Russia is Losing: A Reply to James Schneider

Dear James,

I appreciate you want to move the debate forward. Let’s not get stuck in the mud. However there are a few things I think you should know, not being in Tbilisi. Yesterday some conversations with a senior Georgian politician revealed some vital clues as to why Russia stopped 21 km from Tbilisi. Here is an extract from a fascinating briefing.

“The reason the Russians did not take Tbilisi is clear. They had spoken time and time again about the need for regime change, removing the ‘criminal’ leader Mikheil Saakashvili and demanding his arrest as a pre-condition for a cease-fire. However they did not achieve this objective. The reason was that over 70,000 people mobilised to protest in Freedom Square, from all sides of the political divide, to show they refused to be cowed. Keeping the morale high was crucial, if it had broken, or there had been looting or flight from Tbilisi, the Russians would have entered the capital to ‘restore order.’ The Russians didn’t. What could they have done? Driven their tanks from Igoeti those 21km away and found tens of thousands of protestors waiting for them on the anniversary of the Prague Spring? No. They couldn’t there objectives were stopped. However what were the Russian intentions when they invaded…? We have a clue from their petrol. When their officers arrived in Gori and surrounding areas they made contact with out local authorities. And offered to sell them large amounts of cheap petrol. At first we were unsure and then then soon urged our men to offer and keep asking to buy it. The officers couldn’t sell it as first, ‘we need to know if we are going to drive to Tbilisi on this or if were going back.’ On the fourth day, the corrupt officers sold us the petrol and drove off. We had a celebratory drink with them and they were delighted to have cut the deal. And that’s how we knew they weren’t coming into Tbilisi and we had stopped them.”

Paul Berman argued that the invasion of Georgia signified the death of 1989. I believe this fact shows he is wrong. The very reason that this is not 1968 is that protestors and high morale actually - prevented Russian forces from entering the capital, which they had obviously planned to do given their stated objectives and the amount of petrol they carried with them. The liberal-left, instead of sniffing about Saakashvili’s democratic credentials which are far from perfect (whilst in fact they are mostly angered by his pro Bush stance), should recognise that the mass-protests in Tbilisi are a triumph for democracy and a show that 1989 still breathes. Due to the spread and deepening of the values of the Free World within Russian itself it is no longer acceptable for the Kremlin to send tanks to crush civilian protestors. It wasn’t in Berlin in 1989, nor was is it in Moscow in 1991 and now neither is it in Tbilisi in 2008. In this sense you need to recognise that Russia just lost categorically, and in a sense need to stop feeling threatened by them and sign up to your own first point, a solidarity campaign with Georgia.

The liberal-left, instead of feeling uncomfortable with Saakashvili due to his pro-American stance and thuggery should come and support him – by virtue of all major parties supporting the continuance of his Presidency and democracy in Georgia, he does have an astounding popular mandate. That’s democracy, it’s not always pretty. That’s what we pledged ourselves to defend. Again, I underline my support for your first point.

Moving on. What we urgently need to avoid in Georgia is economic collapse. If the economy nose-dives, the Kremlin will succeed stamping its own agenda on the country in the face of the expressed wishes of the Georgian people to be part of the West. Economic meltdown will lead to the FSB having free reign in Tbilisi and of course over the BTC pipeline. This is what we need to avert. Instead of escalating along your points, I would urge Governments to follow the lead of the United States. I may have spent much of yesterday listening to some horrific accounts of ethnic cleansing, but the amount of people actually permanently driven form their homes is relatively small. There simply were not many Georgians left in South Ossetia or Abkhazia. The 1 Billion US$ aid package from America and the 750 Million US$ loan from the IMF are actually way superior in value to the actual amounts of damage done by Russian forces. The delivery of the aid shipments to Poti includes stuff that isn’t really needed (unlike in Bihar). Both of these are symbolic gestures to show that anyone can use Poti and that we are not abandoning Georgia. In a sense the Georgia solidarity campaign we need has already begun, if you want to put out some bunting that’d be great – but they’ve actually cleared away the ‘Stop Russia’ posters here so I don’t think it’d be necessary. What they need is investment to continue and the only wait it can is if the West affirms it guarantees Georgia’s tarnished – but living democratic choice not to be a Russian satellite.

Russia is losing in Georgia. I repeat. Russia is losing in Georgia. For that reason I am going to suggest that whilst many of the points of your scale, ( 1,3,6 and 9 especially) I broadly agree with as possible options to be used if Russian aggression continues into say the the Ukraine or Moldova, I don’t think it’s necessary to apply them just yet. As for some of your other remaining points (4,5 and 10) they raise the general questions of doing business with authoritarian government in general, there cannot be one rule for Russia and one for China – do you not agree? This is an avenue for further discussion. As for 7, I see it as impossible to implement and 8 is totally useless strategically or militarily. It’s simply a waste of money.

