As the dust settles in South Ossetia, what has the Russo-Georgia conflict taught us about the complex politics of the Caucasian region? Russia had plenty of reasons for intervening so drastically in Georgia, of course, including the manoeuvring of traditional power politics and the urge to keep an uppity, restive neighbour in check.
But one aspect that many analysts have missed is the role played by Russia’s southern republics: North Ossetia, of course, but also Dagestan, Ingushetia and even Chechnya. Over the past few years the Kremlin has secured the loyalty of all the governments of these regions, but a continuing Islamic insurgency in the north Caucasus, which remains Russia’s top national security headache, means Moscow is unlikely to miss an opprtunity to keep the southern republics sweet—and found one in South Ossetia. North Ossetia obviously has an interest in defending its ethnic brethren over the Georgian border, but many of the other republics were also happy to see it stuck to the Georgians because of their closeness to the country’s other troublesome region, Abkhazia.
It’s a complex situation—Daniel J Gerstle, a writer and human rights consultant who has spent time in the Caucasus, tries to untangle it for us.
Also this week: as Labour’s fortunes under Gordon Brown continue to decline, Kieran Brett and Michael Macdonnell, former advisers inside No 10, urge the party to embrace pragmatism and to ignore those calling for it to return to its ideological roots. And Duncan O’Leary looks at how the Conservatives are responding to the increasing politicisation of public behaviour.
You mentioned that 100,000 Russian citizens died in the Chechen conflicts which infers they were ethnic Russians which is not the case. They were ethnic Chechens. Russia wants to act as guarantor for South Ossetian and Abkhazia, however it tightly controls (and obliterates) those provinces within it’s border which seek independence. You fail to mention the gross violations carried out by the Russian military in Chechnia. The fact that Vladikazkav falls in the region of Ingushetia. You fail to make any reference to Ossetians betraying the rest of the Causcasian brethen and collaborating with the Russians, who have persecuted their brethen for almost 200 years. Message to Russia (and all other big nations) Don’t bite what you can’t swallow. Your piece indicates a lack of understanding of the complexities of the region, you sound more like an amateuer. You have done the unforgivable and framed your argument in the context of the so-called ‘war on terror’.
Without taking sides in the present conflict between Russia and Georgia, it is important that it has to be seen in a bigger context.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, the world has hoped that relations between USa and Russia would improve and the cold war saga would come to an end. Unfortunately, the USA used its prime military and economic position to encircle the Russian Federation by placing missile shields in Czech Republic and Poland, selling arms to bordering countries like Georgia and Ukraine and inviting many countries in the sphere of Russian influence to join NATO.
If I was the Russian president, I would also see these moves threatening my national interests, exactly as placing of missiles by the Soviet union in Cuba was rightly seen as a direct threat to US’s security.
It would be wise for the new USA president to scale down American dreams of world domination and instead start playing an active role in creating peace and stability throughout the globe. American democracy can only be exported by being a good example and not by deceit or force. Unfortunately, that is how most of the world, I know, sees USA today.
By the way, South Ossetia and Abkhazia has also a right to decide their fate as Georgia did when it went out of Russian Federation.
It is terrific to see Kieran Brett and Michael Macdonnell endorse pragmatism. But I fear that they are too quick to reduce it to a sort of ‘aw shucks’ empiricism. Since they invoke Dewey (among others) consider this:
“Many persons seem to suppose that facts carry their meaning along with themselves on their face. Accumulate enough of them and their interpretation stares out at you. … But … no one is ever forced by just the collection of facts to accept a particular theory of their meaning, so long as one retains intact some other doctrine by which he can marshall them. Only when the facts are allowed free play for the suggestion of new points of view is any significant conversion of conviction as to meaning possible. … In any event, social philosophy exhibits an immense gap between facts and doctrines.” ~ John Dewey
Dewey is quite clear on the importance of theories (especially as regard to unobservable factors that cause observable phenomena (”facts) and of the experimentalism with regard to both evidence and theories - especially as these bear on policy and institutions.
I’d recommend a look at the way that Roberto Unger is trying to export pragmatist ideas to Brazil.
