ON A UNILATERAL INCURSION…

Writing in the September 19 issue of the Moscow Times, leading Russian military journalist Pavel Felgenhauer sought to imagine what might occur if Russia attempted a unilateral incursion into the Pankisi Gorge: “The Kremlin,” he wrote, “would have gone into Georgia to destroy the rebels (and Shevardnadze) if it could. But it can’t because Moscow does not have the sufficient military capability. Russia has nuclear weapons, jet bombers and more than 2 million servicemen in different armies, but it has almost no decent ground troops. The best of the bunch–more than 80,000–are tied down in Chechnya. Actually going over the Georgian border from Chechnya in ‘hot pursuit’ is virtually impossible even in summertime. There are no roads…. With the onset of winter, snow will cut Georgia off completely until next May…. Georgia has a dilapidated armed force of some 17,000 men, but without its consent Russian armor will never get into Pankisi and there will be no reliable supply line. The Russian army may land 100 or so men by helicopter in the Pankisi Gorge, but the Chechens could repel them successfully with Georgian help…. All Russia can really do is bomb Georgian territory from a high altitude. But Russia has been bombing Georgia intermittently since 1992. More bombs will only make things worse.” “Putin,” Felgenhauer concluded, “seems to have issued a strongly worded Soviet-style threat against a neighboring nation with no Soviet-style force to back it up.”