The Guns of August 2008

The Guns of August 2008 PDF Author: Svante E. Cornell
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317456521
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
In the summer of 2008, a conflict that appeared to have begun in the breakaway Georgian territory of South Ossetia rapidly escalated to become the most significant crisis in European security in a decade. The implications of the Russian-Georgian war will be understood differently depending on one's narrative of what transpired and perspective on the broader context. This book is designed to present the facts about the events of August 2008 along with comprehensive coverage of the background to those events. It brings together a wealth of expertise on the South Caucasus and Russian foreign policy, with contributions by Russian, Georgian, European, and American experts on the region.

The Guns of August 2008

The Guns of August 2008 PDF Author: Svante E. Cornell
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317456521
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
In the summer of 2008, a conflict that appeared to have begun in the breakaway Georgian territory of South Ossetia rapidly escalated to become the most significant crisis in European security in a decade. The implications of the Russian-Georgian war will be understood differently depending on one's narrative of what transpired and perspective on the broader context. This book is designed to present the facts about the events of August 2008 along with comprehensive coverage of the background to those events. It brings together a wealth of expertise on the South Caucasus and Russian foreign policy, with contributions by Russian, Georgian, European, and American experts on the region.

The Russian Military and the Georgia War

The Russian Military and the Georgia War PDF Author: Ariel Cohen
Publisher: Strategic Studies Institute
ISBN: 1584874910
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 114

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Book Description
In this monograph, the authors state that Russia planned the war against Georgia in August 2008 aiming for the annexation of Abkhazia, weakening the Saakashvili regime, and prevention of NATO enlargement. According to them, while Russia won the campaign, it also exposed its own military as badly needing reform. The war also demonstrated weaknesses of the NATO and the European Union security systems.

Discordant Neighbours: A Reassessment of the Georgian-Abkhazian and Georgian-South Ossetian Conflicts

Discordant Neighbours: A Reassessment of the Georgian-Abkhazian and Georgian-South Ossetian Conflicts PDF Author: B. George Hewitt
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004248935
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 422

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Book Description
The 2008 Georgian-Russian war focused the world’s attention on the Caucasus. South Ossetia and Abkhazia had been de facto independent since the early 1990s. However, Russia’s granting of recognition on 26 August 2008 changed regional dynamics. The Caucasus is one of the most ethnically diverse areas on earth, and the conflicts examined here present their own complexities. This book sets the issues in their historical and political contexts and discusses potential future problems. This volume is distinguished from others devoted to the same themes by the extensive use the author (a Georgian specialist) makes of Georgian sources, inaccessible to most commentators. His translated citations thus cast a unique and revealing light on the interethnic relations that have fuelled these conflicts.

The Guns of August 2008

The Guns of August 2008 PDF Author: Svante E. Cornell
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131745653X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
In the summer of 2008, a conflict that appeared to have begun in the breakaway Georgian territory of South Ossetia rapidly escalated to become the most significant crisis in European security in a decade. The implications of the Russian-Georgian war will be understood differently depending on one's narrative of what transpired and perspective on the broader context. This book is designed to present the facts about the events of August 2008 along with comprehensive coverage of the background to those events. It brings together a wealth of expertise on the South Caucasus and Russian foreign policy, with contributions by Russian, Georgian, European, and American experts on the region.

The Georgian-Russian Conflict

The Georgian-Russian Conflict PDF Author: Pertti Joenniemi
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : European Union countries
Languages : en
Pages : 32

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Book Description
The paper addresses the question whether the conflict between Georgia and Russia in August 2008 really stands for a turning-point as often argued, and if so what has changed and with what consequences. Has the Caucasus conflict been of a ground-breaking importance with power politics back on the agenda or instead stood out as a minor incident and an unintended conflict soon to fade into oblivion? In order to pass judgment on such questions and to arrest some of the more profound dynamics of the discourse waged, an interpretive frame is developed. It is above all utilized in probing the subject-positions of the European Union, the United States and Russia in the context of the debate. The paper argues that rather than a turning-point the conflict has been conducive to the emergence of a meeting-point particularly in the sphere of US-Russia relations whereas the EU is experiencing considerable difficulties in trying to stay in tune with the more general outcome. Overall, the conflict indeed shook the world, albeit it did so in a rather unexpected manner and the reverberations still continue to unfold.

The Georgian-Russian War of August 2008

The Georgian-Russian War of August 2008 PDF Author: Alekʻsandre Daušvili
Publisher: Nova Science Publishers
ISBN: 9781634834001
Category : Georgia (Republic)
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The Russian-Georgian War of August 2008 stands out for its socio-political, international, diplomatic, geostrategic, economic and moral-psychological results. Despite the fact that only some years have passed since the end of the war and we all are witnesses and participants of the preparation and of the accomplishment of this dramatic event, there are still many unanswered questions. There are more mysteries in respect of the actions of the main participants of this dramatic event, which dispose historians to study those events thoroughly "hot on the trail", not to wait for a "historical distance", and fill up secret documents with logical arguments and noteworthy hypotheses. The scientific conference, held in Tbilisi in the large hall of The Georgian National Academy of Sciences in the summer of 2014, was aimed precisely to the approbation of the new scholarly ideas on different aspects regarding the preparation and proceedings of the War of August 2008. The conference was attended by representatives of the historical community of Georgia and by the mass media. The reports were made at the conference by professors and scholars from Sukhumi State University, Akhaltsikhe Educational University and Tbilisi Scientific Centre for Historical, Ethnological, Religious Study and Propaganda. A former Minister of Defense of Georgia, General Giorgi (Gia) Karkarashvili, also sent his report. The present collection of works is simply a publication of an English version of these conference materials to which a critical analysis of the sensational book in Georgia "A Little War that Shook the World", written by an eminent political-scientist and diplomat, R D Asmus, was added. In our opinion, it will help American readers to comprehend the issues more profoundly.

