World News Story

21 November 2008 13:06 BST

Georgia on the world's mind

It's been rumbling away for months, but the dispute over South Ossetia's future is now coming to a head.

On the face of it, the situation is simple. Russia and one of its former Soviet republics, Georgia, are tussling over a breakaway province. After an aggressive ploy by Georgia, Russia has reverted to type and is using brute force to get its way. It may seem like game over – but the situation in the southern Caucasus is more complicated than meets the eye.

The main players

At the heart of the problem is South Ossetia, a landlocked province of Georgia advancing from the latter's northern border with Russia deep into the centre of the former Soviet republic. A 1991/92 conflict resulted in South Ossetia winning autonomy from Tbilisi, Georgia's capital. Since then the separatists, currently led by Eduard Kokoity, have subsisted largely off aid from the Russian government.

Georgia has been frustrated by the situation ever since. President Mikhail Saakashvili has repeatedly made clear his desire to bring back the 80,000 residents of South Ossetia under his control. But his latest ploy, perhaps underlining his reputation for rash actions, appears to have backfired. Georgia is now seeking a ceasefire in what appears to be an effort at damage limitation. It may be too little too late for Mr Saakashvili, who has already lost much of his political capital through a crackdown on protestors last year.

Finally, we come to Russia. It doesn't matter whether president Dmitry Medvedev or prime minister Vladimir Putin is in charge. Either way, Russia backs South Ossetia to the hilt. It has maintained over 3,000 peacekeepers in Georgia since the 1991/92 conflict and was merely reinforcing them when it piled masses of troops into the country over the weekend. The region is a strategically vital one as a key energy pipeline runs through Georgia. But analysts say it is also important in credibility terms for Russia, which is currently finding its assertive feet again after years of subservience following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Events: South Ossetia timeline

Friday August 8th: In the early hours Georgian forces pounced against South Ossetian separatists, shattering a tentative ceasefire agreement coming into force only hours earlier. They shelled the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali, surrounded it with tanks and conducted air strikes. Russia responded by rolling a convoy of tanks into the region.

Saturday August 9th: Russian reinforcements led to fierce fighting as the capital changed hands. Georgia's parliament approved a presidential decree declaring a state of war for the next 15 days, while Russian jets began their raids on the Georgian border town of Gori. An estimated 30,000 people were claimed to have been displaced.

Sunday August 10th: Fighting continued as the Russians consolidated their hold over all of South Ossetia. Abkhazia, another separatist province, announced it was opening a "second front" against Tbilisi. Russian planes began bombing the Georgian capital. Georgian forces shelled Tskhinvali.

Monday August 11th: Still no sign of an end to the conflict, but the relative positions appeared to have consolidated. Mr Saakashvili claimed a ceasefire agreement was impending.

Consequences

The South Ossetia conflict comes amid serious jitters in the western world about Russia's re-emergence as a global power. Its aggressive foreign policy under Mr Putin has seen it adopt an uncompromising approach with both its former satellites and the wider international community; now Mr Medvedev is in charge nothing seems like changing. It's a situation which is leaving many who prefer a docile Kremlin worried.

The US is certainly unhappy. Georgia may not exactly be in its backyard but the rhetoric emerging from the outgoing Bush-Cheney administration appears frustrated, to say the least. Could the cold war be making a 21st century comeback? We may have lost the ideology, but the gulf sometimes seems as wide as more traditional power balances return to prominence.

Then there's the more immediate impact of what will happen in the Caucasus in the coming months. At present Russia looks like securing control of all of South Ossetia but sticking at the province's borders. That would be a decent move, impressive because of its restraint. There is a chance, however, that further attacks by Georgia could force Russia into further action. Some fear the conflict could broaden to include a greater war in the Caucasus. Or, worse still, a regional war may develop in which the building tensions across Russia's periphery burst into unstoppable violence.

For now, the situation in South Ossetia is worth watching carefully.