When spy author John le Carre's Our Game appeared more than 11 years
ago, the Cold War was over, the Berlin Wall had come down and British
intelligence had apparently put its operatives out to pasture.
Thus le Carre had to plow an altogether new furrow in the exotic setting of
Ingushetia and Ossetia in the Caucasus by weaving a plot around a people
suppressed by the White tsars and their Red
successors. By doing this, le Carre made an important point, that spies never
truly retire. Indeed, the conspiracies of stupendous scope unfolding in the
ramparts of the Caucasus mountains could be straight out of a le Carre plot -
taut and suspenseful.
Last week in Georgia, the security services detained four Russian senior
military officers for "illegal intelligence gathering" concerning Georgia's
cooperation with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Simultaneously,
the Georgian police cordoned off the headquarters of Russian troops in Tbilisi,
ostensibly to nab yet another fugitive Russian spy who had taken shelter there.
Georgian authorities threatened to remand the detainees in custody for two
months and then put them and 10 Georgian accomplices on public trial. Moscow
was not amused.
Amid acrimonious verbal exchanges between Moscow and Tbilisi, Russia began
retaliating in calibrated moves. Protesters besieged the Georgian Embassy in
Moscow. Moscow recalled its envoy in Tbilisi and evacuated its diplomatic
personnel and their families based in Georgia; announced it was closing travel
routes to Georgia; and suspended postal services. Moscow further hinted it
might suspend banking operations and money transfers between the two countries.
If the Russian moves, firmly dismissive of the Georgian allegations of spying
charges, were meant to remind Tbilisi about the facts of life, they indeed
worked, considering that the remittances by the 300,000 Georgian workers in
Russia alone make up about 4% of Georgia's gross domestic product and Russia is
Georgia's number one trading partner.
At any rate, on Monday evening, Tbilisi handed over the four Russian officers
at the heart of the spy scandal. At which point, however, the plot began to
thicken.
Over the weekend, Washington effectively stonewalled a Russian diplomatic
offensive directed against Tbilisi in the nature of a resolution by the UN
Security Council in New York calling for the urgent release of the Russian
officers.
This provoked the Kremlin to bring out into the open the hidden "American hand"
in the plot. President Vladimir Putin, while addressing the Russian Security
Council on Saturday over developments in Russian-Georgian relations, reportedly
said, "These people [Georgian authorities] think that under the protection of
their foreign mentors, they can afford to feel comfortable and secure. Is it
really so? Evidently, there are forces that specialize in provoking new crises,
estimating that it may distract attention from old problems."
Putin then gave some advice to both Washington and Tbilisi: "Probably in a
short-term perspective, it [provoking Russia] may have such an effect [of
distracting attention], but such attempts will not for sure help in solving the
old and rather serious crises in the world."
The Kremlin was making clear its sense of indignation in being subjected to
humiliation by Washington's close ally, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili.
It rankled in the Russian mind that Saakashvili would make faces at the Kremlin
solely on the basis of his confidence of American protection from any Russian
retaliation.
Russi's Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, describing
Tbilisi's spy charges as "absurd", accused some unnamed NATO countries of
illegally selling weapons to Georgia. "Some members of NATO - shall we say, the
'younger generation' - are supplying Georgia with arms and ammunition of Soviet
vintage," Ivanov was quoted as telling a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council of
defense ministers in Slovenia last Friday.
Ivanov was indirectly alleging that some of the pro-American Baltic States and
eastern European countries acting at the behest of Washington were encouraging
Georgia to adopt a confrontationist attitude toward Russia.
Washington seemed to have read the Kremlin's barely disguised warnings of the
implications of a likely hardening of Russian attitudes apropos such festering
American wounds as the Iraq war and the Iran nuclear issue, where the US
dependence on Russian cooperation is becoming critical. (Nicholas Burns, the US
under secretary of state for political affairs, claimed as recently as Monday
that Washington had won a united front with Moscow and Beijing in pushing for
UN sanctions against Iran if the latter did not agree to suspend its
uranium-enrichment activity within this week.)
Over the weekend, therefore, Washington swung into action, dispatching the
chief of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Karel
De Gucht, to Tbilisi on a mediatory mission to resolve the diplomatic row. He
later said that after negotiations with all parties, including with US
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, that Georgian leadership had agreed to
hand over the Russian "spies" to the OSCE and that they had been returned to
Russia on Monday night.
