RUSSIAN POLICY MAKERS STRUGGLE TO
RESPOND TO POLITICAL CHANGES IN GEORGIA
Igor Torbakov: 1/08/04
Faced with the oft-stated
desire of Georgian President-elect Mikheil Saakashvili to improve relations
with Russia, policy-makers in Moscow are struggling
to recalibrate their stance towards
Tbilisi. Some influential political thinkers advocate a policy shift, urging
greater cooperation instead of continued confrontation. The bulk of Russian policy experts, however, question Saakashvili’s sincerity in seeking to improve
bilateral ties.
Georgian-Russian relations have been marked by
hostility in recent years, with tension
fueled by several issues, including the Chechen
conflict, the Abkhazia peace process and the
process of the Russian military’s withdrawal from Georgian bases. [For background
see the Eurasia
Insight archive]. Saakashvili, who received over of 97 percent of the vote in Georgia’s special presidential election January 4, has repeatedly stated that repairing the Tbilisi-Moscow
relationship is among his
top priorities. [For background
see the Eurasia
Insight archive].
The Kremlin’s initial reaction to Saakashvili’s landslide victory and olive branch
has been play for time, giving Russian officials an opportunity evaluate policy options. "So far, the Kremlin hasn’t decided what to do [about
Georgia]," Russian political
analyst Leonid Radzikhovskii wrote in a commentary published in the Versiia newspaper.
When asked to comment on Saakashvili’s
victory, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Aleksandr Yakovenko said Moscow would formulate
its attitude towards the new
Georgian administration only after official
election results have been announced.
The official tally is scheduled to be completed January 12.
According to Aleksei Malashenko, a researcher at the Moscow Carnegie Center, the Russian leadership
remains split on how to handle
Georgia. "Two-thirds
of the [Kremlin’s] position would be [based on] reason, the willingness to cooperate -- and I think that
[Russian President Vladimir] Putin is ready for this,"
he said in an interview with the Radio Liberty’s
Russian Service. "And one-third is what
we’ve seen during the [December]
Duma elections -- an imperial
[attitude]."
Georgian officials have noticed that
their Russian counterparts can’t agree on a new posture vis-à-vis
Tbilisi. Tedo Japaridze -- the interim Georgian Foreign Minister, who accompanied interim President Nino Burjanadze during her visit to Moscow in late
December -- complained at one point about
how Russians officials constantly have talk about Moscow’s "legitimate interests" in Georgia without
specifying what these interests are. "At this time, no one can say anything concrete about these interests," Japaridze told the Vremya Novostei
daily.
A faction within the Moscow analytic
community urges a radical shift in Moscow policies toward Tbilisi. Conceding that the staunchly pro-Western stance of Georgia’s new administration
presents a potential
problem for Russian interests, these analysts contend that a continued hard-line approach by
Moscow cannot succeed in compelling Tbilisi’s loyalty to Russia.
Some have gone so far as to suggest that
Russia’s confrontational stance towards Georgia has effectively masked the absence of a well-considered approach. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, "[Russia] simply didn’t have any
[Georgia] policy at all,"
said Sergei Karaganov, chairman of the influential Council on Foreign and Defense Policy.
Russia has been ignoring not only Georgia, but the South Caucasus region in general, Karaganov continued. "It was not even a great power policy
but a parody of it," Karaganov
wrote in a commentary published in the Rossiiskaya Gazeta newspaper.
Liberal-minded experts, including Karaganov, now are calling
on Moscow to pursue a genuinely friendly policy toward Georgia. That kind of policy, they say, would allow Russia to
best take advantage of its geographical proximity to Georgia, as well as Moscow’s historic ties to Tbilisi,
as geopolitical rivalry between the United
States and Russia plays out
in the Caucasus. "[We] should start offering [Georgians] a carrot. If need
be, we can always use the stick,"
Karaganov said.
Traditionalists in Russian
policy-making circles are reluctant
to consider major changes. Many question whether
Saakashvili’s conciliatory rhetoric will actually
yield better ties. The director
of the Institute for Political Research,
Sergei Markov, a man who reportedly
enjoys close connections with the Kremlin, is skeptical about Saakashvili’s intentions, RosBalt reported on January 5. "The ruling triumvirate
in Georgia will continue its policy of squeezing
Russian military bases out of the
country and of attacking Moscow’s positions in international forums," Markov said.
Hawkish Russian experts openly say they don’t trust
the new Georgian
leadership because of what they describe
as its excessive pro-Americanism. Konstantin Zatulin, the director of the Institute for
the Studies of the CIS, believes the new Georgian
administration wants "to finally take
Georgia out of Russia’s [sphere of] influence and turn it into
a reliable [US] ally, a candidate member of NATO." Zatulin’s views carry increased weight given the
fact that he won a seat
in the Russian parliament, and now is positioned to become chairman
of the Committee for the CIS Affairs.
Zatulin, who has a reputation for espousing nationalist views, argued in an interview with the Moskovskii Komsomolets newspaper that Moscow should
not hurry to recognize the results
of Georgia’s January 4 election. "There should be no unconditional recognition of the election outcome," he said. On January
5 Zatulin told TV-Tsentr that he
expects Saakashvili to revive the
"radical and thoughtless" policies of former Georgian President Zviad Gamsakhurdia.
A commentary in the Krasnaya Zvezda, the Russian army
newspaper, adopted an equally pugnacious tone, openly accusing
the United States of orchestrating the regime change
in Tbilisi. [For background see the Eurasia Insight
archive]. "Americans are trying to
make maximum use of the situation
that has emerged in Georgia
and realize their foreign policy
goals in the Caucasus," the Krasnaya Zvezda commentary said.
The Russian army paper hinted
vaguely at the possibility of Georgia’s disintegration if the US continues "easing Russia out
of the Caucasus." Conversely, the military daily commentary suggested that closer ties
between Tbilisi and Moscow would
strengthen Georgia’s territorial integrity. "The strengthening of integrationist ties in the Eurasian space
will foster the re-establishment of the pan-Georgian
unity," the commentary said.
Some Russian policy makers see
Saakashvili’s rise to power in Georgia as a make-or-break moment for Moscow’s ability
to retain its regional sphere
of influence. "In fact, at stake is the issue of Russia’s
influence in Georgia and in
the entire Transcaucasus," political analyst Gennadii Sysoyev wrote in the Kommersant daily. "In Georgia, Moscow seeks to
put an end to the clearly visible
trend of its being squeezed out of the post-Soviet space."
Editor’s Note:
Igor Torbakov is a freelance journalist and researcher who specializes in CIS political affairs. He holds an MA in History from Moscow
State University and a PhD from
the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. He was Research
Scholar at the Institute of Russian History, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow; a Visiting Scholar at the Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars,
Washington DC; a Fulbright Scholar
at Columbia University, New York; and
a Visiting Fellow at
Harvard University. He is now based in Istanbul,
Turkey.