THE WEST AND RUSSIA: COLD COMFORT

SmartBrief
Sept 4 2008
DC

The European Union unites in rather mild and belated criticism of
Russia’s war in Georgia

DEPENDING where you live in Europe and whom you blame for the
Russian-Georgian war, the European Union’s emergency summit meeting
on September 1st was a triumph, a failure or just the best that could
be expected. Against objections from some Russia-friendly quarters,
chiefly Italy’s prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, the EU condemned
Russian actions in Georgia, agreed to step up efforts to help ex-Soviet
countries under threat and blocked talks on a new partnership deal.

Even agreeing that was tricky. Britain had been demanding a "root
and branch" re-examination of the EU’s relationship with Russia–a
critical viewpoint shared with Poland, the Baltic states and Sweden,
whose foreign minister, Carl Bildt, has explicitly compared Russia’s
tactics with Germany’s in the 1930s. Most of the big European
countries are a lot more cautious. They blame Georgia, seen as an
irresponsible American protégé, for starting the war but object to
Russia’s precipitate diplomatic recognition of Georgia’s two breakaway
territories, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and the lingering Russian
military presence in buffer zones. Above all, they are glad that a
row with an important trading partner has cooled.

The hope is that France’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy, who is visiting
Russia on September 8th, will bring back agreement on a Russian
withdrawal in accordance with the ceasefire he brokered. Russia’s
president, Dmitry Medvedev, has promised this on at least four
occasions. But Russia’s prime minister, Vladimir Putin, has declared
that the port of Poti, a long way from the separatist regions,
is part of Russia’s self-declared "security zone". His spokesman,
Dmitry Peskov, said that Russian troops (now labelled peacekeepers)
would maintain their "temporary presence". Even so, optimists think
that it will soon be business as usual, particularly as Russia starts
to count the economic cost of the war, which has sent shares plunging
and encouraged capital flight.

Maybe, but what is happening in practice is another story. Even the
details of implementing the ceasefire are unclear. One reason is
that the document itself is so vague. Veterans of the many ceasefire
negotiations during the wars in former Yugoslavia in the 1990s were
aghast when they saw the text, which exists in multiple inconsistent
versions and lacks the vital specifics of dates and placenames,
leaving far too much wiggle room. Russian officials now say that their
forces will move back only when Georgia also abides by the agreement
as they define it. They are demanding that Western countries observe
an arms embargo on Georgia, the "aggressor" party. That leaves plenty
of scope for quibbling and delay.

A second problem is the role of the international monitors from the
EU and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, a
Vienna-based international body that supposedly defuses the continent’s
conflicts. Will these people be allowed to move freely inside all
of what the West regards as Georgia, including South Ossetia and
Abkhazia where Russian-backed militias are engaged in purges of the
ethnic Georgian population? Russia, at present, says that it is too
dangerous to allow this. But if they are allowed in, on what terms
will that be? Foreign journalists and diplomats are repeatedly told
that they need documents issued by the separatist authorities–or
in some cases, as shockingly happened to the French ambassador to
Georgia, Russian visas. Georgia and its allies will vigorously resist
the application of such rules to international officials.

It is still unclear what Russia really wants in Georgia–or
elsewhere. In Moscow, the mood is defiant, unrepentant and
uncompromising. Mr Medvedev and a raft of top officials have scoffed
at talk of serious punitive action. "Bring it on" appears to be
their devil-may-care mantra. Convinced that the days of a unipolar
Washington-centric world are dead and buried, Russia believes it has
a privileged place at the top table of a fast-changing multipolar
world. Any attempt to mete out punishment will backfire. "The G8 will
be practically unable to function without Russia," Mr Medvedev calmly
told Italian television. "That’s why we don’t fear being expelled." On
NATO’s freezing of ties with Russia, he remarked: "We don’t see
anything dramatic or difficult about suspending our relations…But
I think our partners will lose more from that." Unmentioned but
clearly meant was NATO’s reliance on Russia to supply its forces
in Afghanistan.

The EU’s mild rebuke and tentative sanctions brought an outright
welcome. The freezing of talks on a new deal with the EU, already
much delayed, is seen as of little importance. Though junior officials
expressed irritation at "biased statements" in the EU declaration, Mr
Medvedev hailed the union’s avoidance of real sanctions as "reasonable"
and "realistic". The president seemed to put all disagreement with
Russia down to a temporary misunderstanding: it was "not fatal"
because "things change in the world."

Political corpse But not, it seems, as far as talks with the
Georgian leadership is concerned. "President [Mikheil] Saakashvili
no longer exists in our eyes," said Mr Medvedev. "He is a political
corpse." Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, advised Europe to
decide its policy towards Russia based on its own "core interests"
(ie, without America) in a speech larded with snide remarks about
American arrogance and unilateralism. "The phantom of the Great Game
wanders again in the Caucasus," he said. If America and its allies
chose to side with what he called "Saakashvili’s regime" it would be a
"mistake of truly historic proportions".

