As the dust settles following the Georgian-Russian conflict, it is becoming clear that post-Soviet Eurasia has passed a turning point.
Three aspects of the Caucasus conflict particularly stand out. First, the five-day clash was the first war that Russia has waged outside its borders since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. By sending tanks and troops across the Georgian frontier, Russia has demonstrated its political will to employ raw force on behalf of its security interests.
Second, whatever the justification, Russia has attacked an ex-Soviet neighbor and Commonwealth of Independent States member. The conflict resulted in the de facto occupation and formal recognition by Russia of Georgia's two breakaway provinces - South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Thus, in defending its own perceived interests, Moscow has undermined the foundation of the post-Soviet order, which is based on the principle of inviolability of the post-1991 borders.
Third, and most significant, the new Caucasus war marks the end of an epoch that began with the demise of the Eastern Bloc, followed by the Soviet Union's unraveling. From the Russian perspective, the central feature of this epoch has been the persistent attempts by the United States and the European Union to move into the geopolitical vacuum created by the collapse of the Soviet empire. The Georgia war demonstrated that there is no longer a geopolitical power vacuum in the post-Soviet space, and Russia's strategic neighborhood now directly borders the expanded "Western neighborhood." In other words, the further expansion of Western strategic influence is now possible only in areas that Russia perceives as absolutely vital for its own security, and which it is consequently not going to cede without a fight.
Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev, speaking recently on Russian television, bluntly announced that a guiding principle for Moscow is the notion of a "privileged" sphere of influence in Eurasia. "Russia, like other countries in the world, has regions in which it has privileged interests," said Medvedev. "In these regions are located countries with which we have friendly, good-neighborly and historically special relations." Medvedev promised that Russia will "work attentively" in these countries, adding that the "privileged" regions included states bordering Russia, but not only those.
Clearly, the western CIS countries - Moldova, Ukraine and Belarus - as well as the South Caucasus and Central Asia constitute the core of what Russia sees as its strategic sphere of influence. For Russian strategists, the Caucasus war's geopolitical meaning lies exactly in that it has drawn a kind of demarcation line: the West can go that far and no farther.
One has to understand that an "assertive" Russia is not simply falling back on its "unpredictable" and "traditionally aggressive" international behavior; there are certain reasons behind Moscow's current muscular policies.
The West appears to have underestimated the strength of the Kremlin's negative reaction toward NATO's eastward expansion. Russia's reluctant acquiescence to the Baltic states' joining the Atlantic alliance was clearly misleading: Moscow did make some noise, but it was in no position to take any active measures of resistance, as Russia back then was still relatively weak.
NATO's announcement in the spring that both Georgia and Ukraine would eventually become members of the military bloc appears to have made the confrontation in the Caucasus (and the subsequent Russian claim of a special zone of influence) inevitable. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
Russian strategists have long favored the concept of the Greater Caucasus (now comprising Russia's North Caucasus regions and the three independent states of the South Caucasus) as an interconnected system. Russia's ability to strategically control the South Caucasus has always been perceived as key for maintaining security in the provinces lying immediately to north of the Great Caucasus range. After all, historically, Russia established its dominion over the "Transcaucasus" in order to pacify and control the restless tribes of the North Caucasus.
For the Kremlin, the establishment of a NATO foothold in Georgia would be an intolerable development that could spark a domino effect across the Caucasus. It would start with the internationalization of peace process in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, causing Russia to lose its monopoly on "peacekeeping" operations, and culminate with Moscow losing control over the South Caucasus - with the grave consequences for stability in Russia's volatile North Caucasus autonomous republics. To prevent this from happening, the Kremlin "preempted" the Western move and, in a risky gambit, radically changed the situation on the ground. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
Most analysts agree that the Georgia war is also a signal to Ukraine. They are right. In a recent policy paper, Sergei Karaganov, an influential, Kremlin-connected foreign policy theorist, bluntly stated that Ukraine's membership of NATO is "absolutely unacceptable for Russia." He noted ominously that even if Moscow had acquiesced in Kyiv's accession, the "sheer logic of events would have anyway led to the confrontation, even a military one." His main argument is that Ukraine's accession to NATO would create a "syndrome of a divided [Russian] nation," in which Russians in Ukraine and Russians in Russia proper were split by a relatively strict border.
Both the United States and the European Union are facing the choice they would rather not have to make. Washington and Brussels are operating with a 21st century mindset, while Russia has resorted to 19th century-style power politics. It would seem that some kind of accommodation is needed, but harmonizing widely disparate attitudes will nevertheless be problematic.
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