For the moment Moscow is losing with our current post-invasion strategy of keeping the competition confined to Georgia and refusing to abandon it by pledging eventual NATO membership and keeping the economy afloat to ensure the FSB do not manipulate bread-riots or unemployment lines into the emergence of a Russian puppet-regime. Capital flight from Russia has already been over 21billion US$ and the Russian stock-market has yet to recover. It’s been a pricey war for a few scrappy villages. One option outlined by a senior CIA regional analyst was that the Muscovite elite might put pressure on the Kremlin to ‘hold back from the brink’ to protect their investments. This is a possibility and we have market forces to rely on. However, visa-bans remain an option. I suggest making an example of one or two individuals to show what will happen if aggression continues things will escalate. Eduard Kokoity perhaps? He’s made some pretty horrific demands for ethnic cleansing recently. It'd be wrong to retaliate in the ways you outlined, let's continue the current policy of denying victory in Georgia whilst continuing normal relations in other spheres unless something further aggression continues. If it does, I'll take another look at them.

Saakashvili and dare I say, the popular momentum to turn Georgia into a modern and western state we can still call the ‘Rose Revolution’ is moving forward. On the diplomatic level, the Federation is looking even more humiliated. Nino Burjanadze, the speaker of Parliament stressed in conversation that the diplomatic offensive had just suffered a historic reversal. Indeed close inspection of what just happened at the Shanghai Co-Operation Council meeting shows this. Did you see that photo of Medvedev looking as if he was about to cry? The reason is that he turned up expecting CSTO countries to rally behind Russia – and for the first time in history China showed leadership and Central Asia hid behind Beijing. Clearly Medvedev needs to chew on this quote by Ivan Kratsev before setting back to work on a post-modern Empire.

“Russia's failure to persuade the world of the legitimacy of its actions in and towards Georgia should force Moscow to rethink its plans for a return to the world stage. 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.”

This is the price you pay for installing a managed democracy. The illusion that all editors and reporters are like those of ORT. Indeed there is some good news for Putin to dwell on – Russia now has company in recognising the breakaways. Nicaragua’s Ortega has decided to anger the Americans. Oh, so have Hezbollah and Hamas. Russia has some pretty friends – the people of the Federation urgently need to take stock of this and realise just into what company they are being driven. This takes us into you point C. – I really don’t think we can discuss CSTO and the SCO as if they are alternative structures to NATO, as the events of the past few days have shown they are incredibly weak and have no clear agenda or organisational capacity for the moment.`

Stephen Kotkin once said “the CIS is not a commonwealth but a question mark.” I think the same applies to the SCO and CSTO. If the Kremlin are smart they will take a sharp lesson from this ( I have little reason to believe that are dramatically less wise than Bush’ Whitehouse so it is a possibility.) The discreet empire-building that has actually been working is the behind the scenes Russian take-over of the borders of Armenia, Belarus Tajikistan and aspects of the military in CSTO countries through the use of these organisations. Using them carefully to empower Russia might see new life breathed into the Russia-Belarus State Union or meaning into the CIS. Moscow seeks to build a sphere. This is how I expect, after a period of trial and error – it will proceed to d so using the CIS, State-Union and CSTO. Two of which Georgia has sharply exited and one it had no interest in joining. As for the SCO, I view the mutually exclusive goals of China and Russia to mean it will be unlikely to deeply dramatically in the foreseeable future, whilst their even deeper fear of each others intentions will hold them together.

This takes us to NATO reform. My knowledge-set has information for how NATO can improve as a fighting force, though institutionally I feel there is little more we can do for the moment apart from increasingly interoperability and avoiding duplication . I subscribe to the notion of NATO as the defence force of the Western democracies and have long argued that non-whites are more than welcome. Georgia without the enclaves, Israel without the territories are two invites I would hope to write, whilst Japan and Brazil can be constructively engaged with and hopefully associated with at the very least. You mentioned in one of your previous notes the need for ‘new’ organisations – let NATO evolve, that is if you believe the democracies need a common army. As for engaging with Russia within a framework or even China, I don’t see the need for creating new offices and mechanisms. When I suggested such a concept to Giovanni Grevi at the EUISS in Paris, he retorted, “there are loads of organisations, some practically defunct that can be used to engage with Russia, which if it desired could easily empower the OSCE for example." As for China, there is a lack of mechanism, what do you suggest? However I am deeply suspicious about founding a new global security-pact between what is essentially just ‘Permanent 5’ states, when almost everything the great power can agree on could and should be done through the UN Security Council. Maybe we should focus out attention on UN reform and seek a new global-pact as part of the next United Nations.

Yours truly,

Ben

Quote of the Day

I recommend reading these short opinion pieces by leading Russian experts. They include two I have discussed in the past, the impressive Stephen Kotkin and the Economist's Ed Lucas. This quote sums up some thoughts I've been having today.

"Russia's history is not only about authoritarianism and imperialism. It is also the story of astonishingly brave men and women who struggled for freedom, like the eight protesters who went to Red Square in August 1968 to denounce the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia. Like countless others in past decades, their slogan was: "For your freedom and ours."

