Wu Wei

Some assessments of the effect of the war and how people are responding

As reported in Tbilisi English language newspapers this week:

Poti seaport estimates its losses at around 2MUSD.  Six employees died and 35 were wounded as a result of the bombing.

HeidelbergCement suffered damage  when it was bombed but has now started working again aftr a 14 day stoppage. The company says it will continue investing in Georgia.

The Borjomi Gorge has been announced as a zone of ecological disaster as a result of damage by forest fires, some of which are still burning.

And not all companies are being deterred by the war.  The Ministry of Economy reports that Indian companies  have taken part in a tender for licenses and if successful are planning to invest 37.1MUSD in oil and gas.

Rompetrol has reduced prices by 5-10 tetri to express its support to the people of Georgia, and increased the import of fuel to ensure no deficit. 

Some teachers are concerned about their jobs.  Kindergarten schools have been used in Tbilisi to house refugees.  They are still receiving their pay though they aren't working. Despite this they are grumbling about not being able to use the schools.  Given the time Georgian governments have taken to rehouse refugees (the Georgians fleeing from Abkhazia in the 90s were left staying in a hotel for at least 10 years, then unceremoniously kicked out with a lump sum), they might have a point.

IDPs in Tbilisi are being encouraged to move back to Gori, by the fact that the food supplies have already moved there.  Rebuilding seems to have started.

Now the economists are worrying that all the aid coming will cause inflation if it is given to the IDPs directly.  People seem to think it will appear tomorrow, as opposed to spread over several months, or even years, if at all, as is often the case with this sort of money promised by donors.  Since IDPs aren't getting much cash anyway, inflation from this cause seems unlikely.

The other big worry is corruption with these large sums of money coming in.  Saakashvili has apparently got corruption down from 90% of the take to 50%.  Still a long way to go.

More experience with cyber attacks

Here's an interesting article in yesterday's newsletter from the Jamestown Foundation. (Actually I can't post the link because the Jamestown article hasn't been posted yet.  The site hasn't been updated since Wednesday which is unusual).

While I was thinking and blogging that sites in Tbilisi were down because of everybody trying to view them, it seems it was more sinister than that.

Apparently the following sites were attacked:

the websites of the President of Georgia, Georgian Parliament, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the National Bank of Georgia, the English-language on-line news dailies The Messenger and www.civil.ge, as well as the on-line version of the popular Rustavi 2 television channel.

In addition, the websites of the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and National Bank of Georgia were defaced with the digitally reformatted image of President Saakashvili superimposed on a collage of photos of Nazi leader Adolph Hitler (The New York Times, August 12; International Herald Tribune, August 13; The Washington Post, August 14; The Independent, August 17).

What's interesting is who came to the rescue.  It seems a volunteer watchdog, the Shadowserver Foundation, is a group specializing in analyzing malicious activities on the Internet.  We shall leave aside who might be interested in funding such a body, or even why it has to be left to a volunteer organisation.

The websites of the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and www.civil.ge were temporarily accommodated with Google’s permission on Blogspot domain, which is better protected against a sustained DDOS* attack (The New York Times, August 12; Transitions Online, http://blogs.tol.org, August 15). On August 9 the President’s website and the on-line version of the Rustavi 2 television channel were transferred to the new host, Tulip Systems, Inc., an Atlanta-based Internet hosting company owned by the Georgia native Nino Doijashvili.

Estonia, where the NATO Cyber Defense Center (see EDM, May 15) is located, began to host the website of the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and dispatched two information security specialists from its Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) to assist the Georgian authorities (Wired/Danger Room, August 11; The Earth Times, www.earthtimes.org, August 11; IDG News Service, August 12; Rosbalt news agency, August 13).

According to a press statement released by Estonia’s State Center of Development of Information Systems, in addition to the website of the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Estonia is now also hosting the websites of the National Bank of Georgia and the English-language on-line news portal www.civil.ge (www.lenta.ru, August 27; www.iToday.ru, August 27).

So it seems already there is a quick response mechanism in place for Russian cyber attacks.  It's not clear whether this hosting abroad is still going on or not.  If it is, it would explain why there is not much bandwidth available for ordinary Georgians at the moment, if all government traffic is using international connections instead of just domestic ones.  The office internet is very slow, and my home internet has faded out altogether although all the lights are on in the right places in the modem.  Occasionally I can piggyback on an unsecured wireless signal called "Default", but it tends to kick me off. Sorry, I wouldn't do it if my own connection was working.

