The abject failure of the Russian military in the Chechen campaign makes
Moscow's use of ethnic
tensions in the Caucasus their major tool for projecting her will in
this region. The southern Lezgins
might be roused against Baku, but this runs the risk of having undesirable
reverberations up into
Daghestan, which itself is showing a strong social drift away from
Moscow's influence. The tool of
choice against Baku remains Armenia. Armenia remains impoverished,
weak, and isolated - an ideal
client state for Moscow.
Extending beyond the Armenian-Azeri case and turning to Georgia, there
are four ethnic tools
available. The Armenians of Javakheti province and the Azeris of Marneuli
could both serve as
proxies to stage assaults against the Georgian portion of the line.
This would have the effect of
widening the Karabakh theater and in itself runs the risk of embroiling
all three Transcaucasian
republics in warfare. Such a large scale conflict would pose risks
to Moscow's control as well as
being larger than necessary to achieve its immediate goal: discrediting
of the southern pipeline. Such
renewed fighting would also tax Moscow's ability to supply and to sustain
Armenian troops. A
renewal of the South Ossetian conflict seems less likely because it
would have nationalistic effects on
North Ossetia and it would also be too close to Chechnya and the northern
pipeline for comfort,
merely adding to the image of North Caucasian instability. Therefore,
I expect the Abkhaz to emerge
as Moscow's tool of choice. At least seven factors contribute to their
utility:
First, they are culturally linked to the Circassians and the Abaza (the
northern Abkhaz), both of
which are in turn regionally linked to the Kuban Cossacks and to the
Tualar, the so-called Mountain
Turks (the Karachay and Balkar or Malkar peoples). Thus, Abkhaz appeals
to the Northwest
Caucasus would have political resonance with the population there.
Second, all of these peoples, including the Abkhaz are demographically
weak in a manner that sets
them apart from the rest of the Caucasus, most of them having been
ethnically cleansed by Tsarist
forces in the last century. Therefore, threats to one of their number
are seen as potentially genocide
and so are likely to elicit a fervid response.
Third, their ethnographic mixture is highly diverse, unlike that of
the Northeast Caucasus where
ethnic diversity is primarily one of local variation. Therefore, uniting
the Northwest Caucasus for a
campaign against the Georgian portion of the line presents little threat
to Moscow of a coherent
regional secessionist movement emerging as a byproduct.
Fourth, they are economically better off (excluding the Abkhaz) than
the rest of the Caucasus, but
this works against them in that this very prosperity, though modest
by our standards, gives Moscow
tangible leverage over them.
Fifth, the region is large enough and Abkhazia far enough to the south
that should a campaign be
staged, there would be little perceived threat to the northern line
or its terminal at Novorossiysk.
In short, the Abkhaz are war-like enough, angry enough, weak enough,
far enough away, and
endowed with sufficiently belligerent but diverse and weak allies,
to constitute an ideal weapon to
enable elements in Russia to pursue a short-term policy of discrediting
the southern route. Long term
goals to emerge from such a move would be Moscow's eventual hegemony
over the Transcaucasus.
This would have at least seven consequences which would be advantageous
for Russia:
First, Moscow would have a monopoly on cheap oil from the Caspian and
Central Asia and would
thereby have a strong lever over both the economies of Eastern Europe
as well as over the NATO
tanks, etc., stationed there.
Second, secessionist trends in the Northeast Caucasus and elsewhere
would be arrested by the
traditional move of outflanking the North. Russia's southernmost border
would thereby be stabilized.
Third, Central Asian trade, oil and otherwise, would be under Moscow's
control, since the
Caucasus, or at least the Transcaucasus, represents the cheapest route
out to the West. Russian
hegemony over Central Asia would be realized through tangible economic
means, unless those
nations turned to China, which presents another whole array of dangers.
Alternatively, to take
Caspian and Kazak oil out through a more benign Iran would increase
its expense in Eastern
Europe and so defeat one of its chief near term goals: the sustenance
of NATO forces there and
the development of the economy.
Fourth, the fresh water reserves of the Caucasus would be under Russian
monopoly putting
Moscow in a position of power to influence economic growth in Turkey
and the Middle East,
both of which regions will have an ever growing need for this otherwise
scarce resource for the
foreseeable future.
Fifth, should the Russian military ever regain a modicum of effectiveness,
control of the South
Caucasus would put Moscow's troop on the border with Turkey, and bring
them within striking
range of major centers in the Middle East and Iran. Such a posture
might entice Moscow into
attempting to support regimes of choice in Iraq and Iran, regardless
of the Afghan debacle, as well
as playing a Kurdish card against Ankara. Control of the Transcaucasus
would therefore reinforce
Moscow's ambition to control as much of the West's oil supplies as
possible and to emerge once
again as a world actor.
Sixth, control of the east coast of the Black Sea also gives Moscow
compensation for its loss of the
Ukrainian coastline, as well as providing it with reliable control
over the vital seismic detection facility
at Nizhnyaya Eshera. For these two reasons alone I believe that elements
in Moscow will
incrementally work toward making the Russian peace keepers along the
Inguri river a partitioning
force that will de facto annex Abkhazia to Russia.