"The best way that the outside world can help Russia now is by example. The West has squandered the moral authority it had at the end of the cold war. Dick Cheney's America and Silvio Berlusconi's Italy don't look much different from Putin's Russia, at least when viewed from Moscow. We have to practice what we preach before we can expect anyone else to believe it."

- Ed Lucas, Economist Central Europe Correspondent and author the 'New Cold War'

Response to James Schneider II

Dear James,

You are out of date and articulating a position similar to the French and German attitudes to Russia at the Bucharest Summit in December 2007 in your reply to my recent Henry Jackson Society policy proposal . Anatol Lieven, in an interview in July explained to me that France’s new NATO stance was based on “one enormous condition: which is that Russia does not once again become an enemy.” He explained that was why the “French approach calls for selective co-operation with the US, supporting the mission in Afghanistan but opposing US calls for NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia.” Berlin and Paris were backing exactly the proposals you outline. That we do not offer Georgia and the Ukraine MAPs to the Western Alliance as it would constitute an aggressive and bellicose act towards Russia and risked igniting a phase of ‘acute competition,’ what you could call a ‘new Cold War.’ The French and the Germans publicly opposed US plans for a missile shield in Eastern Europe, I hope you remember Jacques Chirac’s attitude to the project and I also hope you have taken on board Gerhard Schroeder’s attempts to co-operate, open-dialogue and derive mutually enriching wealth from his post inside Gazprom. This was a fair and sound policy until the Russian invasion of Georgia.

You argue, just as the previous French and German positions were, that there are alternatives and a passive, non-reactive policy towards Moscow is necessary. You talk a lot about ‘co-option’ and ‘mutual-beneficent’ strategies we could have with Russia. However we are not dealing with the Russian people, but a criminal-gang at the helm of the state. The Putin-Medvedev tandem has already shown it is not interested in your policy, that of Sarkozy and Merkel before the war. If it had been interested in a deliberate act of Western respect for a zone of neutrality it would not have prepared to invade Georgia since December 2007. This is how Moscow responded to that path James, let’s not make the same mistake twice.

In my response I decided to address your fears of things spiralling out of control, by calling for a summit where Moscow could be offered either a neutral Georgia with internationalised South Ossetia and Abkhazia, where once refugees had returned their homes we could hold free and fair referendums on their futures. The alternative is to accept partition, recognise these breakaways and make Moscow aware that because it forcibly changed borders by force we are now going to guarantee Georgia independence and right to join any international organisation it meets the criteria for. You suggest the US can guarantee Georgian independence, as it does of the State of Israel. I posit that comes down to the same thing as NATO membership, just with the EU free-loading off America’s defences, as usual. If you believe that one of the goals of European foreign policy is to solidify and strengthen democracy abroad, why are you suggesting the US enter into a pact with Tbilisi, and the UK just smile and wave?

You didn’t address the fact that in creating ‘neutral-ground’ in the Caucasus and over Russia the proposals I outlined, this matches with both Moscow’s stated agenda and as far as I judge – our own. You chose to divert attention away from this and focus on what I suggest we do if Russia refuses to accept such a deal, thereby fully owning up to its desires not protect itself from encroachment – but to build a sphere of exclusive political influence, one over which it wields a veto on who rules. A post-modern Empire if you like to rival America’s. I personally do not believe that any of the parties are ready for such a bold attempt to tie up the loose ends of the Cold War.

The European liberal-left are continuing to believe that the Franco-German strategy of halting NATO expansion and congratulating Medvedev on his ‘election victory,’ will show results. It’s failed. The European ‘tough-men’ are shouting and doing nothing when they should be silent and doing everything. The US is in election-mode and lead by those who have shown themselves rather un-adept at foreign policy. Georgia itself would probably without (the highly unlikely) massive Western push to accept new borders in exchange for a guarantee they will never alter again is sinking into national-narratives of betrayal, incapacity and failure. And the Russians are aiming at building a new sphere, thinking on a different wave-length to Brussels about the use of force, empire and nation. So we are headed for the worst of all worlds. Georgia is a paralysed country under Russian-veto, Ukraine is heading for a similar dock, the US and a few European countries are incompetently trying to live out Reagan fantasies whilst others turn a blind eye to Moscow. This is not a new Cold War. It’s something far dirtier, messier and it’s already begun. Faded ‘90s proposals won’t work anymore – we need to offer Russia a deal that updates Reykjavik or be ready for more thrusts as an unstable criminal group of spies try and keep their people drugged to ‘glory.’

These are the harsh realities of the 21^st century and this is why if you believe the Russians are not willing to update Reykjavik and accept a neutral Georgia, it is our duty to work for a total pull out of Russian forces, accept partition and fast-track Tbilisi onto the MAP into the Western Alliance. Accepting Georgia as in the Russian sphere legitimizes the Putin Doctrine, of 'Once Russian, Always Russian.'

The fact you are willing to repeat the mistakes Europe just made, I hope you are ready for deeper consequences, demonstrates that liberals are stuck in yesterday’s tomorrow. You need a time machine James, but then again so does the world.

