DRAMA AT EURASIA'S CROSSROADS

The military conflict between Moscow and Tbilisi which resulted in Russia's recognition of the independence of the two rebellious Georgian provinces - South Ossetia and Abkhazia - has significantly changed the situation in the Black Sea-Caspian region. The great players of international politics took their masks off, and the correct definition "geopolitical rivalry", which came into fashion 15 years ago, immediately turned into "open hostility". The confrontation between Russia and the West for influence in post-Soviet Eurasia acquired an open nature.

Georgian cross

That Russia is planning to legitimize South Ossetia and Abkhazia became clear after President Dmitriy Medvedev signed the six principles of the plan agreed with the mediation of French President Nicolas Sarkozy to cease fire and settle the situation in the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict zone. At a meeting in Moscow with the leaders of the South Ossetian and Abkhaz separatist leaders, Eduard Kokoyty and Sergey Bagapsh, Dmitriy Medvedev made it clear that he will "support any decision adopted by the peoples of South Ossetia and Abkhazia". Soon the parliaments of the self-styled republics urged Russia to recognize their independence, and Moscow immediately satisfied the requests of Sukhumi and Tskhinvali. On 25 August, the Russian parliament submitted a relevant proposal to its president, and the next day, Dmitriy Medvedev issued decrees to recognize the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In this way, Russia violated the Sarkozy-Medvedev agreement. The document said that the status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia will be a subject of international consultations, though the Kremlin itself asserts that there was no agreement as such.

In any case, this decision, which seems very hasty at first sight, in fact smoothly fits into the logic of the mounting confrontation between the West and Russia. It is clear that at stake is not only the fate of Georgia and its rebellious regions, but also the geostrategic face of the region which is exceptionally important as a Eurasian crossroads. Immediately after Saakashvili announced his policy of integration into Euro-Atlantic organizations, Moscow started implementing a plan to dismember Georgia. However, a new generation grew up in Abkhazia and Ossetia in the 15 years of the armistice, and they no longer saw the Georgians as their 'blood enemies" - both in Abkhazia and Ossetia, Georgians, Ossetians and Abkhazians lived side by side in neighbouring villages and communicated (this is the difference between these conflicts and the Karabakh conflict). But this situation was an obstacle to the Kremlin's plans to tear the rebellious regions away from Georgia. In fact, Saakashvili gave the Russian Federation a chance to play this card again - today Russian propaganda presents the Georgians as "blood enemies" of the Ossetians and the Abkhaz and assures first of all the Ossetians and Abkhaz that they cannot live in the same state as the Georgians. After the new war, new generations of people started hating the Georgians in these regions. Of course, the Kremlin could not miss such a chance and acted as a "guarantor" of the security and independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

From a political-legal point of view, Moscow substantiated its actions not only by the need to defend the Ossetians and Abkhaz from extermination, but also by the indicative step the West took six months ago. When the Russian army put an "end" to the territorial integrity of Georgia, the Paris newspaper Le Monde said: "The West has almost no means to influence Russia which will easily remind it of the Kosovo precedent".

The repercussions of Kosovo

What happened in Georgia was predetermined on the day when the West officially recognized the independence of the Kosovo region that had broken away from Serbia. This event put the world face to face with the threat of legalizing separatism. What is more, it became possible not as a result of some irreversible and objective developments, but as a result of Western powers' support for the rebellious Serbian province. Six months ago, it became clear that any other country may also experience the "Serbian lesson" as soon as tycoons of world politics want. The West decided then that Kosovo outside Serbia meets its interests, for they counted on the final collapse of the geostrategic positions of Moscow - a traditional supporter of Belgrade - in Europe. But however long Western politicians say that the settlement of the Kosovo problem cannot be regarded as a precedent, separatists in various countries, waiting for their hour, applauded the recognition of Pristina by Washington and European capitals.

