The Russians are Coming (2)?

I wasn’t too sure what to make of the fighting between Russia and Georgia at first. I thought though, like many people, that something quite important is happening. Better to see what pans out before wading in? (there is a first time for everything).

The TV pictures of massed Russian tanks and armoured vehicles pouring into Georgia have rightly unsettled many people’s perceptions of modern day global politics.

It also brought back to me, almost forgotten memories of my youth, when for several years I was a member of the “Territorial Army” (the “Terries” or TA) whose chief role in those days was to support the regular “British Army of the Rhine”. In the event of a war their job was to smash and turn back the armoured divisions of the Red Army from sweeping across the German plains into the West.

I seem to remember that most of us, including our instructors and senior officers, were pretty pessimistic about our chances of actually stopping them. This may just have been traditional British self-mockery. On exercises in Germany, I was often “dug in” a muddy farmer’s field in the pouring rain with my trusty 7.62 SLR (rifle) and “training only” 66 anti-tank rocket launcher. To kill (unlikely) or disable (somewhat possible in theory) a main battle tank with a 66, the idea was that you had to get really, really close, preferably from behind and while it was stationary. When you managed to fire at the damn thing there was a very bright projection flash to the rear of the 66, which brightly illuminated you to everyone on the battle field. So if I was in a middle of any mass tank attack I didn’t really fancy my chances.

Seeing the TV pictures and photos of heavy artillery barrages, mass rocket attacks (grand-daughters of Stalin’s Organs) and air bombing in Georgia reinforces this view. Generally, our idea was to slow the Soviet advance down long enough to give peace talks a chance before NATO started to go nuclear.

I think that most Brit’s sympathys will naturally be with the Georgians. So far the Russians have not produced any evidence of any massacres or systematic ethnic cleansing by Georgian troops in their abortive attack in South Ossetia. I think in any case that Russia is flexing its muscles as a world power after a long period of internal turmoil and weakness. It is bullying its smaller neighbours in a traditional Russian way.

But things are very different from the “Cold War” era. Firstly, the Russian tanks are now thousands of miles further east than they were. Secondly, there is no longer an ideological black hole between the West and the Soviet Union (which to me it was always “Russia” to all intents and purposes). There are of course huge differences inbetween Parliamentary and one Party authoritarian “democracies” – but nothing compared to the past.

Personally, even in the bad old days I didn’t really believe that the Red Army would ever invade the West even if they did have theoretically superiority in numbers of tanks, artillery, troops, attack aircraft etc. Barring a mad, bad dictator taking charge, I was pretty sure that the prospect of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) would have stopped any real attack. After all the Russians did "really love their children too".

But, I don’t think my youth was entirely mis-spent. If there had not been a creditable conventional military defense by NATO during the “cold war” I think that the Soviets (Russians) would have engaged in dangerous military adventures short of all out war. The sort of stuff that they appear to be carrying out in Georgia, since they would have correctly calculated that NATO would not have risked MAD over such issues.

The BBC report today that a Russian commander in Georgia, General Nogovitsyn, said “Russia was not the Soviet Union or the Evil Empire”.

Yes General, I agree, but Russia will do whatever it thinks is good for Russia. The famous quotation from Churchill (in full not just the memorable first bit) in 1939 is as valid to day as ever before.

"I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest."