Customer Reviews

A Little War that Shook the World: Georgia, Russia, and the Future of the West

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This is a valuable overview of the politics and diplomacy around the 2008 Georgian-Russian war. Asmus argues that the war needs to be primarily understood not in terms of a local secessionist dispute, but rather in terms of the overall Russian-Western relationship, especially in the context of EU/NATO expansion and Kosovo's independence.

By the early 2000s Russia observed that many of its traditional satellites were moving towards the EU and NATO. Asmus argues that in response, Russia was increasingly drawn back towards a 19th century model, where a leading Great Power, such as Russia, was entitled to have a sphere of influence within which it could control major foreign policy issues.

By 2008, Georgia and Ukraine were requesting a Membership Action Plan ("MAP") to join NATO. Russia was strongly opposed to this. After much discussion, NATO declined to offer either country a MAP but instead stated that both countries would join NATO in the future. Asmus notes that this response clearly ignored Russia's true concern, which was of course around NATO membership, not MAPs. Russia seems to have been particularly vexed by its intended client Georgia's aggressively pro-Western stance and to have believed that there was now a limited time window in which it could act to prevent Georgian NATO membership.

Asmus also notes that Kosovo's independence in early 2008 amounted to a unilateral restructuring of Russia's client Serbia, without the consent of either Serbia or Russia. The West saw this as a reluctant necessity, in the face of ethnic cleansing and intransigence. But from Russia's perspective, the West's behavior around Kosovo was unilateral, bypassing the UN Security Council and breaking the established rules of the game. Asmus suggests that Russia thus felt both entitled and motivated to respond in kind.

Asmus then describes the growing tensions around Georgia's breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and the final descent into war. Asmus argues that Russia appears to have been intent on launching a full scale invasion and that this can be demonstrated by a major Russian military build-up ahead of the conflict. As events unfolded, Georgia's President Saakashvili ordered Georgia's troops to the attack, but Asmus portrays this as occurring within the context of a premeditated Russian invasion, which had the aim of de facto Russian annexation of Georgia's secessionist regions and the overthrow of Saakashvili's pro-Western government.

French President Sarkozy successfully negotiated a cease fire, which preserved Tbilisi from invasion and allowed Saakashvili's government to survive, but which also allowed Russia to benefit from much of its gains. Asmus suggests that the US deliberately stood back from the negotiations to avoid having the situation escalate into a direct US-Russian confrontation and to force the EU to have a stake in resolving the situation. Asmus notes that Russia's actions have weakened Georgia, but he urges the West to continue supporting Georgia's democratization and European membership.

Overall this is an exceptionally thorough, well written, and nuanced analysis. (And of course I am only touching on that analysis in this short review.) Asmus had previously worked as a US diplomat on many of the underlying issues, such as NATO expansion. While there is some risk of bias, this gives him an exceptional background for analyzing the thorny context and for trying to explain how and why Russia, Georgia and the West behaved in the ways they did.

In trying to explain the deep psychological and patriotic feelings that motivated President Saakashvili and the Georgians during the August 2008 war, Ronald Asmus goes back to the First Georgian Republic of 1918-21 and writes: "The decision by the government in Tbilisi then (in 1921) not to fight for their independence left a legacy that would shape Saakashvili's decision in August 2008. It had taken Georgia seventy years to regain its independence and many Georgians were not about to give it up a second time without a fight" And he repeats several times in his book the astonishing assertion that the 1921 Georgian government chose not to fight the invading red army.
Nothing could be further from the truth, so much so that I am totally amazed that this complete reversal of history could have found credence with such a savvy gentleman as Mr. Asmus.
The facts can be easily ascertained. [ I invite the interested reader to Google these words: Georgia - 1921 - red army, and peruse the results.]
In brief: in 1921 the red army attacked with overwhelming numbers from Armenia, Azerbaijan, and from the North through the mountain passes as well as alongside the coast of the Black Sea. The Turks joined in, and invaded from the South. Everywhere the invaders met with fierce resistance, so much so that it took over one full month for the Reds to seize all of little Georgia.
A grace note: before being finally vanquished, in a quixotic action the remnants of the Georgian army attacked and defeated the Turks who had occupied Batumi, so that the region would remain part of Georgia.
I am at a loss for where Mr. Asmus found his totally erroneous information. Perhaps he confounded the year 1921 with the year 1805, when Russian forces indeed entered Georgia without a shot in response to a plea for help against the Moslem invaders from the South, and ended up annexing the country.
President Saakashvili is extraordinarily well-informed. I am certain he is well aware of the fact that in 1921 the first republic fought with all its might against the communist invader, and therefore the memory of those times cannot have had on him the psychological impact asserted here. I heartily hope Mr. Asmus will correct this egregious distortion of history in future editions of his book, which otherwise is well worth reading.

