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!

Rating: 5 / 5

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.

Rating: 5 / 5

Not a good book at all.
Rating: 1 / 5

It is also sadly remarked that significant number of Western media services directly borrowed the information from Russian media during and after the war, and then some politicians bought that reports and based their statements or political decisions on them.

This book is especially recommended and designed for policy makers, journalists and experts.
Rating: 5 / 5