That's the provocative question that Anton Lavrov asks in the most recent issue of Moscow Defense Brief, and the answer is basically, don't do half-measures.
The events in Libya, which NATO has had to get involved in since early 2011, are reminiscent of another recent conflict, the Five Day War between Russia and Georgia in August 2008. Leaving aside the complex legal issues, it seems that Russia and the NATO allies have had to face similar tasks during these two conflicts. But their approaches have been very different – as have the results.
The most obvious parallels can be drawn between the events in the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali and the city of Misrata in Libya. Both of these rebel-controlled cities were besieged by “government” forces which used artillery, MRL [multiple-launch rocket] systems, heavy armor and aviation. Misrata is linked to the outside world by a single vulnerable port road, Tskhinvali by a tunnel and a narrow mountain road. Shelling and fighting in the streets led to many casualties among civilians, forcing thousands to flee and triggering a humanitarian crisis. In Libya, as in Georgia, there was also a separate theater of combat action, which did not attract much attention. In Libya it was a large rebel-held area from Ajdabiya to Tobruk, with a much greater concentration of rebel forces than in Misrata. In Georgia, that area was Abkhazia.
The separatists in Abkhazia and Ossetia had received military support from extremely powerful outside forces, just as the Libyan rebels have. But the rapid success achieved by Russian troops in Georgia contrasts sharply with the protracted and floundering NATO operation in Libya.
Of course Georgians would probably make a different analogy, with them as the underdogs in Misrata and Russia as Qaddafi. (Today, of course, is the third anniversary of the beginning of the 2008 war between Georgia and Russia over South Ossetia, and both parties are taking the opportunity to refight the conflict.)
Lavrov says that NATO's fatal mistake, which Russia avoided in its war with Georgia that began three years ago today, was to be afraid of sending in ground troops:
The half-hearted intervention in Libya by NATO and the international coalition, i.e. the decision not to risk a ground operation, has served only to equalize the forces of the two warring factions and thereby protract the conflict indefinitely....
[I]n this day and age the use of military force during an intervention must be swift, decisive and massive. That is precisely how Russia used force in August 2008, putting an end to the conflict on favorable terms, minimizing the political and humanitarian repercussions and bringing swift relief to the civilians. By their half-hearted, indecisive and limited intervention the Western countries are only protracting the war in Libya and worsening the plight of civilians in the country. Meanwhile, any political dividends they might have hoped to extract are becoming hard to discern as uncertainty grows about the country’s future.
In 1973 Henry Kissinger said to the then Israeli ambassador to the United States, Yitzhak Rabin: “When you use force it is better to use 30 per cent more than is necessary than five per cent less than is necessary”. In August 2008, Russia followed that advice. The West has ignored it in Libya.
From a purely tactical perspective yes, this is probably right. But the political differences between the two conflicts are so different as to make any real comparison unviable. The Russian population was very much behind the war in South Ossetia, while in the West most people opposed even the limited air strikes, and a ground invasion would have been completely out of the question. Secondly, the people of South Ossetia, even those who resent Russia's heavy-handed control over their political system, accept it for the sake of protection against Georgia, which they see as an aggressor. So Russian intervention is exactly what they were looking for. I'm not sure what the Libyan peoples' reaction would have been to a NATO ground force deploying in their country, but it's safe to say it would have been a lot more complicated.
Joshua Kucera, a senior correspondent, is Eurasianet's former Turkey/Caucasus editor and has written for the site since 2007.
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