Thwarting Base Ambitions
By Pavel Felgenhauer
Moscow Times
Tuesday, March 22, 2005. Issue 3129. Page 11.
In the early 1990s, as the Soviet Union collapsed, the remnant of
the Soviet Army in the Transcaucasus region was harassed and its
weapons stolen or expropriated. The Defense Ministry in Moscow was
mostly preoccupied with removing essential equipment like tactical
nuclear warheads and secret satellite communication stations before
they were taken over by the locals.
Everything changed in the mid-1990s as a string of ethnic wars,
accompanied by ethnic cleansing, crippled the three Transcaucasus
republics of Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan. Armenia defeated the
Azeris in Nagorny Karabakh but was then blockaded by Turkey. Weak
and defeated Azerbaijan was seeking Russian help in an acute conflict
with Iran over drilling rights in the oil-rich Caspian Sea. By 1995,
the Russian military dominated most of the Transcaucasus. There were
some 15,000 Russian soldiers on Georgian territory, outnumbering
the ragtag local military that was devastated by civil wars and
the defeat in Abkhazia. Russian border guards fully controlled the
Turkish border. By 1995, the Georgian and Armenian governments signed
agreements to allow Russia to keep military bases on their territory
for as many as 25 more years.
While recruiting Armenia as an ally, Russia also extended substantial
influence into Azerbaijan. Both rival nations were seeking favor in
Moscow and the Azeri government authorized the Russian military to
continue to operate a large early warning radar in Gabala, west of
Baku. This radar allows the Defense Ministry to monitor things like
U.S. military air activity over Iraq and Iranian ballistic missile
tests.
The Georgians hoped that in exchange for military bases, Moscow would
press separatists in South Ossetia and Abkhazia to reach a settlement
with the central government in Tbilisi. Moscow did attempt to mediate
but halfheartedly and with zero effect. During the last decade,
the Kremlin has not proposed a single workable solution to any of
the long-lasting conflicts in the region.
The restoration of Russia’s influence in the region was facilitated by
ethnic wars in which Moscow intermittently aided both sides, sending
arms and military specialists first to help Armenia, then the Azeris
and then back again. The same pattern was repeated in Georgia, and
Russian aid always equaled battlefield success for the favored side.
Many in Moscow believed that keeping conflicts in the Transcaucasus
frozen but unresolved would preserve Russia’s newly gained
influence. The Georgian parliament did not ratify the agreement to keep
Russian military bases because there was no progress in resolving the
Abkhazia problem or, most important for the Georgians, in negotiating
the return of refugees to Abkhazia. Now this treaty has been abandoned,
and this month the Georgian parliament demanded the immediate removal
of the bases, threatening sanctions and a moratorium on visas to
Russian officers sent to serve in Georgia.
As the military got mired down in Chechnya and all battle-ready
resources were sent to the North Caucasus, its presence in the
Transcaucasus region dwindled. Today there are only around 4,000
soldiers left at Russian bases in Georgia, and they are not fully
battle-ready.
The $100 a month earned by regular contract solders was a lot of
money in the 1990s. Armenians, Georgians and Abkhazians paid bribes to
get papers to prove they had the right to Russian citizenship, which
allowed them to serve under the Russian flag. At the Russian base in
Batumi, Georgia, on the Turkish border, most of the rank and file are
local Georgians. Armenians staff another base on Georgian territory
in Akhalkalaki, as the Meskheti Turks that once lived in the region
were expelled by Josef Stalin in the 1940s and replaced by Armenian
settlers. If the Georgians decide to blockade the Russian bases, the
garrisons staffed with locals would likely offer only token resistance.
Instead of forming alliances with the Transcaucasus nations based
on long-term interests and aspirations, the Kremlin has kept various
factions and ethnic groups at each other’s throats. Since 2002, under
orders from the Kremlin, Russian passports have been freely distributed
in South Ossetia and Abkhazia in an obvious prelude to annexation.
The Georgians could either agree to become a Russian dependency along
with South Ossetia and Abkhazia, or lose these areas entirely. However,
when push came to shove over military bases, it became apparent that
President Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin has no spare capacity to support
its ambitions with force. And Soviet-style policies do not work
without Soviet might.
Pavel Felgenhauer is an independent defense analyst based in Moscow.