For Washington, it was a "win-win" situation. Washington shrewdly calculated
that maximum propaganda mileage could be squeezed out of the episode designed
to show Russia as a bully in its behavior toward a tiny neighbor. And from now
on, the law of diminishing returns would be at work, whereas, with a bit of
timely, demonstrative goodwill as a well-meaning mediator, it might be possible
to earn some reciprocal Russian gesture elsewhere.
But Moscow has shown no hurry to acknowledge the apparent US "goodwill" in
resolving the standoff with Tbilisi. Asked about the usefulness of "mediators",
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov sarcastically remarked on Monday that third
countries were already "energetically involved" in Russia-Georgia relations. He
elaborated: "We have many times drawn the attention of those third parties, you
may call them 'sponsors' - those who supply weapons to Georgia and blocked a
resolution at the UN Security Council - to the problem."
If anything, Lavrov continued the diplomatic offensive. He said, "The actions
of the Georgian leadership have unquestionably become consistently
anti-Russian" and that the current developments were "not the culmination but a
reflection" of the hostile policies pursued by Tbilisi toward Russia.
Lavrov said that Moscow had warned Western countries about the danger of
conniving with the policies pursued by Saakashvili, but instead Georgia
received promises of closer cooperation from NATO. (Washington recently
announced additional financial support of US$10 million for bringing the
Georgian armed forces closer to NATO standards.)
"It is clear by now that Saakashvili's main goal is accession to NATO. He is
hoping to resolve all other problems through this route," Lavrov observed.
Meanwhile, a Kremlin press release said that in a telephone conversation on
Monday, Putin warned US President George W Bush about Georgia's "destructive
policy". Putin reportedly highlighted that "any actions of third countries that
Georgia's leadership could interpret as encouraging its destructive policy were
unacceptable and dangerous for peace and stability in the region".
Russian commentators uniformly believed that Saakashvili acted with
Washington's prior knowledge and approval. They saw a pattern in the sequence
of events during the past three months following Saakashvili's visit to
Washington.
During this period, Georgia deployed its troops in the Kodori Gorge in
Abkhazia, apparently taking one step further toward seeking a "military
solution" to the political separatism in the breakaway province; Saakashvili
ordered a crackdown on opposition political figures who were mounting an
increasingly effective campaign against the power structure in Tbilisi,
allegedly for their "pro-Russia" stance; Tbilisi commenced a process of
"intensive dialogue" between Georgia and NATO (which is a stipulated
prerequisite as per the NATO charter for new members' accession); and last but
not least, Saakashvili precipitated with great deliberation a totally
unnecessary crisis by detaining the Russian military officers.
Thus, Russian commentators saw last week's developments as falling within the
overall context of Russian-American rivalry for influence on the territories of
the former Soviet republics. They visualized that the US geopolitical objective
was to force Russia out of the Caucasus as part of Washington's agenda of
effecting the Atlantic integration of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia, and,
specifically, of replacing all traces of Russian military presence in any
corner of the region through which the strategic Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil
pipeline and a future trans-Caspian pipeline run.
Now that the "color revolutions" have receded, Russian-American rivalry in
Eurasia is taking a new form in the nature of intensified attempts by the
international community to settle the so-called "frozen conflicts" in Moldova
and South Caucasus.
Russia is viewing with growing concern Anglo-American attempts in recent months
to orchestrate discussions over these conflicts within European institutions.
Britain, Poland and Lithuania are leading a campaign at the European Commission
and the European Parliament for the EU to adopt a Caucasus Project. Alongside,
the pro-American GUAM (a regional grouping of Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and
Moldova) is also being encouraged by Washington to adopt a coordinated position
on issues such as the "frozen conflicts", Russian-Georgian relations, and the
continued presence of Russian peacekeeping forces in the breakaway republics of
Trans-Dneister, Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Washington hopes to incrementally evolve a common strategy and solidarity
between the US and the EU concerning relations with Russia within the overall
framework of Euro-Atlanticism. But there are wheels within wheels. In essence,
Britain, in league with the pro-American bloc of countries of "New Europe", is
striving within the European institutions to hedge French and German policies
toward Russia.
The UK and the US share a sense of deep disquiet over Russian, German and
French integration in the energy sphere. The Anglo-American concern is that
with the passage of time, if the present trends strengthen, increased
cooperation in the energy sphere will inevitably bring Russia, France, Germany,
Spain, Italy, Hungary, etc to act in concert on major areas impacting European
security and stability, such as the status of Ukraine, NATO's future expansion,
or Russia's legitimate politico-security interests in the Trans-Caucasus.