The IT infrastructure in Georgia is already weak enough without that, as the article points out:

In terms of actual damage, the Russian cyber attack had a significant impact only on the timely dissemination of information from Georgia during the first five days of the conflict. Georgia’s relative backwardness with regard to the Internet availability--only 7 percent of the population has access to the Internet--turned out to be a blessing in disguise (Global Voices, www.globalvoicesonline.org, August 17).

According to the World Economic Forum, Georgia ranks 93rd among 122 nations in Internet use; and it holds 74th place out of 234 nations (behind Nigeria, Bangladesh, Bolivia, and el Salvador) if judged in terms of the number of Internet addresses (International Herald Tribune, August 13; Defense News, August 18).

If Georgia had been more dependent on the Internet, the Russian cyber attack might have produced more dire consequences, as Russian hacktivists could have disrupted the energy, transportation, communications, and banking networks. It should be recalled here that the Russian cyber attack on far more advanced Estonia nearly brought its government and banking sector to a standstill in 2007, when irate Russian hacktivists launched on-line campaign in retaliation for the relocation of the Soviet-era World War Two monument.

It seems that Russia was not trying to disrupt civilian life as it could have simply bombed the power lines from the main hydro power station, Enguri.  This installation, built in Soviet times, has its dam in Abkhazia and the control panel in Georgia proper.  Of course, the buffer zone now goes straight through the turbines.  So the Russians can simply take it over any time.  Cut that off, and you can bring Georgia back to the 90s, when there was no electricity, and certainly no internet.  Talking in our office, we agreed it was harder to live without internet than without electricity, though one depends on the other.  So we are making plans to buy a generator, since we keep having power cuts anyway. 

Coming back to the cyber war, one assumes that Russia has taken similar precautions to transfer its important websites to friendly websites in other countries, er like Nicaragua and Venezuela, or even to Abkhazia and South Ossetia, since no one will bother to cyber attack them.  What is the cyber equivalent of "beyond the Urals" like during the Second World War.

This seems like something Vilhelm Konnander should know about, based on his last post here.


Do we need to worry about cyber attacks from Iran and Osama bin Laden? Is that what he is up to plotting in the tribal areas?



*Distributed denial of service

The Economist.com debate on relations with Russia.

Hat tip to Vilhelm Konnander for pointing this out and apologies for the cut and paste from his blog.
You can find the Economist Debate Hall here.

The West must be bolder in its response to a newly assertive Russia."

This is the proposition made for the upcoming The Economist debate series, setting off on 9 September. The opposite argument holds that this position is made erroneous by Western misperceptions of Russia, based on renewed reminiscences of an increasingly distant Cold War era.

Speaking for the pro side is Anne-Marie Slaughter, Dean of the Princeton University Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Representing the con argument is Dmitri V. Trenin, Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment Moscow Centre.

Thus, Slaughter initiates the debate by the following argument:

The West should be bolder in confronting a newly assertive Russia, but bolder in a way that understands and manipulates the realities of 21st-century politics rather than plunging us back into a 20th-century stalemate.

In his rebuttal, Trenin starts out opposing this statement accordingly:

Those who argue that the West should be bolder in its response to a newly assertive Russia are trying to use their memories of the past to deal with a very different present and a highly uncertain future.

The debate will span over the period 9-19 September with rebuttals on the 12th and closing arguments on the 17th. The winner will be announced on the 19th, and topics covered be open for discussion and comments until 26 September.

Registered users will be able to vote surreptitiously for either alternative during the ten day debate. Following the Oxonian tradition, "members of the House will be thus allowed to "cross the floor" by such vote if arguments are convincing enough to turn their opinion. Questions to the contrahents may be sent in via the Chairman, viz. moderator, who will act as arbiter in selecting those of relevance for further dissection in debate.

The Economist presents the following background for the debate:

Russia’s incursion into neighbouring Georgia has Western governments worried about renewed Russian assertiveness. The diplomatic frost between America and Russia remains at a level not seen since the cold war, leading to predictable results: Russian/NATO joint military exercises cancelled, private energy co-operation agreements withdrawn, foreign ministers returned home.