Seventh and finally, the valuable resort facilities and agricultural
resources of Abkhazia would be at
Moscow's bidding. As a footnote to this, many Russian generals would
be happy to control
Abkhazia, because they once owned prime dachas or apartments in this
beautiful region before
1991.
The lack of natural boundaries that has enabled it to become the biggest
empire on earth have
conversely worked against her to render her chronically vulnerable.
The creation of the empire itself
merely served to convert an external threat into an internal one. Russia's
political culture therefore
has an emphasis upon security that overrides all other concerns. The
Russians differ from other
Europeans in that they habitually see themselves as open not merely
to reversals of fortune, but as to
perpetually peering into the abyss of oblivion itself. To have conquered
the Caucasus was not merely
to have gained a geopolitically vital point in the control of Central
Asia, but to have jumped the one
natural barrier in the immediate environs of the growing empire while
at the same time vindicating the
Russian ambition to have hegemony over the dreaded Tatars of Asia.
(Significantly, the various
Caucasians were all termed Tatars during the campaigns of the last
century.) Russia saw the
conquest of the Caucasus as a mandate to project Orthodox Christian
civilization, equated with
Russian civilization itself, across the steppes of Eurasia, across
that same zone from which its greatest
threats to survival had always issued forth.
Therefore, while in pursuit of capitalism, elements within Russia will
still persist in pursuing this dead
hand of tradition: the obsession with security through domination.
With her military in a shambles, she
will turn to oil as an alternative mechanism of influence, knowing
that the West is vulnerable in this
dimension. She will find the normal inducements of fair capitalist
contracts and shared economic
development an alien and pallid alternative, lacking in glamour both
for the actors on the political
stage and for the notion as a whole. This recalcitrance will be the
dominant theme that will
characterize Russian - American relations for several generations to
come. New policies initiatives
are called for to circumvent these deep seated problems which current
American approaches do not
recognize, much less address directly.
First, we would do well to enter into some dialogue regarding security
concerns on Russia's southern
flank, suggesting a new strategic line of defense in the stable Cossack
areas of Krasnodar and
Stavropol districts, to the north of the unstable Caucasian republics,
far enough from them so as to
discourage the illicit flow of arms to the Caucasians, but not so far
as to be ineffectual.
Second, we should emphasize the modern mechanism of security through
shared economic interests,
and make a point of stigmatizing military force as expensive, ineffective,
and old fashioned. In this
regard, America made a crucial error in endorsing the relaxation of
the flank restrictions in the CFE
treaty, because positioning more forces in the Caucasus has simply
served to destabilize the region.
Third, we might suggest establishing a trade council for Russia and
Eastern Europe. This would
mitigate some of the adverse effects suffered by Russia at her withdrawal
from Eastern Europe, at
the same time that it would offer her areas for participation that
would lead her away from its
Orthodox Christian kin, Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia (rump Yugoslavia).
These nations, together
with North Ossetia, Georgia, and Armenia, otherwise present Moscow
with a natural alliance across
Eastern Europe's southern flank. Some economic engagement in Eastern
Europe with prospects for
more would also soften Moscow's imperative regarding control of Caspian
and Central Asian oil,
and by consequence, its ambitions in the Caucasus. Tangentially, such
a council would also moderate
Germany's ambitions in Eastern Europe and provide a forum for dialogue
that would stand apart
from the security themes of NATO.
Fourth, Moscow should be warned that the tool of ethnic strife is now
more dangerous after the
Chechen War than before. The Caucasus has never been less stable nor
more heavily armed than it
is now. The profound weaknesses of the Russian military are now apparent
while the corruption of
much of the nomenklatura has grown even worse. Thus, actions in any
quarter of the Caucasus may
serve as a pretext for ambitious warlords to settle scores and seize
power. Even the Armenian and
Abkhazian gambits, as removed as they are from the North Caucasus,
could still trigger unforeseen
and highly undesirable consequences for Moscow across the Caucasus.
Fifth, after five wars in the region and especially after the revelations
of Moscow's gifts of arms to
Yerevan, further ethnic strife will tarnish Moscow's image in diplomatic
circles to the extent that the
West may come to distrust future dealings with her on matters utterly
unrelated to the Caucasus or to
oil. She will certainly no longer be able to strike to pose of a peace
keeper with any credibility.
The Abkhaz issue must be seen in the context of Georgia's position in
the Caucasus. Most
Caucasians see Georgia as having thrived under Soviet rule while the
rest of the region suffered.
Under the wing of its native son, Joseph Jugashvili (Stalin), Georgia
became, as the late Andrei
Sakharov put it, an empire within an empire, and nothing that has happened
since its independence
has served to convince the other Caucasians that Georgia would like
the future to be any different.
