The New Map of Georgia

The Kremlin has re-drawn the map of Georgia and forced the country into a new place in the world. The invasion has torn up previous perceptions of where power lies on Europe’s borderlands and now the fighting is over we can begin to make out the contours of a new order.

By Ben Judah in Tbilisi for ISN Security Watch

Hours before the Russians pulled their forces out of the strategic Georgian town of Gori, the self-declared commandant General Vlachyslav Borisov stopped his jeep and gruffly threw open the door to speak to journalists. Sweating and smelling faintly of cognac, he barked at your correspondent, “I’m out of here. I’m withdrawing my combat forces form the area. But peacekeepers are staying.” And slammed the door.

Russians officials accidentally left another tantalising hint to their intentions. ISN Security Watch managed to see a roughly draw ink diagram left behind after a meeting of Russian and Georgian officials on the 21^st had concluded. This is the new map of Georgia. It showed two circles emanating from the centres of both the Ossetian and Abkhaz enclaves that reached out to touch the Georgian cities of Gori and Senaki. These are the buffer-zones where General Borisov plans to leave his troops. However the future of these territories is still uncertain.

Just outside the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali, the peace-keeping barracks that once hosted a five hundred strong Russian contingent is a burnt out wreck. The Kremlin’s spokesman and one of Putin’s chief aides, Alexander Machevsky accompanied a tightly controlled press-tour through the enclave to inspect the damage. Standing in front of the rubble, pointing through the smashed walls of the base to the dozens of scorched bare metal-bed frames, Machevsky makes his point clear. “There can be no return to the status quo ante.” He trudges over a floor littered in bullet casings from AK-74 fire, pieces of burnt clothing and the shredded personal belongings of the soldiers, stressing the brutality of the Georgian attack. Unnoticed by their superiors, a few troops are sitting around drinking heavily in the evening gloom. None look happy.

In Tskhinvali the South Ossetian President bellows from a podium on Stalin Street at the crowds, “The Caucasus is a Russian region. It has always been that way. We are not going to let adventurers like Saakashvili or Rice change that. We are going to be an independent state within Russia - It’s logical.” The poorly dressed and glum looking huddle drifts away, perhaps contemplating his implications. The Kremlin’s flag flies from the Government buildings and paramilitaries are wearing little ribbons of Russian and Ossetian colours.

Russia is in control – but for the moment this is nothing like a permanent settlement. In Moscow the state Duma may have voted on the 25th to acknowledge the sovereignty of the break-away region, but their future will most likely be decided in back-room deals during the trade-offs and negotiations, between all sides that have a stake in this conflict. Russia may have won the war militarily, but politically it still has to reckon with the United States and the European Union if it is to achieve its objectives in any peace-deal.

In Tbilisi, Keti Tsikhelashvili of the European Stability Initiative think-tank advances a more nuanced view of how the situation might play itself out, “there are several possible outcomes considering these territories. The fist is that the Europeans have been dropping hints about the possible internationalisation of the conflict. This would involve the stationing of observers and maybe peacekeepers in Ossetia and Abkhazia and their futures being brought under intense discussion.”

However the European Stability Initiative believes such an outcome to be unlikely. “The EU and the US remain committed to Georgian sovereignty and territorial integrity. The most likely outcome I can imagine will be the North Cyprus situation. The world will recognise Georgia’s territorial integrity, whilst Russia and maybe a few of its satellite states will acknowledge South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent.” She continues, “the South Ossetians already can see what an example of Russian rule in the Caucasus is like if they look to North Ossetia. How many schools there teach in Ossetian? The answer is none. In a few years the concern of cultural autonomy will mount and they will begin to realise the trap they are in.”

This is not how Georgians hoped the ‘Rose Revolution’ would turn out. In 2003, a wave of nationalism and a desire for western living standards and true democracy swept Saakashvili to power. Young and intensely charismatic, he led his country on an adventure that has turned sour. A senior Western European diplomatic source told ISN Security Watch, “the President turned this country for a sort of post-Soviet ruin into a modern country,” he gestures at perhaps the rather unrepresentative setting of the ornate restaurant in the Tbilisi Marriott hotel to prove his point. “However, Saakashvili’s definitely in until September. Then I can’t say. There will be serious questions asked about what has happened and those questions will have consequences.”

