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.