That fits with earlier Russian demands for a change of Georgian
leadership. Russia has said that its prosecutors are collecting
evidence in South Ossetia with which to indict Mr Saakashvili as a
war criminal. Many of Georgia’s Western friends would be delighted
if someone with an easier personality (and greater readiness to
listen to advice) were in charge. But they want that to happen as
part of Georgia’s normal internal politics, not as a putsch dictated
by Moscow. As the box on the last page of this section points out,
Georgian politicians now think the same.

The double-act between Mr Medvedev and Mr Putin creates extra scope
for manoeuvre. Mr Medvedev promises to calm things down. Then Mr
Putin stirs them up again, accusing in all seriousness the Bush
administration of staging the war to boost John McCain’s election
chances.

Part of the motive for the war may have been to distract attention
from problems inside Russia, such as inflation, corruption, squabbling
inside the circles of power and the failure to distribute fairly the
proceeds of the oil and gas bonanza of past years. As the oil price
falls towards $100 a barrel, the focus on that will sharpen.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the most unpleasant side of
Russian politics is leaking to its near neighbours. Over the weekend,
Mr Medvedev said that protecting the lives and dignity of Russian
citizens abroad was an "unquestionable priority", as well as protecting
the interests of Russian businesses there. He also spoke of "countries
with which we share special historical relations" where Russia has
"privileged interests". Though Mr Medvedev stressed the need for
friendly relations, he also implied that such countries might not
have the option of following policies that Russia deemed unfriendly
(such as wanting to join NATO or host American bases). It would have
been hard to find anything more likely to make the fears of Russia’s
neighbours seem justified, to stoke Western support for them and to
undermine those who think that Russia will soon return to "normal".

Diplomatic support for Russia has been scanty, even among close
allies. No country, Russia apart, has given the two statelets formal
diplomatic recognition. Belarus and Tajikistan say they will do so,
but the former, which is being squeezed by Russia over energy supplies,
spoke in notably lukewarm terms and only after Russia’s ambassador
to Minsk decried the government’s "incomprehensible silence".

Perhaps most significant has been the critical reaction from the
intergovernmental Shanghai Co-operation Organisation, which Russia
has been building up as a counterweight to American influence. A
statement from its meeting last week supported Russian peacekeeping
efforts but stressed the importance of territorial integrity and the
peaceful resolution of conflicts. This was a clear snub that showed
a startling lack of support for Russia’s actions both from the four
Central Asian members of the SCO and from China.

Chill from China China’s leaders have enjoyed unnerving America by
flirting with Russia, but this has always stopped well short of any
hint of confrontation. Although China’s state-run media has avoided
criticising Russia, and has highlighted the West’s discomfort at
Georgia’s defeat, China’s official position on Russia’s recognition
of the breakaway regions has been surprisingly chilly. A Chinese
spokesman said his country was "concerned" and called for "dialogue
and consultation". That reflects both China’s pragmatic desire for
good economic relations with the West, and also its dislike of both
separatism and interference in other countries’ internal affairs. With
Tibet, Taiwan and restive Muslims to contend with, China takes a dim
view of anybody chopping up other countries and declaring the results
to be independent states.

The same thinking has marred Russia’s image in normally friendly
countries such as Greece and Cyprus (which bristles about the
Turkish-backed "pseudo-state") and Spain (which is twitchy about Basque
and Catalan separatism). All this suggests a degree of miscalculation
in Moscow. Over the past decade, the future of South Ossetia and
Abkhazia was a useful bargaining chip. Now it has been cashed in,
without much benefit.

Cooking up new Russia policies will take time. The result may well
not be to the Kremlin’s taste. "We are back to square one," says
Alexander Stubb, Finland’s foreign minister. Many Western countries
are now reassessing their relations with Russia in ways that range
from the need for higher defence spending to a reduction in dependence
on Russian energy. Mr Sarkozy says that France, which holds the EU
presidency, will launch a big new defence initiative in October.

The EU is better at giving carrots than wielding sticks. It will find
it easier to provide generous support for the reconstruction of Georgia
than do anything that might be seen as punishing Russia. Even so,
timid as this response may seem, it is also something of a watershed:
for the first time the EU’s 27 countries got together and agreed on
sharp public criticism of Russia.

The United States has announced a $1 billion aid package for
Georgia. The International Monetary Fund has agreed to lend the
country $750m. Underlining Georgia’s importance as an energy corridor,
America’s vice-president, Dick Cheney, visited the region this week. He
hopes to get Azerbaijan to commit gas exports to the â~B¬8 billion
($11.5 billion) Nabucco project, which extends a gas pipeline to Europe
from Georgia and Turkey. But Nabucco’s chances are looking increasingly
slim. This week Russia stepped up its energy diplomacy, agreeing on a
deal with Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan on a new pipeline via Russia that
would entrench the Kremlin’s hold on east-west gas supplies. Though
the EU is Russia’s largest customer, individual countries’ dependency
(see chart) has undermined the union’s collective bargaining power.

