukraine instigate the attack? Has the Ukraine been the main supplier of arms all along? Did they encourage the Georgians to attack S. Ossetia? Will this drive NATO into accepting their membership application? My personal feeling is that the Ukraine could probably defeat with ease any Russian forces sent against them--their armed forces are exactly 300x those of Georgia, they have thousands of tanks, their airforce is in slightly better shape than Russia's, and they have (or had in 1991) 7500 tactical nuclear warheads.

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