Countdown to War in Georgia

Countdown to War in Georgia PDF Author: Ana K. Niedermaier
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 614

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Book Description


The Russian Military and the Georgia War

The Russian Military and the Georgia War PDF Author: Ariel Cohen
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Geopolitics
Languages : en
Pages : 116

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Book Description
In this monograph, the authors state that Russia planned the war against Georgia in August 2008 aiming for the annexation of Abkhazia, weakening the Saakashvili regime, and prevention of NATO enlargement. According to them, while Russia won the campaign, it also exposed its own military as badly needing reform. The war also demonstrated weaknesses of the NATO and the European Union security systems.

Russia's War in Georgia

Russia's War in Georgia PDF Author: Svante E. Cornell
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789185937356
Category : Abkhazia (Georgia)
Languages : en
Pages : 43

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Book Description
In August 2008, Russia launched an invasion of Georgia that sent shock waves reverberating--first across the post-Soviet space, but then also into the rest of Europe and the world, as the magnitude of the invasion and its implications became clear. This invasion took the world by surprise. But what should have been surprising about it was perhaps the extent of Russia's willingness to employ crude military force against a neighboring state, not that it happened. Indeed, Russia had for several years pursued increasingly aggressive and interventionist policies in Georgia, and had employed an array of instruments that included military means, albeit at a smaller scale. In the several months that preceded the invasion, Moscow's increasingly blatant provocations against Georgia led to a growing fear in the analytic community that it was seeking a military confrontation. Yet western reactions to this aggressive behavior remained declaratory and cautious in nature, and failed to attach cost to Russia for its behavior. After invading Georgia on August 8, Russia did score some initial successes in portraying the invasion as a response to a Georgian decision to militarily enter Tskhinvali, the capital of Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia. Yet a growing body of evidence rapidly emerged, implying that Russia's invasion was premeditated, not reactive--or in the words of a leading Russian military analyst, planned, not spontaneous. Indeed, as the chronology included in this paper shows, Russia had been meticulously preparing an invasion of Georgia through the substantial massing and preparation of forces in the country's immediate vicinity. Scholars will debate whether Russian tanks were already advancing inside Georgian territory when Georgian forces launched their attack on Tskhinvali; yet there seems little doubt that they were at least on the move toward the border. And the scope of the Russian attack leave little doubt: it immediately broadened from the conflict zone of South Ossetia, to include the opening of a second front in Abkhazia and systematic attacks on military and economic infrastructure across Georgia's territory. Within days, tens of thousands of Russian troops and hundreds of tanks and armored vehicles roamed Georgian roads. Russia's subsequent decisions to ignore the terms of a cease-fire agreement it signed, and to recognize the independence of the breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, all complete the picture of long-hatched plan. The purpose was not merely related to South Ossetia or even Abkhazia: it served to punish Georgia and expose the inability of the west to prevent Russia from moving aggressively to restore its primacy over the former Soviet Union's territory, irrespective of the wishes of the governments and populations of the sovereign countries on that area. It is indeed the predetermined nature of this war that makes its implications so far-reaching. It constituted Moscow's first military aggression against a neighboring state since the invasion of Afghanistan in 1978; and it took place, this time, against a member state of European institutions such as the OSCE and the Council of Europe, and to that a country on track to integration with NATO. As such, political leaders and analyst soon understood that it formed the largest crisis to date in Russia's relationship with the West; some have even come to realize that the Georgian war of 2008 may be the most significant challenge to European Security since the Cold War's end. It is therefore of particular importance to document, already at this stage, how this war started and draw some preliminary conclusions regarding what it means for Georgia, the post-Soviet space, and Europe and the United States. The following pages propose to do so by providing a chronology of events before, during, and immediately after the war; as well as to propose some initial conclusions that could be drawn from this chronology, as well as regarding its implications.--Introduction, p. [3]-4.

The Russian Military and the Georgia War: Lessons and Implications

The Russian Military and the Georgia War: Lessons and Implications PDF Author: Ariel Cohen
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781477686416
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 110

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Book Description
In August 2008, the armed conflict between Russia and Georgia broke out on the territory of Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The Russian-planned military campaign lasted 5 days until the parties reached a preliminary ceasefire agreement on August 12. The European Union (EU), led by the French presidency, mediated the ceasefire. After signing the agreement, Russia pulled most of its troops out of uncontested Georgian territories, but established buffer zones around Abkhazia and South Ossetia. On August 26, 2008, Russia recognized the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, making them a part of what President Dmitry Medvedev called Moscow's "zone of privileged interests," and since then deploying five military bases on occupied Georgian territory. In their monograph, Dr. Ariel Cohen and Colonel Robert Hamilton show how Russia won the war against Georgia by analyzing the goals of war, which include the annexation of Abkhazia, the weakening or toppling the Saakashvili regime, and the prevention of NATO enlargement in the Caucasus. The war demonstrated that Russia's military is in need of significant reforms and it indicated which of those reforms are currently being implemented. Finally, the war highlighted weaknesses of the NATO and EU security system as it pertains to Eastern Europe and specifically to the countries of the former Soviet Union.