RUSSIAN-GEORGIAN CONFLAGRATION

Stabroek News
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Guyana

There is a certain inevitability to the conflagration which has flared
up between the Russian Federation and the Caucasus state of Georgia,
once a republic of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
(USSR). A correspondent of the New York Times, James Traub, has
observed that "The border between Georgia and Russia…has been the
driest of tinder; the only question was where the fire would start".

The fire has started in South Ossetia which, along with two other
territories bordering Russia – Abkazia and Ajaria – Georgia has claimed
since it gained its independence after the USSR’s dissolution. Ajaria
has been more or less fully integrated into Georgia since then, but
with President Saakashvili’s ascent to office the pressure on Russia
has increased in the other two territories which have substantial
numbers of Russian descendants or citizens.

The conflict is part of the inheritance of the dissolution of the
USSR and in some respects resembles early disputes and arguments
between the Baltic states and Russia after the former gained their
independence, with a large residue of Russian speaking persons left
in their territories, and a consequent Russian insistence that they
be not discriminated against. That Russian pressure, whether in the
Baltics or in the two territories in Georgia, or in Chechnya and
Nagorno-Khasabak in the Caucasus as well, has certainly increased
since former President Putin took office in Russia, and pulled the
country out of an economic slump which had severely affected the
Russian leadership’s self-confidence.

Georgia has always had a special significance for Russia by whatever
name the latter has been called, and in whatever geopolitical
arrangement it has appeared since Czarist times. Georgia’s location
bordering the Black Sea and Russia, and serving as a buffer between
Russia and Turkey, has tended to give it a significance beyond
its relatively small size, and made it of continuing interest to
Russia. Russia of course has historically considered the Caucasus
an area of deep strategic significance for itself, and in a sense,
has retained not simply a strategic, but a sentimental interest
in the countries of the area which were once under its rule. It is
interesting that some years ago, then President Putin was inclined
to remark that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was a tragedy –
by which he surely meant, a tragedy not so much in ideological terms,
but in geopolitical terms relating to the perception and reality of
Russia, in whatever guise, as a Great Power.

This latter perception has induced Putin, and his successor President
Medvedev, to take a particular interest in Georgia under its current
leadership. President Saakashvili, since he took office at the
beginning of 2004, and further to his re-election in May of this year,
has insisted that Georgia is entitled to become a full-fledged partner
of "the West". Part of his intention is ideological – an affinity
for free market methods and liberalism, and a sentimental attachment
to the United States, where he had been trained at the Columbia Law
School in New York. But the other part of his affinity relates to
a firm desire to have a buffer from outside the region between his
country and the Soviet Union. He has been quick to insist that his
country should become a member of NATO, has encouraged the United
States in military training in his country, and has had Georgia
participate in NATO’s Partnership for Peace programme.

In that regard he follows the behaviour of the current leadership
of the Ukraine, whose orientation, desire for NATO membership and
willingness to accept US or NATO missiles on his territory, has been
a source of great displeasure for Russia.

Russia under Putin has consistently held that NATO was an instrument
of the USSR-USA Cold War competition, and that since the dissolution
of the world socialist system, it should be replaced by a new
institutional system of cooperation that would include both the past
Soviet system members, including Russia and the countries of the
traditional "West". Putin and Medvedev do not recognize the vocabulary
of "East" and "West" as reflecting contemporary European and Eurasian
realities. Recall that Putin was, until the dissolution of the USSR,
a significant KGB official with long experience in Germany.

It has been little observed in Western circles, but is thought to
be psychologically important for Russia too, that both Georgia and
Ukraine should not be excessively penetrated by the United States,
given the history that those countries and Russia have had. Karl
Marx, in his study on Napoleon the Third, made the observation that
"the traditions of all the dead generations weigh like a nightmare
on the brains of the living". In that context, it is noteworthy that
the man who ruled the Soviet Union for a large part of its existence
was born in Georgia, and frequently referred to as "the Georgian" –
Joseph Stalin. Stalin’s key facilitator in taking care of his enemies
was also a Georgian – Laventri Beria. Khruschev was, of course a
native of Ukraine, the longstanding Foreign Minister of the USSR,
Mikoyan was from the Caucasus – Armenia; and the last Foreign Minister
of the USSR was the Georgian Edouard Shevardnadze who went on to lead
independent Georgia.

The sensitivities involved in these old relationships may have
little resonance in the West, and in the United States, in the
crafting of its policy towards the post-Cold War "East". President
Saakashvili has tended to downplay these "sentimental" aspects of
Russian contemporary policy, as the United States itself has sought to
establish a presence in the post-Soviet system in so-called Eastern
Europe. But from a Russian point of view, the US took advantage of
the economic weakness of Russia in the 1990’s, and President Yeltsin’s
erratic policy making, to establish strategic advantages over Russia,
not only in Eastern Europe, but also east of Russia towards, and
within, the Asian geographical space.

>From Russia’s point of view, President Saakashvili has sought to
take advantage of that situation and, as a small country has sought
to punch above its weight in the international relations of Europe,
seeking as his biggest prize a tight relationship with the United
States. The Medvedev-Putin leadership is, in that context, seizing
an opportunity to reverse the Georgian orientation, and to establish
a basis for balance between Russia and the major powers of the NATO
system. In that context too, Russia is inclined to treat its conflict
with Georgia as a European problem, and to pay scant regard to any
calls from the United Nations for the re-establishment of peace
between itself and its small near neighbour.

What any Russian victory in the present conflict will not do, however,
is to resolve the various geopolitical contentions in the Caucasus
that have affected the region for so long. It is unlikely that Russia
will ever be able to geopolitically, and therefore diplomatically,
close off the area as it once did. The interpenetration of economic
systems that follows globalization is too powerful for that. And,
as the Chinese have themselves found, there is a salience to the
objections to domination from minorities and small jurisdictions that
corresponds to the ex-socialist countries’ desire to enter the world
of global capitalism.

The Caucasus will continue to be a source of irritation for Russia, as
are many other areas in their relations with powerful states which once
dominated them. Whether President Saakashvili, as leader of a small,
geopolitically strategic state, has overplayed his hand in anticipation
of assistance from the United States is an issue being raised now in
the latter country itself. His appeal to the world that the Russian
movement into South Ossetia, and now Abzakhia, is similar to Hitler’s
takeover of Austria and invasion of Czechoslovakia, has not rung a
bell. The search for effective alliances by small countries in the
new multipolar world conditions of today, remains a major challenge.