The Russian invasion has put a stop to those ‘rose’ aspirations for now. Georgia is reckoning with defeat. Tbilisi may not look misery, but you only have to venture into one of the public buildings being used to house over 60,000 displaced people - or drive for under an hour to some of the burnt-out villages to find it right there waiting for you. Reconstruction will take years. Georgia’s transport infrastructure has been badly damaged, communities in the conflict zone are atrociously hit, national parks have reportedly been set alight, commercial shipping has taken a massive blow, the economy has been shaken but above all - its diplomatic and military position has been smashed. The armed forces that Saakashvili painstakingly build up though clever arms deals with Israel, the United States and ex-Communist states simply no longer exists.

Diplomatically Georgia is in a disastrous position. Seen as unreliable and as a liability by many EU members states and now probably shorn of Abkhazia and South Ossetia for good, Georgia is reaping the consequences of its failed attempt to join the West. Nona Varanadze, a retired professor supporter of the opposition blames Saakashvili for what has happened. “Under Shevernadze, we practised a political balancing act between Russia and the West. Just look at where we are on a map. When the balance got upset, we angered a neighbour and it destroyed so much of the good development that was going on. We could have avoided this and just got rich.”

Keti Tsikhelashvili of the European Stability Initiative, stresses that “though my political and cultural values are completely western. I am starting to think that Georgia put all of its eggs in one basket.” In many ways the European Union and the United States should hold themselves responsible for Georgia’s current predicament. Having ostensibly supported a country’s bid to remove itself from what Russia considers its exclusive sphere of influence, the failed to give the necessary security guarantees to make such a transition possible. Staring a Russian forces stationed inside their territory, where EU flags still fly hopelessly from most major buildings, the promise of the West is starting to like a deadly siren’s call to many Georgians.

The recent conflict has achieved a primary Russian objective, in proving that American power cannot be solidified along in borderlands. This leaves only two powers that can actually integrate or control these territories - the European Union or the Russian Federation . The post-Soviet space can either seek to emulate the Baltic Republics are find security inside the Union or embrace and hope to benefit from Russian dominance like Armenia or Belarus. Both are a-symmetrical in how they wield influence. Russia’s strength lies in the areas of hard-power such as its military capacities, energy power, cyber-warriors, pro-Russian parties and ethnic minorities or former KGB networks. However it lacks the powers of persuasion.

The esteemed Bulgarian expert Ivan Krastev persuasively argued in a recent think-piece that “Russia is a born-again 19th-century power that acts in the post-20th-century world where arguments of force and capacity cannot any longer be the only way to define the status or conduct of great powers. The absence of ‘soft power’ is particularly dangerous for a would-be revisionist state. For if a state wants today to remake the world order, it must be able both to rely on the existing and emerging constellation of powers and be able to capture the international public's imagination.”

The European Union has the opposite strengths. It’s power is soft and lies in the promise of membership, cultural appeal, diplomatic influence and financial clout. However just as the Kremlin’s failure to convince the world its actions were legitimate should force a re-think in its inner circles about a return to great-power status, the European Union needs to learn that it does not exist in a vacuum. Russia’s strategy may be 19^th century – but Europe is stuck in the future.

The great source of instability for the borderlands is that neither the European Union or the Russian Federation have reached their final destinations. Both are lost in transition. The European Union is stuck between a disunited vague confederacy and a near-federation capable of speaking with a single voice in foreign policy and acting purposefully in a single direction. It’s foreign policy mechanisms may slip into irrelevance and it’s own stability is far from assured. The news from Brussels is still frustration and malaise following on from the French and Dutch ‘No’ votes in 2005. The Irish ‘No’ vote earlier this year does not bode well.

Russia itself is in a similar unsettled position. It’s own territory is too large to be run in a conventional democratic manner and the state is still too weak to dominate its neighbours successfully. In the long run, further disintegration cannot be ruled out and the Kremlin is well aware of this. Hovering between a post-modern empire and joining the club of post-imperial European great powers alongside Britain, France and Germany, Russia will continue its struggle to find institutional stability at home and a place in the state-system. To the great detriment of both it’s citizens and surrounding countries. Trapped between two uncertain creatures the post-soviets states need to learn from the Georgian experience and tread carefully to avoid its fate.