Yours truly,

Ben

P.S You made a lot of factual errors. I presume because you were tired. For instance I did not suggest a NATO Georgia would be neutral, I suggested it as the only alternative to a Russian rejection of neutrality. And there were others, mostly minor.

A Response to James Schneider

Dear Schneider,

I apologise for not having been able to write back to your reply to my recent Henry Jackson Society policy proposal soon. I spoke to Tulman today on the telephone. She was very nervous and asked for me not to print her surname. She lives in Karaleti, a village over the line I visited under Russian escort just after the fighting had stopped. “They haven’t gone…”

“They have dug in a earth-fortress and started getting things ready, for the winter, we’ll that’s what some of us say. They make the Ossetians who burnt our homes stay away now. But it makes me to sick to watch them there. They allowed it. They participated. We heard them shouting when we were hiding in the cellars.”

Most of Karaleti isn’t there anymore. Neither is a lot of Tskhinvali, but what Tulman is living in the reality of the new Georgia. It is a country that has been partitioned, had its infrastructure pulverised, large swathes of its countryside raided, its people displaced and its future turned from a promise - into a question mark. Georgia is occupied by Russian forces. True, this is not Ramallah, but the choice of placing troopers from the Federation at strategic locations way outside the enclaves is the Kremlin’s way of having a veto on tomorrow. Russian forces in Poti, just like those in Kerateli are there to say – we can come to Tbilisi any time we want. Is this against the terms of the cease-fire? Of course, but that’s another matter. Is this an occupation? To these the phraseology, ‘it’s light foot-print.’ But even just a few platoons means Moscow has the final say.

I am not interested in discussing how the war began, leave that to the historians, but in how it is ending. This is what is being written now. By moving inside Georgia-‘proper’ Moscow established the Putin Doctrine. In 1968 a frail Brezhnev, deeply confused and under pressure from his coterie to act, decided to implement his doctrine. It was simple. ‘Once Socialist, Always Socialist.’ Forty years later Putin is telling us, ‘One Russian, always Russian.’ In one fell-swoop the Kremlin forces every former Soviet, indeed ‘Socialist’ country to re-evaluate its relationship with Russia. You are right to point out that the war did not ‘create a new reality,’ by which I presume you alter the balance of power. The shift had been coming for years, TIME had even nominated Putin as man of the year (remember those photos of the throne?), but Georgia did change something. It showed Moscow was going to use guns to get what it wanted. Now, that was unexpected. And frightening.

I had initially favoured your position on conflict-resolution. That we should avoid the partition of Georgia and aim for a non-combatative ‘internationalisation’ of the conflict. I had discussed with senior French diplomats how such a plan might look, EU and OSCE observers, return of refugees, reconstruction and maybe even referendums at some unspecified date. The Kremlin chose not only to ignore such options, but to spit a them – by handing recognition (along with Nicaragua) to the breakaways. This shattered my already slim hope we had a negotiating partner in the Kremlin. The news today about Moscow, pushing for ‘peace’ in Moldova sharpened my conclusions. We have a bully who shows no respect for national autonomy and does not hesitate to play foul. Or with polonium.

You think you can co-opt these people? I’m suggesting you be a little more hesitant before inviting the boys who blasted Grozny to design a new ‘security architecture with you.’ These are dangerous, criminal people. That’s before we even get to the (albeit it pretty short) KGB careers of the top-brass. And I urge you to think about what we are trying to secure.

We had an argument a while back, at the pub in Oxford. I remember precisely thirty seconds of what I presume was several hours we spent there. I am saying, “I don’t care about Georgia. It’s a small country far-away about which I know nothing. We can’t secure it, it’s a waste of time.” I think with all eloquence, I then said something like - “Fuck it.”

I changed my mind in Tbilisi. The Georgians do not deserve to be bullied into a Russian sphere. They are not a satellite, but a feeling, aspiring people. Those I have met, even the peasants, do not want to be run by spies and oil-barons. They want to live with democratic standards, wi-fi and free. Georgians are not some rebellious tribe in a far away mountain range led by a US puppet. This is a rich and complex nation, that has been trying to leave the Kremlin’s cage since the 1880s. If there is any historical parallel here, it is to Georgians own European road to socialism undertaken before the Russian invasion after World War One. Lenin took out Tbilisi first. Because he knew, as a cosmopolitan city and a symbol, it mattered.

The West failed Georgia. We made them promises, of EU and NATO membership that led to run, rush straight into a Russian trap. Any future Georgian leader will be wary of our siren-call. It can dash more than a career. You say that Saakashvili is an unreliable partner, I suggest we gave the Georgians an flawed map Westward. So what are we to do?

If we let Russia block Georgian entering NATO and the EU, and thereby choosing not to cowed by force, by blackmail into being a servant of Moscow – we send a signal. In the 21^st century you can build an Empire, stamp of the wishes of millions of people and deny freedom, and we won’t stop you. We send a signal. In the 21^st century the EU and the US will not defend you from invasion. The EU and the US will watch your (fragile, flickering, but living) democracy be crushed. This is why I believe Georgia can join NATO and the EU if it wants to. I believe there has never been a more urgent time to stress this and to made this a foreign policy priority.