The ghost of Stalin, born Josef Djugashvili in the then-small town of Gori, may be playing a role in Putin’s thinking about Georgia and South Ossetia. Stalin is the most extreme example of a native who was a Georgian nationalist in his youth (his nickname Koba comes from the hero of Kazbegi’s anti-Russian novel “The Parricide”) and who reversed his position entirely in favor of Great Russian dominance of the region. His henchman Beria repeated the pattern, as did other flunkies who hailed from Georgia. The scurrilous poetic portrait of Stalin painted by Osip Mandelstam (not published, but widely circulated by mouth, to the its creator’s great disadvantage)concludes with the following couplets:
As one by one he forges his laws, to be flung
Like horseshoes at the head, the eye, the groin
And every killing is a treat
For the broad-chested Ossete
This is a translation by Robert Tucker, an historian and biographer of Stalin, and its final lines may or may not accurately represent the original, based on its need for a rhyme (Stalin was not Ossetian, but geographical proximity and metric requirements may have allowed this poetic license.) It will be interesting to see if the Russian army, if it maintains a “monitoring” force in Gori, rehabilitates any local shrines to Stalin. How Georgians themselves feel about this is unknown to me (the obvious choice being between pride in “a local boy who made good” and hatred of a persecutor and ethnic traitor). The extent to which Stalin’s reputation can and might be used to justify Great Russian nationalism in the southern border regions is unknown, but whenever Russian politicians feel the need to look for exemplars of the “firm hand at the helm of state”, Stalin is readily available; historical memory seems to be especially malleable at times of duress, and the “strong, effective, patriarchal Stalin” fits the bill of requirements. We shall see.
How the Conservatives are responding to the “politicisation” of private behaviour
Duncan O’Leary
If parenting is indeed more important than education, then surely government policy should seek to rescue children from bad parenting, not to advocate ‘parental choice’. This govt has promoted childcare as a facility for the mother over nursery schools for the benefit of the child.
State education is especially important in counteracting bad parenting, yet this current govt has done everything to ensure that parents interfere in the classroom, beat up teachers who suggest that their child ought to behave itself, and generally made it more difficult for a child to escape a bad home environment.
Dear Mr. Daniel J Gerstle,
I read you article carefully it was quite interesting and I would like to make several remarks:
First you are telling that Ossetians never had statehood. Yeas they lived in both sides of Caucasus mountings. But it is also true that for the moment there are a many Ossetian villages in Georgia and no one makes hard time for them. Also in Georgia we have the mixed families, for example my mother and mother-in-law, both are Ossetians. No one spokes in their analyzes about these facts.
Second topic is that Georgian and Ossetian villages are side by side in south Ossetia. If some one would likes to joining the Russian Federation some one does. Also we have refugees, national Georgians from the 90s. No one talks about these people.
Third, Russian Federation gave citizenship to these people in the framework of conducting their so called “peace keeping” operation. Could you, please, explain me, how valid may be poll or demand of citizens of Russian Federation on independence or joining to the Russian Federation? So far people living in those separatist territories because of Russian propaganda did not received citizenship of Georgia, in order to try to conduct referendum for independence. This is a clear example of annexation of territory of one country by another. We can add that if you will look in both cases in Ossetia and in Abkhazia in both separatist governments are constructed by KGB officers or employs of Russian Military Forces. Please read their CV, you will see. Russia was using these people and movement in first stage to keep under the control of Georgia, not to allow the creation of energy transport corridors. After that we had frozen conflicts for many years. Now Russia decided to use them against Georgia’s and Ukraine’s NATO aspiration.
The same thing goes to the Abkhazia case. How about 70 thousand people can decide their joining to the Russian Federation then from this territory we have about 300 thousand internally displaced person or refugees? And that about ethnic cleansing in Abkhazia there was UN General Assembly resolution in April of 2008.
Yeas you are right that Russian Federation wants to keep its military presence in South Caucasus, but it is not giving it right to invade in my country, to bomb civilian population, to bomb investment of other people to destroy ports and civilian airports among them to bomb Tbilisi international airport. This is a something different.
Also during these days Abkhazians attacked upper Kodory, under the control of Georgian government and populated by ethnic Georgians, but so called “Russian Peace Keepers” did not stop the attack of Abkhaz separatist leaders, contrary they helped them.
