Letter From Tbilisi: Toward a United Caucasus

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Postscript

Clarity in the Caucasus?

Charles King

The recent EU report on the 2008 Russia-Georgia War confirms that both Georgia and Russia acted irresponsibly before and during the war. But it misses an opportunity to outline how the long-running territorial disputes of the Caucasus might be best resolved.

The Ossetians, long Russia's closest allies in the Caucasus, have plenty of reasons to dislike Georgia and its president, Mikheil Saakashvili. They are one of the few groups living on both the Russian and Georgian sides of the Caucasus Mountains, and they have fought two wars against Georgia since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the second of which ended with Russian troops pouring into Georgia to defend them in 2008.

In late November, Alan, a stocky Ossetian man, was waiting to cross back to his home in Russia at the Georgian customs post at Upper Lars, a red-roofed complex overhung by cliffs crowned by a medieval fortress. He was no longer among those Ossetians who detest Saakashvili -- though he could still not quite bring himself to utter the Georgian president's name. "Say thanks to," he said, pausing and flicking his head southward toward Tbilisi, "him."

Alan had not been to Georgia since the border was closed in 2006 and was grateful to Saakashvili for giving him the chance to see his brother who lives there. He was a beneficiary of a new Georgian policy, announced in October, granting visa-free travel to residents of Russia's half of the Caucasus Mountains. (Previously, Russian citizens in the North Caucasus had to travel to Moscow, hundreds of miles in the wrong direction, to apply for a visa and fly to Georgia; now they are free to simply drive the few hours to Georgia whenever they want.) Georgia's surprising and unilateral step has left Moscow flapping for a response.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has taken great offense at what it sees as Georgia's defection from its orbit. Georgia, for example, has pushed to join both NATO and the European Union. In Moscow's view, the Georgians and the Russians had been brothers since the eighteenth century, when Russia agreed to protect its fellow Christians in Tbilisi from invading Muslims. Georgians, however, see it differently, saying the Russians occupied their country in 1801 and interrupted their attempt to build a modern European state.

This historical tension reached its peak in 2008, when Russia repelled a Georgian attempt to regain control of South Ossetia, a self-declared independent state carved out of Soviet-era Georgia. Seizing the moment, Moscow then recognized the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another region Georgia regards as its territory, and declared that it would guarantee their security.

Georgia was left feeling beaten and betrayed. It had counted too heavily on its friendship with the United States and seemed to believe, foolishly, that it already enjoyed the rights of NATO membership. Stung by being left to fight Russia alone, its military's puniness relative to its huge northern neighbor, and the loss of 20 percent of its territory in the war, Georgia decided to set out a new course.

In short, it turned away from its distant and unreliable partners in the West and instead began to focus on its regional relationships and influence. "Before the August 2008 war, we were aiming for NATO and the European Union, neglecting the region," said Ghia Nodia, the director of a new school for Caucasus studies at Tbilisi's Ilia State University. "Now, our foreign policy is more region-centric. We are trying to develop relations with Iran, Armenia, Azerbaijan."

Indeed, Georgia now buys gas from Iran, is a transit point for oil from Azerbaijan, and has a free-trade agreement with Turkey. These relationships existed before 2008 but have received much more time and effort since the war, as Georgia is pushing to turn itself into a business-friendly regional hub. Taken together, these moves represent a less ambitious and more achievable post-2008 foreign policy -- but they shrink beside the giant gamble Georgia is now taking with Russia.

Saakashvili outlined his rhetorical vision of a "united Caucasus" at the United Nations in September. "We might belong to different states and live on different side of the mountains," he said, "but in terms of human and cultural space, there is no North and South Caucasus; there is one Caucasus, that belongs to Europe and will one day join the European family of free nations, following the Georgian path."

Although this speech may sound like a platitude, to Russia it came off as a threat. If Saakashvili succeeds and the peoples of the North Caucasus do indeed follow his "Georgian path" -- which, for Saakashvili, means democratization, open markets, free media, and friendship with the West -- then Russia's influence would be extinguished along its southern border.

Moscow was inevitably furious, calling the surprise lifting of visas for some of its citizens a "provocation." The Russian Foreign Ministry stated that any "attempt to divide the population of Russia into different categories contradicts the norms of civilized interstate relations."

The Russian government had spotted the likely endgame of Georgia's plan. If the residents of the North Caucasus are divided from other Russian citizens and start looking to Tbilisi for markets, money, power, and prestige, then Moscow will have to work harder to secure their loyalty. The Kremlin already funds most of the budgets of the North Caucasus republics and gives regional politicians unprecedented freedom of action; anything more would be expensive and embarrassing. Above all, Moscow's attention and resources would be forced away from Abkhazia and South Ossetia, where it maintains military garrisons, thus taking some of the pressure off Georgia.