So, American and British troops will march through Moscow in this year's Victory Day parade, but Georgian troops won't. Reports RIA Novosti:
Russia has sent no invitation to Georgian military officials to participate in the May 9 Victory Day parade on Moscow's Red Square, a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said on Monday.
"The invitations were sent to the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) member-states. Georgia is not part of the CIS," Col. Alexei Kuznetsov told journalists.
Of course, as RIAN points out, the U.S. and Britain are also not part of the CIS, so Georgia's snub doesn't have anything to do with that. No need here to point out the real reason.
In other WWII news, a Georgian WWII monument destroyed in December will be rebuilt in Moscow, starting just before Victory Day, reports RT:
Within a year and a half Moscow authorities promise to erect in the Russian capital a copy of the “We fought the Nazis together” monument that was demolished in Georgia on December 19, 2009.
The monument will be placed on Remembrance Alley in the World War II Victory Park on Poklonnaya Hill... Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov has already signed an order to lay the foundation stone on May 6.
The Georgian government had originally said the Kutaisi monument was only being "restored," but the force of the explosion of this renovation effort was apparently so strong that it send chunks of concrete into a house, killing two people.
Trying to figure out what is going on with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization always requires a bit of tea-leaf reading and Kremlinology, given that the organizations who most reliably report on the group tend to be the state-owned media of the member countries. My experience covering one of the SCO summits (in Bishkek in 2007) made clear just how opaque the group is.
That said, there has been a spate of stories this week discussing Pakistan's potential membership in the group. The foreign minister of Uzbekistan is visiting Pakistan, and Uzbekistan -- chair of the SCO this year -- supports Pakistan's membership. This analysis suggests that membership for Pakistan is likely:
Will Pakistan be accepted into the SCO? It all depends on Russia. There is not other opposition in the group. Russia on previous occasions has demanded Bharat’s inclusion along with that of Pakistan. Bharat however is not longer interested in the SCO, and Delhi’s relations with Moscow have soured. So Islamabad may soon become a member of the SCO. The SCO is considering the membership applications of Iran and Pakistan. While there is much discussion of Iran on the agenda, whose absorption into the regional grouping would be seen as a provocative step, there is almost no opposition to the membership of Pakistan.
What might Pakistani membership mean? Not clear, given that it's still not clear exactly what the group is supposed to be doing. Is it a military bloc, or an economic cooperation group, or a cultural exchange forum (or a floor wax, or a dessert topping...)
A Georgian opposition website claims that the notorious Imedi TV stunt exposes Mikheil Saakashvili's lack of trust in the army:
Then, on 13 March, a key element of the Imedi faked news broadcast was the claim that part of the army had gone over to the opposition - which in this context meant it had voluntarily signed up to Russian overlordship. Whether or not one believes the tape of a phone call between Imedi's chief Giorgi Arveladze and his deputy about the programme - in which Arveladze says "Misha" has seen and approved the faked bulletin - is genuine, it is clear that the programme reflected the inner political thinking of the regime, and so shows that they regard the army not as a bulwark of Georgian sovreignity but as a weak spot.
This seems to be both a savvy analysis and a dangerous political game -- for both sides -- to be playing.
While the international media have given a lot of attention to Russian National Security Council head Nikolai Patrushev's floating of the possibility that Georgia could have been behind the Moscow Metro attacks, South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity's contribution seems to have slipped under the radar. The same day as the attacks, GeorgiaTimes reported:
At the hearing with leaders of security and law enforcement structures Kokoyty paid special attention to messages about Guantanamo Bay's prisoners in Georgia.
"Considering that in immediate vicinity of South Ossetia Georgian authorities intend to open a base for training subversive agents, I cannot rule out these people will be used as suicide bombers here or in North Caucasus," Kokoyty said.
Yes, it's a win-win proposition for Tbilisi: curry favor with Washington by taking some Gitmo prisoners off its hands, while gaining cannon fodder to use against the South Ossetians. Well played, Misha!
Turkey, a NATO member, has been one of the U.S.'s top defense industry customers. But could it be serious about buying a new air defense system from Russia or China? That's what Hürriyet Daily News is suggesting. In addition to bids from the U.S. and Italy, Turkey is "taking the Russian and Chinese options seriously":
The Russians earlier were hesitant about whether to bid but decided to go ahead and formally submit their offer when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited Moscow and held talks with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in mid-January, one business official familiar with the issue said. The Russian S300s are seen as an effective system.
The Chinese, meanwhile, are expected to offer the cheapest price and the highest degree of technology transfer, defense analysts said.
As the paper points out, the Russian and Chinese systems wouldn't be compatible with NATO equipment, and either would seem an unlikely choice. But it's worth recalling that two years ago Turkey bought a few S-300s from Russia and said they were just to "simulate threats that may come from countries with ex-Soviet systems in their inventories," namely the Greek Cypriots.
Meanwhile, the big annual American-Turkish Council conference in Washington, which is traditionally a big forum for interaction between Turkish and American defense officials and industry, was cancelled this year because of the row over the Armenian genocide resolution.