You say we must not antagonise Moscow. I have stressed myself we should not fall into their trap of starting the Second Cold War. Having laid out my principles, let me list my proposals. It is crucial we deny Moscow the right to determine Georgia’s future. So let us call Putin’s bluff. Six-weeks ago over Kosovo, he insisted that territorial-integrity mattered above anything else. He’s changed his mind, but let us make one things very clear to him. If Abkhazia and South Ossetia are like Kosovo, let’s do it like Kosovo. If there is a return of refugees, observers and a referendum – we will recognise their right to leave Georgia and join any international organisation or federation they desire. But the same rule applies to Georgia. If Putin and Medvedev desire that in five years Sukhumi and Tskhinvali are in the Russian Federation, Tbilisi and Senaki will be in NATO. Or they can take another option.

Georgia and the Ukraine can become neutral-ground. The disputed enclaves in Georgia can be internationalised, with peace-keepers from all countries and open borders. This would be ideal for states bound to both sides. But it is not going to happen. Get Real. Moscow just partitioned Georgia and showed it had no interest in such a solution. We have to ask ourselves are we going to let them ‘liberate’ South Ossetia and Abkhazia alone, or are we going to let them build a ‘sphere’ within which countries cannot freely who they elect or where they tread in the world?

Let’s make this offer to Moscow. Let’s invite them to a grand bargain. It’s one or the other. I would ideally wish to see an EU-US-RF gathering in which the following issues could be addressed. The Allies could offer full Russian minority-rights in EU member-states, solutions could be worked on with three-way efficacy in the frozen battlefields of Moldova and the Caucasus and we could pledge that NATO would only expand if validated by popular referendum. That would rule out the Ukraine’s membership as polls have consistently shown a strong majority against such a move. It would be a gesture of respect that would be both principled and wise. On Georgia we outline the either/or I outlined above. And on the broader security-architecture of Europe we propose a deep set of arms reductions, troop limitation and transparency agreements. Is Moscow scared of US nuclear warheads in Europe? They can go – if Russia’s go behind the Urals too. Such a summit would give the Russian people what they desire, a sense of respect, of being a great nation with a special destiny – and a way for the Kremlin to accept concessions without losing face.

If Mr Medvedev says his country does not want to start a new Cold War and warns us not to fire the first shots, let’s give him the summit he wants. I just don’t believe a word he says. Putin his clique are thieves, criminals and killers who have shown no respect for law, borders of decency. Two more journalists were shot today in Ingushetia, as I’m sure you know. How many more do you think we’ll see by the end of the year?

There are fragmentary, but my earliest memories are off Lenin being torn down in Sofia, to be sent back to Russia. There is a small toy Red Army tank on my bookshelf, given to me as a four year old in Bucharest. The Romanian neighbour jokes ‘it’s the only one the kid’s gonna see.’ I have grown up in the carcass of an Empire, and I fell in love with Russia. With an sensibility, a culture, a way of thinking. But I fell in love with a country that was opening. A country that would never have invaded Georgia. A country that was trying to build a democracy. A country that deserved dignity and respect. Partly by Western errors Russia is closing. We need to show the Russian people that we respect them and the strength they hold so dear by offering them a conference to a avert a new Cold War. And if their criminal leadership refuse?

Admit what remains of Georgia into NATO and recognise South Ossetia and Abkhazia, albeit it grudgingly. Turn off the rhetoric. Build up our defences, on the net and on the ground, give Russian minorities the rights they deserve, fix frozen conflicts, avoid confrontation and the political minefield of the Ukraine and turn up the volume on Radio Free Europe.

Yours truly,

Judah

News Round Up

James Schneider has launched a debate based on his excellent critique of my latest piece for the Henry Jackson Society. I will be posting my extended response once I reach Tbilisi again tomorrow evening. In the meantime, here's for something completely different. I read this marvelous piece of art criticism today in the Guardian and urge you all to do the same. It's an exploration of the life of Rothko and the meaning of his Chapel in Houston. Here's an extract:

Rothko planned it this way. His chapel is one of the most overwhelming syntheses of art and architecture in the world. It is as compelling as the great Italian religious interiors he admired, yet as terrifying as Munch's Scream. It is a tragic theatre of emptiness, death's antechamber, the self-expression of a suicide. As such, the Rothko Chapel was destined to be misunderstood. Had it been understood, it would not have been built.

Letters from Nagorno Karabakh

In the breakaway Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh inside Azerbaijan there is a feeling of short-term security and long-term dread.

Read Original Here

By Ben Judah in Stepanakert for ISN Security Watch

Outside the Defense Ministry in Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, a dozen teenage conscripts, some barely over 17, are waiting for orders. Laughing and trying to sneak coffee or cigarettes into the base without being caught, they readily confess how lucky they feel.