Ignore the KGB reviewer's comments. This a balanced account. The author offers up much criticism of the Georgian leadership and military, while exposing the authoritarian designs of Moscow.

having lived in the country during this war, i have to say the book explains well what has really happened.

it's a great to read and very honest book.A Little War that Shook the World: Georgia, Russia, and the Future of the West

"A Little War That Shook the World: Georgia, Russia and the Future of the West"


Bravo to Dr. Asmus on this outstanding account of what transpired in Georgia during those not so lazy days in August 2008 while the West was more interested in the Beijing Olympic Games than Russia's incursion into Georgia. I really can't praise this book enough, and like Dr. Asmus' earlier book "Opening NATO's Door" an insider's account of NATO enlargement; this book should be on everyone's "must read" list. This exceptional book is an account of an extremely important event that has largely received little attention, yet the West will be feeling the aftershocks for years, if not decades. At a recent event on Dr. Asmus' book former Bush Administration National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, who was serving in his post during the 2008 war spoke about the book and the U.S.'s role during the war. Mr. Hadley stated that Dr. Asmus' book is an "excellent first draft of history." All of the attendees nodded in agreement. I also believe that those who have the courage to "write first drafts of history" are the one's whose work will be remembered!

Dr. Asmus, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Clinton Administration and a key advisor on NATO enlargement to then Secretary of State Albright, currently serves as the Brussels-based Executive Director of the Transatlantic Center and Director of Strategic Planning for the German Marshall Fund writes with a scholar-historian's eye for detail while crafting a highly readable account of the 2008 Russian-Georgian war. The reader feels that they are at the meetings with the Georgian leadership and President Saakashvili when fateful decisions are made. As I read the book I couldn't help but feel the anxiety that President Saakashvili and his team must have felt when they believed that this was no ordinary skirmish between Georgia and South Ossetia and Abkhazia and that Russia was amassing troops and was going to invade Georgia and take Tbilisi. A question that comes to mind is what leader despite being told by "friends" and allies not to engage Russia militarily wouldn't defend his or her people? Isn't that his or her duty? How do you fault a leader for defending his people and the sovereignty of his nation? How do you blame a leader for defending his nation after it was invaded? You can't - can you?

Dr. Asmus aptly puts it that this is a war where there are no winners; that Russia violated the Charter of Paris and numerous other agreements and broke the cardinal post-Cold War rule that borders in Europe will not be changed by force. As I read on, I became outraged over what can best be described as the failure of NATO, the EU and the U.S. to stand by its ally, Georgia, during this critical time. It is quite a turn of events for Georgia who just four months earlier at the NATO Bucharest Summit was on track for the Membership Action Plan (MAP), the process where a nation works to satisfy the requirements for NATO membership. This is quite a lengthy process and takes years for a nation to make the required reforms, yet at the Summit MAP did not come to fruition for Georgia (and Ukraine). If Georgia, a pro-Western, pro-market economy, pro-reform, pro-NATO and pro-EU country was qualified enough to be considered for the MAP; why wasn't it good enough to defend? This book provides the answers to these and other questions that have far reaching geo-political implications than just the 2008 war.

Dr. Asmus lays the foundation for this conflict that was destined to happen and clearly shows that the conflict was not months in the making, but years. What the reader learns is that Russian actions were motivated purely for regime change. The pre-text may have been Kosovo's independence or the protection of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, but it was simply to get rid of a leader of a neighboring nation that Moscow did not like. This was one neighbor intensely disliking what another was doing and deciding that it was going to modify the other's behavior by force. This is a story of a new Russia, under new leadership that simply does not want a nation on its borders to be part of NATO, the premier military alliance or the West. This story is of a war with an incomplete ending and an incomplete peace negotiated by French President Sarkozy. His efforts are laudable, but the situation called out for U.S., EU and NATO leadership.

