Font size: 
Both South Ossetia and Abkhazia, a Black Sea port area, have been fighting for 20 years to break away from Georgia – attempts that were thoroughly discouraged by Georgia with violent reprisals. Russian peacekeepers have long been posted in South Ossetia to maintain order, but Georgia miscalculated Russian intentions. Now Georgia may become an East-West flash point.
In the last two decades, a succession of Georgian leaders like Zviad Gamsakhurdia has deepened the crisis with Russia. Georgians are anti-Russian, but also Orthodox Christians; Ossetians are Orthodox Christians as well, who speak a language derived from Persian. Eduard Shevardnadze, who was president of Georgia from 1995 to 2003, had discouraged excessive anti-Russian tendencies and stabilized Georgia as a state. However, he was ejected from office by a U.S.-trained young lawyer in 2003 in a campaign to eliminate corruption.
The current president, Mikheil Saakashvili, came to power peacefully in 2004 in what is now called the “Rose Revolution.” U.S. and British interests played a large role in his ascent to power; these nations wanted free passage of oil from the Baku region to the Mediterranean. Russia watched these developments and rumbled with disapproval, but Saakashvili was not listening.
An opportunity for Russia arrived when Saakashvili, thinking the world was focused on the Olympics, judged that he could expel the Russian peacekeepers from the Southern Ossetia region. So he unleashed his regular and irregular armed forces to do the job. Russia was fully aware of these developments and took this chance to punish the Georgian leader, letting the West know that the Russia of the Yeltsin and Gorbachev eras is dead and that a new and more aggressive Russia has emerged from its ashes.
The Russian economy, which suffered a 40 percent drop in GNP from 1989 to 1996, has all but recovered. It has been growing at a rate of 7 percent for the past 10 years. Not only that, but Russia is self-contained, has its own oil wealth, metal and mineral resources, and in the last few years has managed to grow most of its own food, barring a few items. Thus, unlike the West, Russia does not need alliances or outside resources to survive and grow.
This is topped off by the US$300 billion income the Russian Treasury receives from oil, gas and mineral exports. The Russian population base is technically competent and can produce whatever it needs, so it is not dependent on anyone for technology or manufacturing. The United States does not like this Russian recovery, but has largely ignored Russia’s emergence for the last five years. Europe has followed the U.S. lead and is generally mute on Russian assertions, since Europeans are dependent on Russian oil and gas.
In the last 10 years, Russia has also established a monopoly to sell the oil and gas of its former Central Asian republics, which end up on Europe’s doorstep via a Russian pipeline system. Russia does not like it if anyone else interferes with its monopoly. Thus, the seeds of the present conflict were laid five years back when the Western Oil Consortium began building a pipeline through Georgia. The installation of Saakashvili as president at that time was also a part of this game.
The pipeline running through Georgia is a small one, to a certain extent a test case for Western interests, who thought that if Russia reacted mildly, it would be a cue to the West, China and India that bigger and better oil transportation arrangements can be made. However, if Russia reacted violently, then the West would have a problem on their hands.
The current Georgian episode with Russia is a reminder to the West that Russia is back in a big way and wants Western interests out of the Caucasus region. This decision was not easy for them. They have been watching for the last eight years, as the Bush administration merrily expanded its influence into Eastern Europe.
Whereas Clinton promised Yeltsin that the United States would not enroll Ukraine and Georgia into the European Union and NATO, exactly the opposite is happening now. In addition, the United States wants to build major radar sites in former Czechoslovakia and a missile defense system in Poland, none of which is pleasing Russia.
The United States has reacted harshly to the latest Russian invasion of Georgia with every U.S. spokesperson denouncing the Russian move. On merit, they are right; Russians should stay out of any place that is not theirs. But the latest conflict is not of Russian creation; they merely marched in after a provocation. The United States has done the same before in Panama, Haiti, Grenada, Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq; so the United States, instead of being critical of Russia, should be disciplining Georgia.
With the United States tied down so badly in Iraq and Afghanistan, it cannot do much else than denounce Russia. To help the Georgians, it is shipping supplies in U.S. military planes. The United States could diplomatically restrain Russia in the United Nations, but the Russian veto will prevent any real action. Russia’s desire to join the World Trade Organization can be denied through U.S. pressure, but Russia has already concluded that it will not happen in any case, so they have nothing to lose.
The United States will lose a lot more if it becomes too involved with the likes of Saakashvili. Russia is just a hair’s length away from supplying Iran with surface-to-air missiles, which will impede any U.S. or Israeli attempt to bomb Iranian nuclear sites. For the United States it is a “lose-lose” situation if they go beyond mere denunciation of the Russian move.
What will be the outcome of this conflict?
1. Russia will withdraw its forces, but Georgia has permanently lost its position on South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
2. Georgia and Ukraine should forget about joining the European Union and NATO. This expansion will have worse consequences than previously anticipated.
3. Russian-U.S. rivalry will further heat up; whether it is beginning of a second Cold War, we do not yet know.
4. China will get back the center stage yet again, since the United States needs China to contain Russia.
5. India’s strategic move into the U.S. camp with the possible conclusion of an Indo-U.S. deal may help it economically, but as China becomes a friend of the United States again, India will have to settle for a smaller piece of the action.
6. If the United States does not control its expansion into Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, then Russia will be obliged to supply Iran with S-300 air defense missiles.
7. Can the United States afford to have two enemies at the same time – an upset Muslim world of 1 billion and an increasingly powerful Russia?
The South Ossetia misadventure by Saakashvili will turn out to be a turning point in Russian and U.S. relations. It so happens that, sometimes, what leaders do without understanding the full implications creates a bigger problem. This seems to be one of those cases.
The oil pipeline in Georgia, which is the focus of the current conflict, will stay at its current output rate of 1 million barrels per day; Russia cannot inflame the United States any more by blocking it. But there is more oil in the Caspian region than a tiny 1-million-barrel-per-day pipeline can carry. Any further expansion of this venture is highly unlikely. The additional impact on the neighboring nations of Central Asia is that they will be forced to use the Russian pipeline system in the near future.
--
(Hari Sud is a retired vice president of C-I-L Inc., a former investment strategies analyst and international relations manager. A graduate of Punjab University and the University of Missouri, he has lived in Canada for the past 34 years. ©Copyright Hari Sud.)