Intensely wary, like everyone I spoke to in the enclave, they asked for their names to be changed. Sergei knows he's lucky. "We are spending our days guarding the HQ; however, our friends are down at the frontlines. There is shooting everyday down there…you know…the volume goes up and down on the killing."

Sergei translates for some of the other boys. One claims to have seen an Azeri troop build-up through his binoculars; others stress that the enemy is scared of their troops and is wary about attacking.

I ask Sergei how many of the conscripts think there will be war within the next year. Of the group of 12 or so, two shake their heads. When I ask is if war will come "eventually," they all seem in agreement. Sergei tries to explain: "They cannot allow us to live on our land. When that happens what else can you do but fight?"

Across the road from the Defense Ministry, a small building barely bigger than a large post office houses the Foreign Ministry. A senior official who refused to disclose his name gave me a curt briefing on the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh.

He sits before a map of the Caucasus showing six carefully drawn out states. Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno Karabakh are all displayed in this cartography as sovereign and equal alongside Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan.

He begins, "We have been working with the OSCE group since 1994 and are committed to a solution. The other side, however, is still refusing to acknowledge and therefore there can be no movement. What makes this conflict so intractable is that they are Muslims, we are Christian. They are violent by nature."

The conversation turns to recent events in the Caucasus and the official gestures to the map: "We are not like South Ossetia or Abkhazia - we are not a Russian puppet. We are more independent than them. However, this is a tough situation. These are uncertain and serious times."

And then he hisses, "just remember before you start accusing Russia that your country is doing whatever it can to help the Muslims swallow us."

My encounter in the Foreign Ministry brought me face-to-face with what Caucasian expert and historian Tom de Waal has termed the deepening of the "hate-narratives" that simplify and distort the conflict into easily digestible and mutually exclusive world-views.

Most of the other people I encountered in Stepanakert, having lived through the bitter war that followed the break-up of the Soviet Union held this world view close to heart. When I asked a taxi driver what his feelings were toward Azerbaijan, he laughed and asked: "What are your feelings towards cockroaches? They breed fast and you want them out of your house!"

In the same way that the frozen conflict in Georgia began to heat up slowly in 2007 with sporadic shootings and a cranking up of rhetoric that eventually led to war, there have been disturbing signs of a thaw in Nagorno-Karabakh.

In March, during the Armenian election crisis, a small group of Azeri troops tried to pierce the lines near Stepanakert and the resulting fire-fight - the most intense since the unofficial cease-fire came into effect in 1994 - caused deep concern for stability in the region.

Azeri rhetoric continued to rise with calls from Baku that it may be "forced to re-take the region by military means."

However, since the war broke out in Georgia, things have frozen over once more; yet they are far from being resolved. Nothing is certain in this great power game, and this has left the inhabitants of Nagorno-Karabakh on edge.

In the village of Shushi, 5 kilometers from Stepanakert, local businessman Nelson Ketchurian shared his fears with me.

"I have been trying to make a living here since the Azeris withdrew from Shushi. They used this town as a position to bomb Stepanakert and almost destroyed it. How do I know that will not happen again?

"Right now I think they are scared of us and they will not attack. We don't want war. We are peaceful people. But I think they do - and sooner or later, war will be coming back. Right now we just can't say - and it's hard living like this, never knowing."

In Stepanakert, the streets are tidy and clean and the massive investment made by the Armenian Diaspora has returned economic vitality to the town. But in the midst of an atmosphere of calm and short-term security, almost banality, recent events in the Caucasus have triggered a sense of long-term dread for those living on the fault-lines of this frozen conflict.

Georgian Lessons

Exclusive for the Henry Jackson Society

Read Original Here

Executive Summary:

1. The Russo-Georgian war must give halt to the ‘crisis management’ mode European diplomacy has been stuck in since the end of the Cold War and bring into focus the need to develop an effective long term strategy to deal with a resurgent Russia.

2. Europe must reckon with the Kremlin. There can be no more wishful thinking about the Putin-Medvedev regime now. We must prepare for acute confrontation whilst working harder to prevent it. In preparation for dealing with a challenging neighbour, Europe’s efforts should focus on the diversification of energy sources, the addressing of Russian minority grievances and associated border-disputes and frozen conflicts, as well as implementing first-rate cyber defences.

3. This is not a return to the Cold War. Both the EU and post-Soviet Russia are still emerging entities, and a Europe not yet at ease about its foreign policy mechanisms must quickly grasp the nature of this complex challenge and its implications. Simplistic Cold War thinking risks policy-makers falling into a self-defeating trap.

4. There should be no illusions as to the Russo-Georgian war having been won by Russia. The realities on the ground may ultimately force us to forego Georgian integrity to salvage the situation. Georgia’s President will have to make tough concessions, but Georgian suffering – and European failure – must be rewarded with immediate fast-track accession to NATO.

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Tbilisi does not look like misery, but you only have to turn off the main avenues to find it right there, waiting for you. The schools are crammed with those displaced during the fighting, conversations are filled with lurid tales of Russian damage to national-parks, infrastructure or property, but it is in people's eyes that you see the real damage. Outside most main buildings, the EU flag still hopelessly flies – but the promise of membership of the core Western institutions of NATO and the EU now seems like a deadly siren's call to most citizens.

