Tactical Nuclear Weapons and NATO.pdf - Program on Strategic ...

In other words, the pursuit of a military solution
(guaranteeing the security of South Ossetia <strong>and</strong> Abkhazia)
subverted Russian diplomacy (the peacekeeping
role) <strong>and</strong> placed Russia in the position of being
manipulated by all parties in the conflict, including
South Ossetia, Abkhazia, <strong>and</strong> Georgia. It made war almost
inevitable. So, in spite of apparent good military
planning, Russia was poorly prepared politically. This
resulted in a lack of preparedness overall.
Poor political preparation reflected itself in the
questionable state of Russian military equipment.
Decisions were not made at the top levels of the
political/military structure to ensure that Russian
troops could achieve victory in the shortest possible
time, using the best equipment. This reflected overconfidence,
bad acquisition procedures, <strong>and</strong> confusion
about how far Russia wanted to go to achieve its
objectives. Certainly Russia could not simply go
in <strong>and</strong> take over the Georgian territory under these
conditions. Nor could it overthrow the government of
President Mikheil Saakashvili.
Probably the best military analysis of the 2008 war
has been done by a group of Russian academics in a
work that first appeared as Tanki Avgusta in the original
<strong>and</strong>, as translated into English later as, The Tanks
of August. This work contains some searing critiques
of Russian military failures, mostly dealing with poor
equipment <strong>and</strong> poor battle execution. For instance,
while the authors note that the Northern Caucasus
42nd Rifle Division was the “only division in the entire
Russian Army fully deployed under a wartime
manning chart <strong>and</strong> staffed only with professional soldiers”
<strong>and</strong> had combat-ready regiments ready to fight
in 24 hours, it was poorly equipped, having ancient
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