Is Russia’s intention to upset the current international order, or is it responding directly to the widening sphere of American influence in former Soviet countries (for example, the promise of eventual NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia)? Can the European Union speak with one voice and take the diplomatic lead? Or must America protect the world order by standing up to Russia to prove that any form of aggression comes at a cost? Finally, are we witnessing the dawn of a second cold war, in which the West should resist the lure of appeasement?

For myself, I certainly welcome a debate about knee-jerk cold war reactions and the new assertive Russia.  It rather depends on what you mean by bolder: bolder in the sense of stronger reactions rather than weaker, or bolder in the sense of more imaginative and/or creative to get out of the old stereotypes. The weakness of the opposing statement is it seems to imply that no reaction is necessary, which can't be true. Ignoring Russia cannot be the answer to a country looking for more recognition.
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You can read Vilhelm's view here

Censorship after the war officially ended

Every time I try to access a website in Russia I get this:

Please receive apologies from United Telecom of Georgia.
As a result of the tense situation in the country, the direction you are trying to reach is temporarily unavailable.
Thank you in advance for your patience. We hope the situation will be settled in the nearest future.

გაერთიანებული ტელეკომი გიხდით ბოდიშს.
ქვეყანაში შექმნილ საგანგებო ვითარებასთან დაკავშირებით, მიმართულება, რომელთანაც თქვენ
ცდილობთ დაკავშირებას, დროებით მიუწვდომელია.
წინასწარ გიხდით მადლობას მოთმინებისთვის და ვიმედოვნებთ, რომ სიტუაცია გამოსწორდება
უახლოეს მომავალში.

Martial Law was lifted officially on 4 September so why can't we access the internet as normal?

Technorati Tags: censorship, georgia, internet

Fake weaponry by order

English-Russia reports the following:
Russia exports a lot of armaments and military equipments to other countries. Some more countries would like to buy it too but their budgets can’t afford them to do this, so Russian engineers have created a full set of fake weaponry for some countries. If you are a military leader of some not-so-rich country you can be as cool as your more wealthy neighbors. It would be just like a real thing for the foreign satellites or spy-planes, just bring it to the place, inflate and you are done.

See them here.

Where are the American equivalents?

If you want the real thing go here.

Some news from Tbilisi

Technorati tags: Geogia, Tbilisi, Lithuania, sakotis

After one day back, Tbilisi looks remarkably normal. 

After a power spike, some equipment in our office got damaged but all spare parts were available so we are working normally.  Bankomats don't give dollars, the lari has risen against the dollar and euro for reasons that are beyond most of us. 

The supermarket across the road is continuing with its remont but our local restaurant is closed temporarily.  There are no problems with supply of food and petrol.

The only serious consequences are that many people have delayed their holiday till after the war, and several of our colleagues have decided to get married. 

I brought back a Sakotis (a biscuity sort of cake) from Vilnius which travelled well in its own business class seat, since the box wouldn't fit in the overhead locker.  It was handmade and definitely tasted better than the usual ones.

There are of course lots of rumours and speculations, some worse than others.  I will wait till I have more information before posting any of them here.  The TV is now completely without any Russian channels but BBC Prime has appeared (lucky Georgians?) free of charge.  I'm told that Russian websites are also blocked.  Saakashvili is still to be convinced of the need for media freedom. 

Here are some posters outside the UN building near our office.

Northern Cyprus: Similarities with Georgia?

An interesting comment from a blog about North Cyprus (spelling as in the original) picked up by Global Voices on Line under the heading Northern Cyprus: Similarities with Georgia? here:

If Russia does decide to recogonize Georgia's two seperatist regions, they'd be in a diplomatic situation similar to North Cyprus. Turkey is the only country to recongize the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. And Turkey doesn't recongize Cyprus itself. So Russia may revoke their recongition of Georgia in favor of it's two problem areas. :/

Well it's true that North Cyprus is only recognised by Turkey, so Abkhazia and South Ossetia are already doing marginally better.

However, North Cyprus recently voted to rejoin South Cyprus and hence join the EU. As a result North Cyprus has a significant package of assistance from the EU.

Somehow I don't think Abkhazia and South Ossetia are going to be voting that way any time soon. And what sort of assistance will they get from Russia, apart from annexation? Is the standard of living significantly higher over the border in Russia? Is life safer, the press freer? Not after the recent gunning down of Magomed Yevloyev, the owner of an internet site critical of the Russian authorities in the volatile region of Ingushetia.