Inevitable Russia-Georgia war brewed for years

As the bloody military mismatch between Russia and Georgia unfolded over the past four days, even the main players were surprised by how quickly small border skirmishes escalated into a full-fledged war.

Several U.S. and Georgian officials said that unlike the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, when Soviet forces massed before the attack, Russia had not appeared poised for an invasion last week. As late as last Wednesday, Russian diplomats had been pressing for negotiations.

"It doesn't look like this was premeditated, with a massive staging of equipment," one senior U.S. official said. "Until the night before the fighting, Russia seemed to be playing a constructive role."

But while the Russian invasion had caught Georgia and the West by surprise, there had been signs for years that they had methodically, if quietly, prepared for conflict.

Several other long-term factors had also contributed to the possibility of war. They included the Kremlin's military successes in Chechnya, which gave Russia the latitude it needed to free up troops to cross its borders, and the United States' exuberant support for President Mikhail Saakashvili, a figure loathed by the Kremlin personally and politically.

Moreover, by preparing Georgian soldiers for duty in Iraq, the United States appeared to have helped embolden, if inadvertently, Georgia to enter a fight it could not win.

U.S. officials and a military officer who have dealt with Georgia said privately that as a result, the war risked becoming a foreign-policy catastrophe for the United States, whose image and authority in the region were in question after it was unable to aid Georgia or restrain the Kremlin while the Russian army pressed its attack.

Laying the groundwork

Russia's bureaucratic and military groundwork was laid even before Saakashvili came to power in 2004 and positioned himself as one of the most strident critics of the Kremlin.

Under Vladimir Putin's presidency, Russia had granted citizenship and passports to adult residents of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the much larger separatist region on the Black Sea. The West had been skeptical of the validity of Russia's handing out passports by the thousands to citizens of another nation.

But whatever the legal merits, the Kremlin had laid the foundation for one of its public-relations arguments for invading Georgia: Its army was coming to the aid of Russian citizens under foreign attack.

In the ensuing years, even as Russia issued warnings, Saakashvili grew bolder. There were four regions out of Georgian control when he took office in 2004, but he restored two smaller regions, Ajaria in 2004 and the upper Kodori Gorge in 2006, with few deaths.

Russia, however, began retaliating against Georgia in many ways.

It cut off air service and mail between the two countries, closed the border and refused Georgian exports. And by the time the Kodori gorge was back in Georgian control, Russia had also consolidated its hold over Chechnya and its military, enabling Russia to garrison its forces and turn its attention elsewhere.

Tension over Georgian leader

Simultaneously, as the contest of wills between Georgia and Russia intensified, the strong support of the United States for Saakashvili created diplomatic tensions in Washington.

Some envoys considered Saakashvili a politician of unusual promise who could reorder Georgia along the lines of a Western democracy.

Others worried that both Saakashvili's persona and platforms presented an implicit challenge to the Kremlin, and that Saakashvili ultimately would draw the United States and Russia into arguments the United States did not want.

This feeling was especially true among Russian specialists, who said that whatever the merits of Saakashvili's positions, his impulsiveness and nationalism sometimes outstripped his common sense.

In his wooing of Washington as he came to power, Saakashvili firmly embraced the missions of the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq. His rise coincided neatly with a swelling U.S. need for political support and foreign soldiers in Iraq, and his offer of troops was matched with a Pentagon effort to overhaul Georgia's forces, from bottom to top.

At senior levels, the United States helped rewrite Georgian military doctrine and train its commanders and staff officers. At the squad level, U.S. Marines and soldiers trained Georgian soldiers in the fundamentals of fighting a war.

Georgia, meanwhile, began re-equipping its forces — with Israeli and U.S. firearms, new convoys of vehicles and stockpiles of ammunition.

The public goal was to nudge Georgia toward NATO military standards. Privately, Georgian officials welcomed the martial coaching and buildup, and made clear they considered participation in Iraq as a sure way to prepare the Georgian military for "national reunification" — the local euphemism of choice for restoring Abkhazia and South Ossetia to Georgian control.

All of these policies collided late last week. One U.S. official who covers Georgian affairs said everything had gone wrong.

Saakashvili had acted rashly, he said, and had given Russia the grounds to invade. The invasion, he said, was chilling, disproportionate and brutal, and it was grounds for a strong censure. But the immediate question was how far Russia would go in putting Georgia back into what it sees as Georgia's place. There was no sign throughout the weekend of Kremlin willingness to negotiate. A national humiliation was under way.