I have read the numerous highly positive reviews, but it was the two, obviously written by FSB that prompted me to write this review! Dr. Asmus stipulates that he requested interviews with Russian officials for the book and they did not comply. To attack this outstanding book because Russian officials declined to discuss the Georgia war and to twist what transpired is simply outrageous, misleading and inexcusable!

"A Little War That Shook The World," is a "must read" whose messages will be with us for quite some time. What is clear from Dr. Asmus' book is that we must learn from the mistakes made. One hopes that this outstanding book fosters debate on what transpired in August 2008 and forces the West to examine its (in)action and develop and articulate a clear policy. What we can not and must not do is pretend that the war did not happen. The world is far too complex and dangerous to do so!

Very, very good book for those who wants to know what exactly happned in August 2008. Deep analisys and knowledge of the key players makes this book outstanding!

After losing the Second World War, Germany has undergone a remarkable transformation. In repudiating its past, it also abandoned the aspiration of being a major player in world affairs, agreeing instead to become a part of the trans-Atlantic system, the group of Western democracies protected by the might of the Pax Americana.

For a brief period after the end of the Cold War, it appeared that Russia would do the same. Abandoning the power politics of the Cold War days, Russia grew closer to the West. Significantly, it saw its former satellites in Eastern Europe going West - joining the EU and NATO, and adopting pro- Western governments. Like Post WW2 Germany, Russia in the 1990s seemed content to border with pro-Western states.

For whatever reason, this pro-Western episode in Russian history came to an end. The most spectacular sign of the new winds blowing from the Kremlin was the ascension of Vladimir Putin. Putin's Russia has no use for sentimental yearnings to go West, and no interest in being a second-rate nation within the American hegemony. The loss of power over Russia's European neighbors is to be lamented, reversed if possible, and certainly not to be repeated. Looking at the world through a telescopic sight, so to speak, the new Russia remembers all too well what NATO was created against in the first place.

Thus when Georgia, one of Russia's Caucasus neighbors, underwent a democratic revolution in 2003, and started to pursue a pro-Western course, Russia was not happy. Georgia's President, the young (b. 1967), US educated Mikheil Saakashvili has led Georgia since the Rose Revolution of 2003, sought closer ties to the West, becoming a major contributor to America's "Coalition of the willing" in Iraq and trying to join NATO and the EU. Putin's Russia would see such a course as a threat to its rights and interests. It would respond accordingly.

The instrument of Russia's opposition to the Saakashvili regime were the "Frozen Conflicts" in the ethnically mixed Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Both regions contained mixed population, and the non Georgian elements (or at least their leadership) did not desire to be subject to Georgian rule. After military conflicts in these areas during the 1990s, the early 2000s saw a kind of status Quo settlement, in which both regions contained a mixture of local and Georgian forces, as well as "Peacekeepers", mostly Russian troops. The regions would abrupt in periodic - but contained - violence almost every summer.

Saakashvili's government was committed to Georgian Territorial Integrity, meaning that it opposed any notion of independence for the regions. Instead, Saakashvili tried to suggest far reaching compromises that would allow the regions some amount of autonomy within the Georgian state.

Saakashvili, whose American-philia apparently does not extend to rock music, might have benefited from Mick Jagger's advise that "You Can't Always Get What You Want"; As long as Georgia pursued a course that was inimical to Russia, it could expect Russian push back against Georgian integration. Putin's Russia aggressively promoted the breakaway side in the conflict. In addition to supporting the would-be-governments of the provinces, it also started massive issuing of Russian Passports to the non-Georgian residents of the territories, and would now claim the right to intervene in the areas on behalf of its newly minted Citizens.

Two developments in 2008 were seen as special provocation in Russia's eyes, and may have constituted the war's unofficial casus beli. The first was Western support for Kosovo's independence, against Russia's wishes. The unilateral decision not only angered Russia, it also created precedent for Russian recognition of the Independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The second was the decision by NATO (in its 2008 Bucharest summit), as a compromise between its pro-expansion and anti-expansion factions, to issue a statement that said, in effect, that Georgia would be a NATO member some day. This arguably spurred Russia to take advantage of the NATO split, rather than bid its time.