Since the 2003 'Rose Revolution,' a surge of nationalism and a desire for Western political and economic standards of life have driven Georgia down an almost romantic adventure led by Mikheil Saakashvili. Despite his errors and none too perfect civil rights credentials, the French Ambassador Eric Fournier stressed to me that whatever questions could be posed, "Saakashvili still transformed this place from a sort of post-Soviet ruin into a modern functioning country."

Forget the 'acquis communitaire,' inspections by Brussels bureaucrats or the costly transition process. Georgia paid the highest price for EU and NATO membership it never achieved. It has been clear to all observers that the Kremlin's fixed hatred of Saakashvili rested on his successes at bringing Georgia out of Moscow's orbit. Russia’s decisions to build-up troops, repair the railways it would deliver its tanks by and begin aggressive over-flights were designed to make Tbilisi realize it would pay a heavy price for its ambitions. Increased fighting in the border-lands near South Ossetia only brought the tension higher, and finally provocative shootings by Ossetian militias brought the crisis to a head. Nobody started this war - it was a long process that played itself out. The Georgians had sent frequent messages to Western leaders saying they were worried, but we chose not to follow what was going on too closely. Like any bad player we can now see the costs of taking our eyes off the ball. Frozen-conflicts are not fixed. They can thaw at any moment.

Saakashvili screwed up by responding to Russia in the worst possible way. He went against US advice and launched a reckless attack on South Ossetia hoping to prevent the break-away region from falling outside Georgian control for good. He miscalculated enormously. Standing in the ruins of large swathes of the South Ossetian capital, it is clear that in the targeting of civilians and in bombing indiscriminately, Saakashvili squandered forever the chance for these territories to re-enter a possibly federal Georgia.

Georgians themselves must not be held accountable for this mistake. Saakashvili has always been a nationalist, modeling himself on medieval kings and coming to power as much on promises of re-conquering these lands as providing western standards of living. There is no use eulogizing him like some US politicians do. Others have called him delusional; I posit that he is simply a nationalist. This experience should make us take another look at the often frightening post-Soviet nationalism of our Baltic, Ukrainian or Polish allies. It should teach us to be wary, but never to abandon the popular sentiment that drives these countries to the West.

The Georgian people do not deserve to pay a higher price for Saakashvili's blunder than they already have. They deserve EU and NATO membership more than ever. However, we cannot pretend that Russia did not win this war. The only option now available to bring Georgia onto a fast-track into the West is to acknowledge Moscow's facts on the ground, accept Abkhazian and South Ossetian independence as a reality and give Tbilisi the recompense it deserves. Only by abandoning Georgia's territorial integrity can we save the country from becoming a new Russian satellite state.

Keti Tsikhelashvili of the European Stability Initiative, a major think-tank dealing with the EU's near abroad, looked forlorn as she tells me: "There were those that urged that Georgia take a major balanced approach before the war in dealing with Russia and the West, taking geography into account. Now perhaps they seem vindicated. I personally think we may have put all of our eggs into one basket." Through making tough and even humiliating concessions, Georgia can if the West commits to it, still achieve its place in Europe.

With Russian tanks still stationed in Georgia and warnings of a new Cold War flying around we should ask ourselves how we got here. European diplomats have since the end of the first Cold War been struggling through crisis-management without ever developing serious long term strategies towards the rest of the world. Too engrossed in EU or domestic politics, we woke up to a shock on September 11th that the Muslim world existed and was full of grievances. This August we woke up to Russia. We found a country with a deep anger at the often appalling way it had been treated, which - perhaps due to our lack of planning, bad economic advice and poor engagement - had fallen into the hands of an authoritarian, criminal, KGB-trained clique.

We need to take the Kremlin seriously from now on. When Putin says he believes the fall of the USSR was the greatest geo-political disaster of the 20th century or that he wants Russia to be a great-power again, he means it. The crisis has demonstrated what Russia’s weapons of choice are. Russia has at its disposal great-energy resources which a dependent Europe needs, frozen-conflicts it can set alight at will, loyal Russian speaking minorities, former KGB networks across the old bloc, cyber-warriors, as well as old-fashioned military might.

Russian armies are unlikely to come face to face with NATO's, despite radical Russian generals being on record stating that war with the U.S. is inevitable within 15 years. In any case, they would be no match. Other Russian levers are de-fusible, for example, European energy markets can be diversified. Yet, dealing with the other aspects of Russia’s potential for troublemaking will require more effort and real imagination. Europe's border areas are littered with frozen conflicts and un-settled borders, in Moldova, and between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Europe should take a clear signal from what happened in Georgia and re-invest its time, money and effort into creating lasting peace on these fault-lines before the Kremlin's sees an opportunity. If this requires Russia being at the negotiating table, so be it. We cannot wish them away and treating them with the respect they deserve cannot hurt. The ‘rogue’ former British Ambassador to Yugoslavia Ivor Roberts, personally told me he views the only solution to the tangled web of bad-borders from Kosovo to Nagorno Karabakh as being "a new congress of Europe." Maybe we should heed his views, no doubt formed in the face of much experience.