The same was shown in South Ossetia on August 6, 2008, when Georgian side asked to the Russian “peacekeepers” to force Ossetian de facto leaders to stop shelling of Georgian villages and Georgian peacekeeper unit, we received answer that they are out of control.
And last, Russian Federation did not care about people, about ethnics. This was shown in Chechnya, in Beslan, in theater in Moscow, in the case of Russian submarine, in England in case of Mr. Litvinenko. This is only short list, you can find more. Real reason is that Russian made a wealth from high oil prices. It forwarded it wealth for new military constructions and weapons. It fills itself as a super power and would likes to show its power others. If today is Georgia, tomorrow will be others. And of course Russia would like to control oil and gas supplies to the Europe, in order to manipulate with Europeans political decision.
Dear Farhad and Mikheil,
I do agree with both of you. The Putin Administration has manipulated and in many cases mistreated Caucasus minorities. And many Georgians and Ossetians are friends and live side by side.
If you read the story a little closer, you’ll see that I focused on the case of the Moscow-loyalists in order to encourage media and policy experts to look north into southern Russia.
Georgian-Ossetian friendships are clear and should be highlighted. But it is the more convervative Kokoity Ossetians who have been campaigning for the support of Moscow-loyalists in southern Russia.
Russia’s human rights record in Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan, and other regions has been appalling. And the Ossetians have felt they had to choose a side.
In truth, as Farhad reminds us, beyond the Moscow-loyalist governments who helped Russia invade Georgia there are many average citizens, most of them minorities, who feel trapped and abused by their governments. Many of the south Caucasus groups are also not happy with Moscow and simply want a freer, more peaceful, and democratic future. They want an end to the counter-insurgency AND the conflict with Georgia.
Finally, to Mikheil’s point, there are many reasons South Ossetians should prefer a Georgian government to a Russian government. In many cases, the average people on the ground are not so conerned with government and are perfectly happy in Georgia.
But the Kremlin-Kokoity group have somehow surpassed Saakashvili’s ability to pursuade the average South Ossetian toward their side. By drumming up the sins of former Georgian President Gamsakhurdia in the early 1990s, the Kremlin-Kokoity group are drowning out the more honest, more quiet successes of new Georgia.
Thanks for your comments, peace,
Daniel
Russia’s counter-insurgency: Farhad was also very right in reminding us that although Russia lost well over 100,000 citizens in the Chechen Wars (1994-2001) and the ongoing insurgency north of the Russo-Georgian border (2001-today), that many of those citizens, perhaps most, were not ethnic Russians but were Chechens, Ingush, Dagestani, Ossetian, Kabardin, and other groups.
If you read Russian, a good source through which to follow this insurgency and how it affects minority groups in Russia’s south as well as events in Georgia is Moscow-based Lenta News at http://www.lenta.ru/vojna.
They may focus more on the pro-Kremlin news releases than average citizens, but they are one of the few agencies that covers the day to day of the counter-insurgency.
Daniel
Dear Daniel
Every now and again I read a piece which justifies what I see as the Prospect remit - to try as far as possible to intelligently illuminate a situation and extend the boundaries of general knowledge. (In passing, I don’t include the shock-jock Luttwak ramblings in this category). Your piece on Ossetia is a fine example. Your speculations about the complex and labyrinthine motives of Putin’s government are equally well-balanced and genuinely on a higher level than virtually all the hotheaded punditry and political jingoism which has passed for comment in the general media. The comments to your post are impressive, too. I’ve learned a lot, which it strikes me we should all try to do before rushing to assume default Cold War positions which will make the impending resumption of a new Cold War, this time based on raw power, not ideology, and thereby the more dangerous, the more inevitable.
Next, I’d like to learn more about the much-vaunted democratic credentials of the popularly-elected Georgian government whose actions in Ossetia unquestionably started this conflict. Who, or what, prompted them to move this way when they did? Was there a clear and present danger to Georgia proper from elements in South Ossetia, and if so, why didn’t Georgia at least signal same to the ‘international community’ before taking action? Russia’s response has clearly been disproportionate (annexing Poti, for example, can hardly be seen as straightforward) but so far the collateral damage has been far less than the no-less reprehensible Israeli incursions in the Lebanon, for example. It would be good to keep it that way.