In the post-Soviet area, the effect of the "Kosovo precedent" turned out to be totally dependent on Moscow's position. Immediately after the West recognized the independence of the rebellious Serbian region, Russia reviewed its policy with regard to Abkhazia and South Ossetia. As a result, the Russian president reminded the West of the "Kosovo precedent" in his statement on the recognition of Georgia's separatist regions. At the same time, the Kremlin toughened its policy to deter pro-Western tendencies in a number of CIS countries, first of all, in Georgia and Ukraine. This factor, which is related to the geopolitical confrontation between major power centres of the world, is a direct demonstration of the ignited "Kosovo precedent". The West punished the Serbs for looking with sympathy and hope to its geopolitical rival - Russia. Exactly in the same way, Georgia "paid" Russia for opening its arms to the West. Incidentally, on the Kosovo issue, Tbilisi's position coincided and still coincides with that of Moscow. However, it was exactly Saakashvili who gave Russia a chance to use this precedent against Georgia. On the other hand, Russia's actions showed its inconsistency on this issue - six months ago Moscow accused the USA of a gross violation of international law, and now Moscow itself violated this law in exactly the same way. Thus, the position of the Kremlin which in fact decided to dismember Georgia does not seem absolutely strong in the context of the interests of Russia itself. Political circles close to the Russian leadership understand this as well. Specifically, the well-known analyst and editor-in-chief of the magazine "Rossiya V Globalnoy Politike", Fedor Lukyanov, said ahead of the publication of Medvedev's decrees that if before "it was impossible to criticize Moscow for its position on Kosovo as it rigorously followed international law while Western powers appealed to expediency, now the sides can swap places, and the result of it will be that Russia's actions will lose their consistency and wholeness".

Indisputably, Russia will face more and more frequently the accusations which, since the end of the Cold War, have been levelled against the USA and other major Western powers - the main masters of destinies in the "mono-polar world". Such accusations can already be heard from Russia itself. A member of the board of the Memorial society, Aleksandr Cherkasov, believes that "Russia defended its own territorial integrity, fighting separatism in Chechnya. Russia opposed the independence of Kosovo. It would be logical to keep to the principle of Georgia's territorial integrity. Otherwise, this will be double standards."

However for Russia, like for any other great power, such accusations do not mean anything in the context of the decisive "fight", especially as in the worst-case scenario, it is possible to appeal to less significant postulates of international law such as human rights.

It is another matter how convincing will be Medvedev's assertion that the recognition of the independence of South Ossetia is "the only chance to save human lives". We should observe that although there are slightly more than 46,000 ethnic Ossetians in South Ossetia, there are more than 70,000 representatives of this ethnic group in the rest of Georgia, and they are not complaining that someone is exterminating them. It turns out that the matter is not about Ossetians at all. Then who or what is the matter? Is this really annexation as Tbilisi maintains? Here we can remember a BBC report which clearly said that while Moscow is talking about the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, ordinary residents of these regions are celebrating their merger, I should stress, with Russia.

The fight of titans

Meanwhile, the US administration is openly demonstrating its intention to "punish" Russia for its "disproportionate reaction" to Georgia's actions with regard to South Ossetia. Among the measures suggested by Washington is the barring of Russia from the World Trade Organization (WTO) and termination of cooperation with it in the NATO-Russia format. Meanwhile, trying to pursue a pre-emptive tactic, Moscow has let it be known that it is quite happy to end cooperation with the West in a number of spheres. For example, Dmitriy Medvedev expressed his readiness to sever relations with NATO, especially as it is the North Atlantic alliance rather than Russia which needs them, he said. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin decided to freeze agreements with the WTO which are of no benefit to Russia.

The West is also taking a number of measures in the military sphere, deploying NATO navy ships along the Georgian coast. The demonstration of military force by both Russia and the USA and its allies represents a factor of deterrence against the geopolitical offensive of the rival directed at strengthening the positions of this or that power in the regional disposition of forces. The West is convinced that the main foreign policy goal of the Kremlin is to restore its status as a superpower and its dominant position on the territory of the former USSR. As a tool for this policy, Russia is using not only its status as a supplier of energy resources, but also its military force.

According to the prominent American political expert, Ronald Steel, "the psychodrama playing out in the Caucasus is the delayed final act of the Cold War". "While the Soviet Union lost that epic conflict, Russia won this curtain call in a way that ensures Washington will have to take it far more seriously in the future," he said in his article in The New York Times.