In August 2008, Russia's soldiers entered South Ossetia in large numbers, provoking a Georgian attack on the invaders and their South Ossetian allies. Georgia proved spectacularly unprepared for the conflict: amazingly, it had no plans for a South Ossetian campaign, too little ammunition for its new US-made weapons, and insufficient manpower - one of the republic's four combat ready brigades was deployed in Iraq, and the rest were not in battle positions. Yet given the imbalance in power between Georgia and Russia, its unlikely that even a competent Georgian military would have significantly changed the military outcome.

The Georgian sued for peace, and an international diplomatic effort, spearheaded by France (One of the most interesting revelation of the book is that the United States outsourced its work on the crisis, arguably abrogabdicating its responsibilities as the leader of the free world), reached terms which sacrificed Georgian territorial integrity, but allowed the Saakashvili government to stay in office. Georgia did not like the deal, but had no choice; Asmus lacks sources on the Kremlin to inform us of Russia's reasoning. Following the cease fire, Russia recognized the independence of the provinces.

Ronald D. Asmus narration of the crisis and its origin is on the whole compelling, but highly unequal. Asmus excels at description of high-level diplomacy; The chapter about the machinations of the NATO summit is particularly breathtaking and analytically sophisticated. But as a military history the book is a total failure: the complete absence of battle field maps (the entire book has only one map!) is especially damning.

Perhaps the book's greatest failure, however, is its naivete. Asmus seems to have expected the post Cold War world to become a paradise of democracy "...our commitments to... the right[s] to territorial integrity, sovereignty, equal security, and to choose one's own alliance affiliation... were supposed to be the bedrock of a new post-Cold War security order" (p. 13). Did Asmus really expect the Cold War to have been the War to End All War?

It seems obvious to me that the key to the Georgian situation is the fact that the West in unwilling to fight in the Caucasus, while Russia is. This makes the region a part of the Russian sphere of influence. The new, pro-Western regimes in Eastern Europe constitute a remarkable achievement from the Western point of view - most of Eastern and Southern Europe is now on our side - but it is not a post - power politics Utopia.

Perhaps one day, Russia would be willing to join in the Western world order. But today it isn't, and the West has to deal with it. If nothing else, the cease fire agreement proved that we can do business with Russia - and cooperation is better than confrontation, especially when one side is either unwilling (NATO) or unable (Georgia) to effectively confront the other. I think this is a lesson worth reflecting upon, whether in Brussels, Washington, or Tbilisi.

The author has clear pro-Saakashvilli bias and he does not hide it. He met Georgian president on multiple occasions, he knows Georgian leadership and lived in a country. While facts in the book are mostly balanced, his comments and analysis is so pro-Georgian that it's not even funny. He trumps up every anti-Russian fact and tries to gloss over and explain away anything anti-Georgian.

One thing that I concluded after reading this book is that Saakashvilli is not qualified to lead a country due to his character. He is hot-head who is ready to risk war and his country to achieve his political aims and is not ready to wait until conflict can be resolved by peaceful means. He is not consistent in his policies - from diplomatic resolution to military escalation and then back to diplomacy in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Asmus tells that Georgia multiple times asked (and was denied) US permission and support for war against Abkhazia and South Ossetia but he decided to start the war anyway hoping to create new facts on the ground. After he lost the war he did not have decency to relinquish his post and violently crushed opposition protests.

After reading the book I have no doubt that Saakashvilli is the most responsible for this war even though author draws mostly opposite conclusion.

I just bought and read this book.
The author brings us a good view of geopolitical interpretation of the war. Russia still poses as a menace to the West. The European Union was weak to antecipate the war and let Georgia alone in the dark. What can we do if a country invades us and begins to kill our people? Georgian's president was obliged to answer and did what everyone in his position should do: fight back.
Of course there are many questions to solve: is South Ossetia an independent country or just another "russian's republic"? Does it people really want to join Russia? As the author says: the own developing of Georgia would show where is the real interest of Ossetians and Abckasians: an autonomous union with Georgia.
A good book.
Rogerio de Oliveira Souza - Brazil