Russia's Five-Day War

A fascinating account of Russia's Five-Day War against Georgia in 2008, notable for its strategic mistakes which prompted President Putin to undertake major military reforms. After Georgia's independence from Russia in 1991, President Saakashvili invited NATO advisers to assist in military reforms. Separatist groups in Georgia's border provinces rebelled which led to fighting in South Ossetia during August 2008. The Russian Army invaded Georgia alongside these forces, stripped it of these rebellious provinces, and garrisoned them to maintain a threat over Georgia. But despite the inevitable outcome of this hugely unbalanced conflict, it revealed serious Russian military weaknesses and incompetence, and the NATO-trained and partly Western-equipped Georgian Army put up a much more successful local resistance than Russia had expected. The conflict also demonstrated the first use of Russian cyber-warfare, and its so-called 'hybrid warfare' doctrine. Author Mark Galeotti is an expert in