GUAM AS POMPOUS PROJECT WITH LIMITED CAPACITIES
by Sergei Zhiltsov

DEFENSE and SECURITY
May 16, 2008 Friday
Russia

NOT A SINGLE REGIONAL PROBLEM SOLVED, GUAM IS DOOMED TO A QUIET DEMISE;
Proclaiming itself ready to tackle local problems, GUAM aspires to
leadership in the Black Sea region. Bold declarations are all it has
been good for so far.

The Black Sea region attracts more and more attention. Regrettably, it
is the conflicts that usually attract attention and not the successes
of economic or political integration accomplished by the countries of
the region. Tension mounting in the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict area,
Tbilisi’s never ending accusations of Russia, dummies presented as
Black Sea Fleet missiles – this is a short list of the latest events
in the region.

It is clear now that regional organizations like the Black Sea Economic
Cooperation Organization and GUAM (an alliance of Georgia, Ukraine,
Moldova, Azerbaijan) are absolutely helpless in dealing with regional
problems, and GUAM doubly so.

Proclaiming itself ready to tackle local problems, GUAM aspires to
leadership in the Black Sea region. Bold declarations are all it has
been good for so far. GUAM miserably failed to solve any problem of
the host the region is facing.

GUAM remains an outfit with a thoroughly amorphous structure with
good intentions and unclear prospects, with bold ambitions but
limited capacities. Not even its expansion will make GUAM any better
in everyone’s opinion. Its activities have done nothing to promote
measures of trust or strengthen regional security. On the contrary,
they have facilitated tension in the relations between GUAM members on
the one hand and countries like Armenia and Turkmenistan on the other.

Kosovo’s precedent in the meantime made GUAM’s standing even more
precarious. Its declaration of independence destabilized most
members of the organization. Georgia (with its runaway Abkhazia and
South Ossetia), Moldova (Trans-Dniester region), and Azerbaijan
(Nagorno-Karabakh) refuse to recognize Kosovo as a sovereign
state. Ukraine chose to remain neutral on the subject, its decision
all but putting GUAM on the brink of collapse. Moldova announced that
it might quit GUAM. In fact, it has not regarded membership in GUAM as
one of the foreign political or economic priorities for some time now.

As an international structure, GUAM lacks a mechanism of conflict
settlement in the Commonwealth. All attempts to set up a regional
security framework without Russia and actually against Russia and
its clout with the countries of the region are doomed. Ukraine’s and
Georgia’s efforts to put together a peacekeeping contingent under the
GUAM aegis are thwarted by the Moldovans and Azerbaijanis who do see
any point in involving themselves in a structure that cannot be used
in the Trans-Dniester region or Nagorno-Karabakh anyway. Moreover,
Kishinev and Baku know better than to create additional problems in
their relations with Moscow. Problems are guaranteed as soon as GUAM
goes military.

Washington’s efforts in the Black Sea region have failed to make it
more secure or advance bilateral and multilateral contacts between
the countries of the region. One might say that GUAM remains in
the periphery of Washington’s foreign policy despite all its recent
initiatives. The structure will probably remain in a stupor, but the
United States will certainly keep it together as an instrument in
its geopolitical wars on Russia.