But in this story which had a fateful impact on the position of Georgia, a greater role was played not only by the imperial ambitions of Russia and its clear military supremacy in the region. The Russian press cites a lot of quite convincing arguments that the domestic political interests of the current US leadership played an important role in the situation that the world is dealing with. For example, a correspondent of Moskovskiy Komsomolets, Aleksandr Budberg, writes in his article "Operation Bloody Successor": "If Obama comes to power in November, not only will a new epoch begin in the world. American neoconservatives will face a crippling defeat. And their leaders - the same Cheney, Bush and Rice will probably have to answer annoying questions from prosecutors. The Democrats are not going to help them 'beat the rap'. Such prospects cannot make the White House inhabitants happy. This means that the Republicans must win and old McCain must become president. When do the Americans better vote for the Republicans? When there is a clear foreign threat or when a war is on. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are old and unpopular. You can no longer base your election campaign on them. You can start a fight in Iran. But it is difficult to calculate all the consequences of this fight. The likelihood of Bush and Co appearing before court after such a war is only increasing. This is when they probably remembered about Russia."

In turn, Radio Ekho Moskvy draws attention to the fact that Republican candidate McCain reacted to the outbreak of the war between Russia and Georgia not only before his main rival Democrat Obama, but also before President George Bush who was at the opening of the Olympic Games in Beijing. According to the radio station, McCain's speech gave the impression that "a president is speaking about the position of his country". Judging by Gellan's polls, this had a noticeable influence on the rating of the Republican candidate. A three-day telephone poll showed that McCain was supported by 46 per cent and Obama only by 44 per cent of voters. "Although the difference of two per cent is covered by a possible statistical mistake, in absolute figures McCain outstripped Obama for the first time after Obama won the Democratic nomination in June," Channel 7 reports.

A country that cannot be ignored

In the current difficult situation, it would also be relevant to analyze the position of other South Caucasus countries. There is no point in talking about Armenia's position, as this country is an "outpost" of Russia in the Caucasus and is nurturing plans to legalize the occupation of 20 per cent of Azerbaijani territory. It is clear that Armenia will try to take advantage of Russia's recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in order to promote the idea of an "Armenian henhouse" in Nagornyy Karabakh. But it would be na?ve to think that in the case of Azerbaijan, Russia will behave in the same way as with Georgia. First of all, Azerbaijan is the only state in the region which is pursuing an independent foreign policy and is not irritating Moscow with sudden overtures to the West. On the other hand, good neighbourly relations and partnership have taken deep root between Russia and Azerbaijan in all spheres, which cannot be destroyed by a simple presidential decree. Nor is it of benefit to damage relations with Azerbaijan as it is the region's economic leader. Another weighty argument in favour of this opinion is that in the South Caucasus Russia borders on two countries - Georgia and Azerbaijan. Almost all "bridges have been burnt" with Tbilisi, which is why damaging relations with Baku would mean that all the borders in the South Caucasus would be closed to Russia. In a word, Russian planes fly to the same Yerevan through Azerbaijani territory because Georgia has closed its borders.

In essence, Baku's balanced policy is one of the guarantees that prevents "a war of all against all" in the South Caucasus, deterring the incessant ambitions of the world's major centres of power which, to all appearances, would be happy to turn the Black Sea-Caspian region into a real firing ground to settle scores. Azerbaijan is consistent: it backed international law on the Kosovo issue, supporting the principle of territorial integrity, and is doing exactly the same with regard to Georgia. Azerbaijan showed that it is far from double standards. The position of Baku which confirmed its friendly attitude to both sides in the military conflict between Russia and Georgia played a great role in preventing the further expansion of the conflict and furthered prospects for a peaceful settlement in the region. This well-thought out policy is also of benefit to Western investors who have invested billions of dollars in regional energy and transport projects. Owing to its good neighbourly relations with Baku, Moscow did not bomb the infrastructure of regional projects which are of strategic important to the West and begin in Azerbaijan.

The power of law or the law of power?

In conclusion, we should point out that the Russian-Georgian war is not the first war in the history of these two Orthodox peoples. But its consequences are much broader than mutual relations between Moscow and Tbilisi, not to mention the status of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The question is how Russia will behave in the CIS in the future and what measures the West will take to retain the geopolitical influence it has gained in the European regions of the former Soviet Union which over the last 20 years.

The actions of great powers periodically confirm that in global politics everything is decided, unfortunately, not by the power of law, but by the law of power. Despite the gloomy prospects, we would like to hope that the Kremlin and the White House will be wise enough to draw up constructive agreements regarding the further fate of a small region like the South Caucasus and its peoples will not be doomed to life under martial law.