If there are fears of Russian-speaking rebellions in the Baltics and the Ukraine we must ask ourselves why citizens of democratic or EU members states could even be considered likely to act in such a way. The reality is that discrimination is real, language rights for Russian-speakers non-existent and ethnic chauvinism towards the large Russian groups painful. Instead of ignoring a fuse ready to light we can eliminate the grievances that make it likely they would side with an authoritarian regime against a democratic one.

Back on the home-front the secret-services have been warning for months that the spying activity within Europe is back at Cold War levels. The simple response is that we need to recognize that modern war is more than ever about intelligence, maybe even more so than it is about guns. The secret-services need to have the funding and scope of an army, navy or air-force, even if that comes at the expense of any of the existing branches of our defense forces. A smart army is worth more than a large but ill-informed one.

Moving swiftly requires working out a long-term destination for EU-Russian relations. The issue is that neither the EU nor the Russian Federation have reached their final destinations themselves. The Russia of today is an impermanent structure. Both too large to be governed conventionally as a representative nation state and too weak to dominate its neighbors effectively, Russia is now hovering between joining the club of great post-imperial states along with Britain, France, and Germany, or embarking on a quest to build a new post-modern Empire. The trouble is that the EU is, in a sense, also stuck in a similar position.

The ‘malaise’ of Brussels, reflects a Europe of unfinished projects. The Union today is left somewhere between a confederation and a near-federation capable of speaking with a single voice. Diego Alonso, a veteran Spanish diplomat once explained to me in Moscow that “The EU right now is an uncertain thing. Maybe it will take on the capacities of single state in foreign affairs, but just as likely is that it will become divided over foreign policy issues, entangled and maybe split or drift apart.” Europe is littered with institutions that have slid into irrelevance. Neglect could spell a similar fate for the EU. Stuck between these two un-identified political flying saucers - is the post-soviet space. For the moment it would be wise for a national leader to tread his country’s path carefully.

Working out what relationship Britain, as a leading EU member, should aim to construct with Russia, forces us to work out what we see Europe becoming. The success that the Russians have already shown in dividing Europe amongst itself - broadly along Donald Rumsfeld’s “Old” and “New” Europe lines - shows that if we seek to mitigate the damage a resurgent Kremlin can do to the fabric of the Union, we need to re-start the drive towards a common European foreign policy. If anything the Bush era should have taught us that the US cannot, despite the greatest of commitments, solidify positions in the Caucasus, Central Asia or the Middle East. However, the EU has proven that through the transformative power of integration, its approach can offer the greatest rewards towards extending democracy. We need to stand firm and together.

Right now, without a serious European strategy towards tackling Russia or even a set of tools truly in place to speak with one voice, the Kremlin is bold and the continent is puzzled and uncertain. Seemingly we are making the two worst mistakes imaginable. One is to fall into Moscow’s trap of Cold War rhetoric and thinking, such as David Miliband and David Cameron seem to have done; the other is the denial which large swathes of the German and French left seem to wallow in. Mr Miliband should remember that talks “of anti-Russian coalitions” do as much to justify or encourage potential further Russian grabs in the Ukraine or the Baltics, as they do to discourage them. In many ways this response is exactly what Putin and Medvedev want, as it is ‘regime legitimizing’ and seems to suggest the publicly flared fears of encirclement and ‘Russophobia’ were justified. This is not the return to the Cold War, but the beginning of something far more unpredictable, dirty and dangerous. A phase of ‘acute competition.’

Looking at Russia’s actions leaves us in a position that makes it hard to strike back without risking even more. The democratic potential for the country is still enormous and we cannot risk falling into a trap set by the Kremlin to launch a new Cold War, so as to permanently rule that out. Neither can we permit populist revanchism to re-draw the map of Eastern Europe on the vague hope that it might produce democracy in the back-wash. Proving that Russian minorities need not turn to Moscow for protection, un-freezing the frozen conflicts and launching serious rounds of negotiations with the Russians on disarmament – whilst never ceasing our democracy promotion efforts should be our first steps. Keeping rhetorically quiet, whilst practically piecing together our defenses is the creative combination we need. There is a way as to how we can avoid losing Russia’s masses without losing part of Europe to Russia. It will require exquisite strategy and diplomacy.

Ben Judah a senior correspondent for ISN Security Watch. His work on the Russo-Georgian war has recently been published by The New Republic (online).

Kremlin's Cruel Intentions

As the dust settles from the War I suggest reading Luke Harding from the Guardian's piece on claims of ethnic cleansing that have occurred in and around South Ossetia. I accompanied Luke along with other journalists to the ruined village of Kerateli he describes in this comment-piece. He's the 'Brit' who almost got thrown off the press-tour truck I described in my recent New Republic piece. Read here how he hits back at the Kremlin's cruel intentions.