Posted on 4-1-2004
The
new cold war
The long struggle between the US and Russia has found a new
focus
In the dying weeks of another war-filled year, one bit of good
news was the non-violent uprising which toppled Eduard Shevardnadze's
regime in Georgia. But as the Caucasian republic goes to the
polls tomorrow to choose a successor, the risk of bloodshed
remains high and powerful external forces are trying to determine
how the new president behaves.
Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that Georgia is the cockpit
of a new cold war. During the Soviet period the struggle between
the US and Russia was on a global scale. Massive arsenals were
locked in stalemate in Europe, but wars ravaged Africa and Asia
as the superpowers found it easier to compete there by interfering
in local conflicts without the fear of nuclear conflagration.
These were the so-called proxy wars.
The USSR's collapse did not end the rivalry. It merely recast
it on a more complex stage which stressed deviousness rather
than outright hostility. Washington wooed post-communist Russia
with offers of partnership while expanding the old anti-Russian
alliance, Nato, to take in former Soviet allies as well as the
three Baltic states.
Even as that task was being completed, the Clinton administration
was turning its attention to Russia's southern flanks in central
Asia and the Caucasus. With Russia's formal system of control
dismantled, the aim was to reduce as much of Moscow's political
and economic influence as possible.
Georgia was a good candidate to start the process because Shevardnadze,
as Soviet foreign minister, had shown great readiness to comply
with western demands. Aid money poured in, making Georgia the
biggest per-capita recipient of American government funding
after Israel. Help also went to develop a range of civil society
organisations, from private media to polling organisations and
new political parties. While few would quarrel with the need
for "good governance" initiatives in authoritarian
or failed states, it would be better if they were run by less
partisan bodies, like international non-governmental organisations
or the United Nations agencies, than by states with an imperial
agenda.
However, by 2003, after 10 years of Shevardnadze's rule, "reform"
in Georgia was unimpressive. The country had become an archetype
of the worst kind of post-communist state, where a corrupt rentier
class of narrowly selected officials and mafia businessmen enriched
itself through smuggling, crony privatisation, theft from the
few remaining state enterprises, and control of customs duties
and port revenues.
They tolerated opposition newspapers and multiparty polls on
the assumption that state control of television would allow
them to manipulate the electoral contest, while loyal officials
would announce fraudulent results if voters went wrong. The
last line of defence was always the army and police who, it
was thought, would put down protests by force in order to save
the regime because they were part of it.
Serbia broke the mould in September 2000. Popular frustration
over corruption and a failing economy, plus anger over too many
lost wars, produced Europe's first post-communist revolution.
When the regime tried to cheat on the election results, people
took to the streets in huge numbers and the army split. This
was different from the revolutions of 1989, which were more
political than economic. They also took place under a single-party
system in which large sections of the leadership had themselves
lost faith and wanted a soft landing.
Milosevic's downfall led to predictions that Georgia would
be the next post-communist state to have an uprising. There
was similar anger over crony capitalism. Shevardnadze had not
sparked any wars, but nationalists were upset that he had failed
to regain two lost provinces, South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Mikhail
Saakashvili, who led the November street protests and is expected
to win tomorrow's election, is a nationalist who regularly plays
that card in his speeches.
Bush's people supported Clinton's strategy of diminishing Russia.
In power, they sharpened it. They exploited the terrorism scare
of 9/11, plus Putin's desire for US acquiescence to his failed
war in Chechnya, as a way to get Moscow's consent to the establishment
of US bases in central Asia. Geared as a temporary measure against
the Taliban, they are determined to keep them for possible use
against Russia, China and the Middle East. They accelerated
the "pipeline wars" in the Caucasus by pressing western
companies to cut Russia out of the search for oil in the Caspian
and make sure that none was transported through Russia.
Why then did Washington decide to abandon Shevardnadze? It
was not an uncontested move. Before the November fraud, most
US officials hoped to see him remain in office until his term
expired next year, provided he let the opposition form a majority
in parliament, start to root out corrupt officials, and debate
the drafting of a new constitution which might reduce the power
of the presidency.
Even after the fraud some US officials wanted to keep Shevardnadze
in power. There were sentimental ties, as well as the argument
that direct US interference in regime change could play badly
in central Asia and Azerbaijan, raising their rulers' suspicions
and encouraging them to balance between Moscow and Washington
rather than lean too heavily to the US side. Worries over Saakashvili's
impetuous nationalism and the risk that as president he might
try to regain the lost provinces by force, or at least take
provocative actions on the border, also played a restraining
role.
In the end the US tipped against the old dictator and told
him to go. Anger over his cheating in last November's elections
was not the main factor - equally fraudulent behaviour by the
Aliev dynasty in nearby Azerbaijan in elections last October
produced minimal American protest, even though hundreds of opposition
demonstrators were detained and several editors and politicians
remain in prison.
Two things probably triggered the US shift. One was fear of
instability and even civil war, if the demonstrators did not
quickly get their way. The other was the fact that Shevardnadze,
for all his pro-western sympathies, was a realist who understood
that Georgia needs good political and economic ties to Russia.
The Bush administration was furious last year when Russia's
state-controlled gas giant Gazprom made a long-term deal for
continuing supplies to Georgia. First the US ambassador Richard
Miles complained that Washington must be informed of such deals
in advance. Then Bush's energy advisor Steven Mann flew to Tbilisi
to warn Shevardnadze not to go ahead with it. Meanwhile Saakashvili,
and even his more moderate allies like Nino Burjanadze - who
is expected to be speaker of parliament again - denounced the
Gazprom negotiations.
Saakashvili is sure of election tomorrow, but what happens
next is unclear. Like Turkey, Georgia's other big neighbour,
Russia is no longer an imperial power. It has normal regional
interests and Georgia is doomed by geography and economics to
need good relations with it. Will the new team in Tbilisi move
towards a more confrontational anti-Russian nationalism, or
will they understand that supporting Bush's policy of a new
cold war in the Caucasus offers Georgia no benefit?
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