RussianFederation (RF) attack flows from forcing some Serb Christians into Moslem Kosovo. This lays the ground for FUTURE Balkans wars, currently enabling Putin to ‘free’ Osettians to join North Osettia in RF. Note that Putin omitted suggesting earlier that these Serbs remain in Serbia, as both he & Bush acquiesced in this instability for their own gain, just as Politkovskaya wrote.
With Kosovo’s independence from Russia’s ally Serbia, Putin warned that fairness would require South Ossetian independence. As Kosovo Moslems were massacred in 1990s, primarily by Serbia, they needed independence from Serbia. bUT Neither Bush nor Putin wanted a stable border to separate Moslem from Christian.
In the ‘eye for an eye’ attitude of the OldTestament, Putin is right! But the truth is that no people SHOULD EVER be forced to live under another culture. Chechens, Osettians, Basques, Irish, Scot, Yighurs, Tibetans.
The trend in world boundaries has been to independence for more cultures. That is not a good sign for a tyrannical Putin, nor the Marxist elite in China. Thank God!
In partial answer to my own question, above, the (London) Sunday Times News Review carries a comprehensive, oft-times purple, somewhat biased but useful and plausible account of the origins of the present Georgian conflict:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4545980.ece
Mark Francetti’s account leaves the reader in no doubt as to the ‘client’ status of Georgian President Saakashvili. “Saakashvili is surrounded by US civilian and military advisers and is so close to US politicians that John McCain, the Republican nominee, claimed last week to be in daily telephone contact with him. However, he is regarded as “mercurial” – a polite way of saying that the Americans lost control of their client. “We’d been warned about Saakashvili for some time. Our advisers knew he wasn’t ready for prime time,” said (Ralph) Peters. “But he’s the democratically elected leader of Georgia.
Sunday Times 17/8/2008
Yet again the US has pinned its star on the chest of a “mercurial” popinjay. The Russians have started the process of withdrawal at the behest of the EU (though, one suspects, with studied nonchalance). Anatole Lieven’s observations about McCain, particularly his readiness to leap to the defence of - Georgia - in this month’s Prospect are interestingly prescient.
23 August 2008
http://www.peterlavelle.com...
FYI
Cordially…
ASJ
It’s a week later and already the precedent of Russian incursion to settle an internal affair of a neighboring sovereign state is stimulating other nationalistic gestures and perhaps other plans for pre-emptive action (to wit, in the Ukraine, where Yushchenko holds a Soviet-style military parade — goose-steppers and all — to boost Ukrainian morale, and where the Russian population of Sevastopol clamors for Russian intervention or at least moots its desirability). Had the Russians and Ukrainians had the good sense to renegotiate the status of the Crimea in the early 1990s, then the specter of a very messy and possibly violent near-future in the region might have been avoided. Both parties would plead that at that time they had more pressing priorities as they fluctuated between euphoria and despair, but isn’t that always the case in the neighborhood? The US and its NATO allies should tread carefully and push both sides toward talking and maybe even slicing up the territory on a plebisicite basis — any other position will appear to be either empty bravado or hypocrisy. The ghost of Stalin will be present at these events too, since he was the scourge of the Ukrainians as well as of the Trans-Caucasians and a dozen other nationalities.
When Kieran Brett and Michael McDonnell write, “We share progressive ends such as enabling every person to fulfil their potential regardless of where they start in life, encouraging greater social mobility and providing excellent public services regardless of the ability to pay”, they surely realise that almost no one will disagree.
When they say that they are agnostic about who provides public services, they surely realise who are their most significant opponents. There may indeed be, “far too many left-wing ideologues who continue to insist on public ownership of the means of production of key public services, regardless of their effectiveness.” but they are insignificant in comparison to the ideologues who cannot contemplate public ownership.
I’m reminded of a simple answer given by Dick Spring, when as leader of the Irish Labour Party, he was asked to define socialism, he said, “We really do believe in a mixed economy.”