Well, that didn't take long. A senior Russian official has suggested that Georgia could be behind the Metro bombings on Monday. As quoted in the Times (London), National Security Council head Nikolai Patrushev :
“All theories have to be checked. For example, there is Georgia and the leader of that state, Saakashvili, whose behaviour is unpredictable,” Mr Patrushev told the Kommersant newspaper.
“He has already unleashed war once. It is possible that he may unleash it again. We have had information that individual members of Georgian special forces support contacts with terrorist organisations in the Russian North Caucasus. We must check this also in relation to the acts of terror in Moscow.”
Georgian officials, naturally, responded negatively. Here's Temuri Yakobishvili using a memorable phrase on Civil.ge:
“Unfortunately, it became a trend in Russia – Jewization of Georgians – wherein if previously Jews were to blame for everything in Russia, now Georgians are to be blamed for everything,” he added.
Russian media also yesterday implicated Georgia in a foiled terror plot in Baku. Just to play along for a bit, as strategically challenged as Saakashvili can be, it's hard to see what Georgia could possibly gain by doing this. This will almost certainly result in greater instability in the north Caucasus, and likely increased Russian military activity just across Georgia's border.
For a far more sensible take on the reaction to the bombings, see the excellent Sean's Russia Blog.
Is anyone shocked that the U.S. military cooperation with Uzbekistan in the Northern Distribution Network has tied the Pentagon up with some unsavory characters there? No? Well, now there is some proof. Ken Silverstein of Harper's reports that a company tied to Gulnara Karimova, daughter of Islam Karimov, as well as to the American-Uzbekistan Chamber of Commerce, has a contract to do some NDN shipping:
FMN says it is a subcontractor on a deal for “Line Haul Trucking Operations” for the U.S. Army. The contract calls for FMN to move supplies between Tajikistan and the Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan, with thirty trucks a month traveling the route and carrying “outsized” equipment on low-bed trailers. FMN also claims to have serviced “every US air base in Afghanistan to date.”
The Washington Post has a good feature on the sad aftermath of a hearts-and-minds gesture by officers at Manas Air Base. A woman from Kyrgyzstan, Lyudmila Sukhanov, was dying of an intestinal ailment in a Bishkek hospital in 2002 when she came to the attention of U.S. officers at Manas, who realized she could be saved if she were taken to a hospital outside Kyrgyzstan.
But with Kyrgyz cooperation vital to the United States, saving Lyuda, as she came to be known, was not only humane but also strategic, a goodwill gesture directed at a vital but skittish ally. The request to medevac her received the blessing of the commander of U.S. forces in the region, Gen. Tommy Franks, and then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. In early 2003, a C-17 military transport plane braved dangerous conditions to airlift Sukhanov first to Germany and then to Washington.
Now her medical condition has stabilized, but she's not well enough to go back to Kyrgyzstan. So she's stuck in the U.S., watching too much TV, costing taxpayers "millions" and apparently arousing the resentment of doctors and nurses at Walter Reed who say she's monopolizing a bed in the hospital.
Kyrgyzstan's President Kurmanbek Bakiyev has apparently publicly endorsed the idea of a smaller, fully professional military. Reports Central Asia Online:
On March 18 in Osh, where the country’s first professional military unit began deployment, he said, “Well-trained professionals, not 18- and 19-year-old boys, should be serving in the military”.
That is likely true, though conspicuously missing in Bakiyev's comments is how the government would pay for such a thing. In addition, the results from Kyrgyzstan's moves toward professionalization -- like the unit in Osh -- have not been encouraging, according to Jane's Sentinel:
Around 90 per cent of personnel in the southern group are now serving on contracts, but there is no evidence that the presence of these 'Kontrakniki' have enhanced combat readiness or enhanced overall standards in the region; surprisingly so, given the awareness of its strategic significance.
There's also a lengthy discussion in the article about the possibility of Kyrgyzstan declaring neutrality and abolishing the military (though there is no evidence the government is considering any such thing). Argues the professor who put forward the idea:
Given its size, the Kyrgyz army would be “helpless in the face of a serious attack”, Suyunbayev said. Instead, he said, Bishkek should disband the standing army while retaining border guards, interior ministry forces and intelligence agencies. Those remaining forces, in his view, could take care of extremist threats, while a neutral diplomatic stance would make the country a “demilitarised state in a militarised territory”, he argued.
Detainees at Camp X-Ray, possibly including some new residents of Georgia
Foreign Policy's The Cable blog has a few more details about the Guantánamo Bay detainees now in Georgia. Most intriguing to me:
The process of organizing their emigration started last fall, when Amb. Dan Fried, the special envoy tasked with resettling Guantánamo prisoners, visited Georgia. He asked Georgian officials to consider taking Guantánamo prisoners and set up a visit for the Georgians to visit the facility in Cuba, which they did in December.
The Georgians met with several detainees at the base, reviewed their medical and psychological records, and spoke with them about what their life in Georgia would be like. In the end, there were several offers extended to prisoners who had been cleared for release, and three accepted.
So, if I read this correctly, some detainees (what exactly is "several" minus three?) were offered the chance to move to Georgia and declined. They thought Gitmo was better?