America is also supporting Georgia’s demand for a tough non-recognition
policy towards South Ossetian and Abkhaz independence. Companies
doing business in the two self-proclaimed countries will find that
their managers and shareholders cannot get American or European visas,
officials say. But will big European countries such as Germany go along
with that? Outsiders will be scrutinising closely the atmosphere at
the annual German-Russian intergovernmental meeting in October–an
occasion normally marked by warm rhetoric about the two countries’
mutual interdependence.

The mood in NATO is noticeably more hawkish than in the EU. A senior
official says that the days when it was regarded as "taboo" to
discuss any military threat from Russia in the alliance’s contingency
planning are all but over. When NATO defence ministers meet in London
on September 18th, a big question will be how to defend existing
members, chiefly the Baltic states, which are small, weak and on
Russia’s border. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania joined the alliance
in 2004, when such questions were dismissed as too theoretical to
worry about (or alternatively too provocative to consider). Now they
are unavoidable.

Minorities as ammunition The potential flashpoint, as with the war
in Georgia, is a legacy of the Soviet Union (see table). Russia
says that the language and citizenship laws in Estonia and Latvia
discriminate against Russian-speakers. The hundreds of thousands of
people (mainly from Russia) who moved to these countries during the
Soviet occupation did not automatically become citizens when Estonia
and Latvia regained independence. Many were naturalised in the 1990s,
and a steady trickle continue to pass the language exams and apply for
citizenship. But an alienated minority of stateless people, and tens
of thousands who carry Russian passports, are a potential nightmare
for the Baltic states and their friends. Disturbances in the Estonian
capital, Tallinn, last year over a clumsy government decision to move
a Soviet war memorial inflamed feelings that have not yet subsided.

Lithuania’s problems are different (it has a small Russian minority
which gained automatic citizenship in 1991). But it is a transit route
for Russian troops to the exclave of Kaliningrad. That offers plenty
of scope for provocation. Russia has cut off oil supplies, ostensibly
because the pipeline is decrepit (but has refused a Lithuanian offer
to pay for its repair). And populist parties led by politicians with
strong Kremlin links are doing well in the run-up to a general election
in October.

Getty Images

Diverging footstepsThe Baltic armed forces are tiny and are configured
to support NATO efforts in faraway countries such as Afghanistan,
not to defend the region against a real attack from Russia. NATO’s
military presence consists only of a handful of fighter aircraft
(currently four from Germany) based at an air base in Lithuania. It
also has a cyber-defence centre in Estonia, and all three countries
have NATO-standard radars that can look deep into Russia.

Beefing that up without feeding Russian paranoia will be tricky. "Don’t
expect a fanfare," says the NATO official. "We will do it in a low-key,
professional way." The Baltic states themselves will be expected to
spend more on defence–no easy task as a sharp economic slowdown bites.

Another question for NATO is how much help to offer in restoring
Georgia’s armed forces. Although Western military advisers have been
surprised, and even scandalised, by the poor showing of the Georgian
army, which retreated in poor order, dumping huge quantities of donated
American equipment and ammunition, Georgia itself is optimistic about
rebuilding it.

The other country most threatened by Russia is Ukraine. Mr Putin said
in April that it risked dismemberment if it tried to join NATO, and
opinion inside the country is deeply divided on the issue. Politics
is unstable too: this week Ukraine’s president, Viktor Yushchenko,
threatened to call a snap election to defend himself against what
he termed a "putsch" by parliament, which wants to strip him of his
powers. The West will tread gingerly into that, though NATO may step
up its fairly uncontroversial defence training activities.

Yet NATO is barely less divided than the EU. It is not just that
European countries blocked the American plan to give Ukraine and
Georgia a clear path to potential membership at the alliance’s summit
in April. Turkey, the most important NATO member in the Black Sea
region, is torn between the competing claims of strategic partnership
with America and its strong trading links with Russia (which supplies
most of its gas). Although Turkey has helped to train Georgia’s armed
forces (evidently not very successfully), it did not share radar
and other military data with Georgia during the series of pinprick
attacks by Russia that preceded the full-scale war.

Turkey is pushing its own regional initiative, involving Russia and
the Caucasus countries but not America. That might help settle another
lingering conflict, between Armenia and Azerbaijan. But Georgia regards
anything that excludes the United States as unacceptable. For now,
the hottest issue for Turkey is whether to allow America to send more
warships through the Bosporus straits into the Black Sea, something
that Russia vigorously opposes.

Having caught the West napping (or at least on holiday), Russia scored
a pleasant victory over a weak and unpopular adversary. But now it
has to deal with the consequences: war fever at home plus alienated
allies and stronger critics abroad. Will Russia’s leaders respond to
this by raising the stakes, in the hope of showing their opponents’
underlying weakness? The West’s leaders worriedly hope not.

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