On August 6, 2007, an unidentified aircraft dropped a large air-to-surface missile near a newly upgraded Georgian military radar station, in the vicinity of the South Ossetian conflict zone. The bomb failed to detonate.
Subsequently, two groups of independent experts commissioned by European and American governments confirmed the Georgian government’s allegation that the military aircraft and explosive device, both of types not possessed by Georgia, entered Georgian airspace from the Russian Federation, fired rather than jettisoned the device, and then returned back to Russian airspace. A separate group of experts, convened by the Russian government and consisting only of Russians, nevertheless disputed these conclusions, finding no evidence of Russian involvement.
Why does this incident merit the publication of a
Silk Road Paper? Several reasons make this relevant. First, the incident was not an isolated event, but rather part and parcel of an increasingly aggressive effort by Russia’s foreign policy establishment to undermine
Georgia’s western orientation. Second, the broader context of the incident has important implications for Euro-Atlantic security interests. Third, the international reaction to the incident – particularly on the part of multilateral organizations such as the OSCE and EU – remained grossly inadequate. Fourth, it is imperative that the Euro-Atlantic community draw the right conclusions from this incident, for at least two reasons: to be better prepared for similar incidents in the future; and to avoid the adoption of policies that may inadvertently encourage this type of actions.
The incident constitutes a flagrant violation of Georgia’s sovereignty and is difficult to interpret as anything other than an act of war. In spite of this, European policy-makers, and particularly multilateral institutions, refrained from identifying, let alone condemning the aggressor. In so doing, they implicitly gave credence to Moscow’s seemingly outrageous assertion that for the second time in six months, Georgia bombed itself with aircraft and weaponry it does not possess, and for the sole purpose of blaming Russia for it. That assertion is eerily reminiscent of an incident that took place in 1993, during the war in Georgia’s breakaway republic of Abkhazia, when unmarked aircraft regularly pounded Georgian positions. Russia’s thendefense minister asserted that Georgia attacked its own positions in order to put the blame for its military weakness and territorial losses on Russia. When Georgian forces succeeded in downing a plane, they dragged out of its cockpit a Russian air force pilot in full uniform, with detailed instructions in his uniform pocket that unequivocally indicated his point of departure – an air base in southern Russia – and mission, to pound Georgian forces along the frontline......