While Shevradnadze's adherence to the lofty imperative of territorial
integrity and his insistence upon
the return of Georgian refugees may enhance his stature in diplomatic
circles in the West and make
sense in the larger world context, within the Caucasus these policies
in fact simply serve to weaken
Georgia's potential as a regional leader and to freeze into an easy
stasis those tensions that have
wracked it during the past six years. As a result the vulnerability
of the southern pipeline is widened.
Here too new policy initiates must come from Tbilisi with explicit
and sustained support for them
from Washington.
First, Abkhazia should be strengthened by a reinterpretation on the
part of Tbilisi of the Georgian
refugee issue, which represents a demographic threat to Sukhumi. America
may have to subsidize
the relocation of some of these people to their original regions, which
are in Mingrelia. Since the
relocation of these people to Abkhazia under Stalin is within living
memory and largely was done
under force, resettling them into Mingrelia should be feasible socially
and economically as long as the
political stakes for Shevardnadze in doing so are reduced. This could
be done by recasting the issue
as one of a larger series dealing with Stalin's (actually Berias) wrongs,
leaving Abkhazia's ambitions
and demands aside from the dialogue. This demographic issue is the
single biggest irritant to a
rapprochement between Tbilisi and Sukhumi, which otherwise have deep
historic roots of
coexistence.
Second, the Abkhaz could be given a stake in Georgia's pipeline through
a regional economic
council in Tbilisi which apportions transit revenue by demographic
criteria. This would also act as an
inducement to Sukhumi to allow some repatriation of the Georgian refugees,
though I suspect this
effect would be modest. Never the less, it might be large enough to
be politically significant.
Third, unlike South Ossetia which attempted to secede outright from
Tbilisi in early 1991, Abkhazia
only wished to reassert a modicum of independence within a new federal
relationship to Georgia.
At present the Abkhaz speak in terms of loose confederation at best,
the older goal might be
resurrected if certain iron clad guarantees were offered by Tbilisi
and endorsed in explicit terms by
America and its allies, such as the right to direct development and
enter into foreign contracts, the
right to free trade and traffic with Circassian kinsmen to the north,
and the restoration and
maintenance of the infrastructure and cultural organs destroyed during
the hostilities. While Tbilisi
may have tasted the bitterness of defeat in this war, Sukhumi's lot
was to suffer massive and
widespread destruction, a case of the victor suffering more than the
vanquished.
The Karabakh conflict is gripped by fears and hatreds that extend far
beyond the sufferings of the
parties to the conflict. The Armenians see this war as another round
in their battle with the Turk, a
veritable threat to their survival, while the Azeris see it as Russia's
most aggressive challenge to their
independence, albeit one conducted by proxy. While a cease fire has
held for two years, it is equally
clear that new initiatives will be needed here as well to achieve a
stable peace.
First, the Karabakh conflict should be given a higher priority in terms
of international attention.
America enjoys a natural advantage in such an effort in the form of
its Armenian community. This
group should be use to influence Yerevan by linking its actions with
increases in aid from
Washington.
Second, the issues of territorial integrity should be coupled to the
question of the Soviet legacy of the
two nations, more specifically of that of Stalin who created Nagorno-Karabakh
specifically to
weaken Armenia and Azerbaijan by ensuring their enduring hostility.
For example, if Yerevan wishes
to have the Lachin corridor, then Baku should be granted a correlate
to Nakhichevan.
Third, as far from its current frame of mind as this may seem Baku should
see in Armenia's isolation
and impoverishment an opportunity in which to invest its oil revenues
and thereby transform its
present enemy into a future ally. Armenia is strong in technical and
heavy industry skills and these
would naturally compliment the resource strengths of Azerbaijan. In
important ways the two nations
are natural economic partners, despite their historic and cultural
cleavage. This sort of scenario
should be given enough hypothetical detail so that it can serve as
inducement for both sides in the
process of territorial adjustments and returns.
We must not forget that despite the strident nationalist rhetoric and
the deep roots of hostility that
characterize much of the Transcaucasus, these peoples, like their North
Caucasian cousins, are just
as eager to be part of the modern world as any other in Europe and
consequently are just as open to
economic inducements and hopes for prosperity. Unlike Iran which defines
its future as the return to
a glorious past, the Caucasus by contrast seeks a progressive future.
The regions conservatism has
served it well in this instance by preserving the old Soviet hope in
a boundless tomorrow. What is
required is a strong hand that will provide the protection needed to
allay the deep rooted fears and
mistrust that characterize relationships throughout the Caucasus. This
hand must not be Russia's
alone, because of America's and Europe's need for the region's oil.
Stability in the Caucasus is now much more vital to Americas interests
than was apparent just three
years ago. Achieving that stability will require substantial knowledge
of the Caucasus, deep moral
trust with its leaders, equally deep political commitment, and considerable
money to correct the
regions weaknesses. At stake is one of the major sources of oil for
America and the industrialized
world, not to mention the political balance and stability of western
Eurasia and the prosperity of the
peoples of the Caucasus themselves.