2008 South Ossetia War - Background

Background

Main article: Background of the 2008 South Ossetia war See also: Georgian-Ossetian conflict, South Ossetian independence referendum, 2006, and 2008–2010 Georgia–Russia crisis

Before the break-up of the Soviet Union, South Ossetia operated as the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast, an autonomous region within the Georgian SSR. A military conflict between Georgia and South Ossetia broke out in January 1991 when Georgia sent troops to subdue a South Ossetian separatist movement. The separatists were helped by former Soviet military units, who by now had come under Russian command. Estimates of deaths in this fighting exceed 2,000 people. During the war several atrocities occurred on both sides. Approximately 100,000 Ossetians fled Georgia and South Ossetia, while 23,000 Georgians left South Ossetia. The war resulted in South Ossetia, which had a Georgian ethnic minority of around 29% of the total population of 98,500 in 1989, breaking away from Georgia and gaining de facto independence. After the Sochi agreement in 1992, Tskhinvali was isolated from the Georgian territory around it and Russian, Georgian and South Ossetian peacekeepers were stationed in South Ossetia under the Joint Control Commission's (JCC) mandate of demilitarisation. The 1992 ceasefire also defined both a zone of conflict around the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali and a security corridor along the border of South Ossetian territories. This situation was mirrored in Abkhazia, an Autonomous Republic within Georgia in the USSR, where the Abkhazian minority seceded from Georgia in a war in the early 1990s. Similar to South Ossetia, most of Abkhazia was controlled by an unrecognised government, while Georgia controlled other parts. In May 2008, there were about 2,000 Russian peacekeepers in Abkhazia, and about 1,000 Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia under the JCC's mandate.

The conflict remained frozen until 2003 when Mikheil Saakashvili came to power in Georgia's Rose Revolution, which ousted president Eduard Shevardnadze. In the years that followed, Saakashvili's government pushed a programme to strengthen failing state institutions, including security and military, created "passably democratic institutions" and implemented what many viewed as a pro-US foreign policy. One of Saakashvili's main goals has been Georgian NATO membership, which Russia opposes. This has been one of the main stumbling blocks in Georgia-Russia relations. In 2007, Georgia spent 6% of GDP on its military and had the highest average growth rate of military spending in the world. In 2008, Georgia's defence budget was $1bn, a third of all government spending. Restoring South Ossetia and Abkhazia to Georgian control has been seen as a top-priority goal of Saakashvili since he came to power. Opposition members have criticised Saakashvili of having authoritarian tendencies. During Saakashvili's rule, human rights organizations such as Freedom House downgraded Georgia's democracy ranking. The Freedom House ranking moved lower than it was under President Eduard Shevardnadze.

Emboldened by the success in restoring control in Adjara in early 2004, the Georgian government launched a push to retake South Ossetia, sending 300 special task-force fighters into the territory. Georgia stated that the operation aimed to combat smuggling, but JCC participants branded the move as a breach of the Sochi agreement of 1992. Intense fighting took place between Georgian forces and South Ossetian militia between 8 and 19 August 2004. According to researcher Sergei Markedonov, the brief war in 2004 was a turning point for Russian policy in the region: Russia, which had previously aimed only to preserve the status-quo, now felt that the security of the whole Caucasus depended on the situation in South Ossetia, and took the side of South Ossetia. In 2006 Georgia sent police and security forces to the Kodori Gorge in eastern Abkhazia, when a local militia leader there had rebelled against the Georgian authorities. The presence of Georgian forces in the Kodori Gorge continued until the war in 2008.

Georgia accused Russia of the annexation of its internationally recognised territory and of installing a puppet government led by Eduard Kokoity and by several officials who had previously served in the Russian FSB and in the Army. From 2004 to 2008, Georgia has repeatedly proposed broad autonomy for Abkhazia and South Ossetia within the unified Georgian state, but the proposals have been rejected by the secessionist authorities, who demanded full independence for the territory. In 2006, the Georgian government set up what Russians said was a puppet government led by the former South Ossetian prime minister Dmitry Sanakoyev and granted to it a status of a provisional administration, alarming Tskhinvali and Moscow. In what Sergei Markedonov has described as the culmination of Georgian "unfreezing" policy, the control of the Georgian peacekeeping battalion was transferred from the joint command of the peacekeeping forces to the Georgian Defence Ministry.

In 1989, Ossetians accounted for around 60 percent, Georgians 20 percent, Armenians 10 percent and Russians 5 percent of the population of South Ossetia. As of 2009 about 87.5% of the population of South Ossetia have acquired Russian citizenship, as a result of being Soviet Citizens (Russia extended citizenship to most USSR citizens, as it is internationally recognised as a successor state to the USSR). Additionally, 71% of all Ossetians were living in Russia, most of them just across the Roki Tunnel in North Ossetia, and had family members in South Ossetia. From the viewpoint of Russian constitutional law, the legal position of Russian passport holders in South Ossetia is the same as that of Russian citizens living in Russia. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev stated that he would "protect the life and dignity of Russian citizens wherever they are". According to an EU report, this position is inconsistent with international law, which considers the vast majority of purportedly naturalised persons as not Russian citizens. According to Reuters, prior to the war Russia was supplying two thirds of South Ossetia's annual budget, and Russia's state-controlled gas giant Gazprom was building new gas pipelines and infrastructure worth hundreds of millions of dollars to supply South Ossetian cities with energy. Moreover, Russian officials already had de facto control over South Ossetia's institutions, including security institutions and security forces, and South Ossetia's de facto government was largely staffed with Russian representatives and South Ossetians with Russian passports who had previously worked in equivalent government positions in Russia. In mid-April, 2008, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced that Russian PM Vladimir Putin had given instructions to the federal government whereby Russia would pursue economic, diplomatic, and administrative relations with Abkhazia and South Ossetia as with the subjects of Russia. When President Saakashvili was re-elected in early 2008, he promised to bring the breakaway regions back under Georgian control.

Although Georgia has no significant oil or gas reserves of its own, its territory hosts part of the important Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline transit route that supplies western and central Europe. The pipeline, supplied by oil from Azerbaijan's Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oil field transports 1 million barrels (160,000 m3) of oil per day. It has been a key factor for the United States' support for Georgia, allowing the West to reduce its reliance on Middle Eastern oil while bypassing Russia and Iran.

Georgia maintained a close relationship with the G.W. Bush administration of the United States of America. In 2002, the USA started the Georgia Train and Equip Program to arm and train the Georgian military, and, in 2005, a Georgia Sustainment and Stability Operations Program to broaden capabilities of the Georgian armed forces. These programmes involved training by the United States Army Special Forces, United States Marine Corps, and military advisors personnel.