An Incomplete Analysis

By BJ

The New York Times has a military analysis of the Russian assault on Georgia. About the only new thing I learned is that the Georgians apparently did try to contest the Roki Tunnel.

The Russians also suffered losses as they came through the Roki Tunnel, which connects South Ossetia to the neighboring region of North Ossetia in Russia proper. Russian national security analysts said there was no air cover to protect Moscow’s forces in their first minutes outside the safety of the mountain tunnel.

The Georgians failure to block the tunnel has been the most nagging question of their initial assault, and this still information still doesn't answer why they didn't make it a higher priority. However, it isn't the part of the analysis that caught my attention.

Georgia’s overmatched army of about 30,000 was able to field four combat brigades of about 3,300 soldiers each.

At the start of the fighting, the Georgian Army’s First Brigade was in Iraq, and was airlifted home aboard American aircraft — but without their war-fighting gear. The Fourth Brigade was in training for the next rotation to Iraq. The Second and Third Brigades were in western Georgia, closer to Abkhazia than to South Ossetia, where the fighting started.

So Georgia only has four combat brigades and all of those are accounted for above, which leaves a quite glaringly obvious hole in this little analysis of Russian performance. I mean, the Georgians couldn't have inflicted losses on the Russians coming out of the Roki Tunnel or ambush their columns' advance if their troops weren't already in the breakaway region waiting for them. So if those four brigades are all the combat forces Georgia has and they were where the author claims they were, just who the hell did they send into South Ossetia in their initial assault?

If I didn't know better, I'd have to say that the "newspaper of record" was trying to gloss over that little fact.