At the same time, Britain and the US appreciate that the eastern European
countries of the erstwhile Warsaw Pact and the Baltic republics harbor strong
anti-Russia bias while they remain engaged in the process of consolidating
their European outlook. The Anglo-American attempt has been to harness this
"critical mass" of animus against Russia already available within the European
institutions.
Part of the Anglo-American strategy is to calibrate the irritants in relations
between the GUAM member-countries and Russia. The virulently anti-Russia bloc
of countries in eastern Europe (Poland and the Baltic states) within the EU has
been playing the role of inciting the GUAM countries against Russia. The tactic
enables the US and Britain to stay in the background and avoid complicating
their bilateral relations with Moscow.
The "frozen conflicts" present themselves as a convenient topic to ratchet up
tensions between Russia and its GUAM neighbors. But it is not as if the US or
Britain can offer any viable solutions for settling the conflicts in Moldova
and the South Caucasus. In fact, as the Nagorno-Karabakh problem illustrates,
there are no easy solutions to these regional conflicts in the foreseeable
future.
The geopolitical complexities of the region are such that the US and Britain
need to work hard to consolidate the GUAM positions. For instance, within GUAM,
Ukraine, Moldova and Azerbaijan do not consider it expedient to share Georgia's
passion for ganging up against Russia (even though they may share an interest
in sequestering their energy communication links from Russian domination).
To be sure, the US objective is nonetheless to nudge the GUAM countries toward
a common platform on as many fronts as possible so as to create a new political
reality in Eurasia that Russia has to learn to live with, and to encourage the
GUAM countries to play an increased role in the security sphere.
The political developments in Ukraine in the recent months leading to the
unraveling of the so-called "Orange" alliance no doubt constituted a temporary
setback to the US's GUAM strategy, but Washington would harbor the hope that in
the medium and long term Kiev would revert to its GUAM moorings and assume a
leadership role in the community of democratic nations in Eurasia.
All the same, Washington has no illusions that GUAM alone can ever muster the
capacity to solve security issues in the region. In the US perception, the need
exists for the active involvement of the international community. For this
reason, the question of GUAM countries' accession to NATO has become a
priority.
In fact, the entire US strategy in the region revolves on NATO's expansion in
the Caspian and Black Sea regions and in South Caucasus. That is the reason why
Washington even advocates that the eligibility bar for NATO accession should be
lowered for Ukraine and Georgia at the cost of degrading the alliance's
defense, political and economic standards.
France and Germany, however, do not share the Anglo-American interest in NATO
expansion, in priority terms. Neither France nor Germany has taken an
unequivocal position on the subject, either.
Washington hopes, arguably, that episodes such as the current Russian-Georgian
spy scandal show up Russia in poor light as a country impeding conflict
resolution and occupying the territories of other countries (Georgia and
Moldova) on the pretext of peacekeeping operations, while in reality carrying
out subversive activities against the regimes in power, apart from blatantly
using energy as an instrument of foreign policy.
In Washington's estimation, such an argumentation would convince the doubting
Thomases within the trans-Atlantic community, especially in Paris and Berlin,
regarding the "reality" of the threats posed by a resurgent Russia and the
imperative of NATO expansion in the prevailing situation.
In immediate terms, the Anglo-American strategy is to force Russia to withdraw
its peacekeeping forces in Georgia and Moldova, as then only will these
countries become eligible for NATO accession. One way of pressuring Russia will
be to transfer the agenda of conflict resolution in the Caspian and Black Sea
regions and in the Caucasus to the arena of the United Nations.
We may see signs of this happening in the coming months. Russia seems ready to
pre-empt the US design to create an utterly unfavorable situation for it by
orchestrating a GUAM move (preferably in tandem with a common EU position) in
the UN in the near future that may hold the potential to snowball into focused
international scrutiny of Russia's policy toward its smaller neighbors.
Thus, on Tuesday, despite the previous day's release of the Russian military
officers by Tbilisi (significantly, under OSCE auspices, which in itself
amounts to "internationalization" of Russian-Georgian relations), Moscow
decided to submit a draft resolution in the UN Security Council calling for the
withdrawal of Georgian troops from the Kodori Range. The resolution demands
that Tbilisi honors all its international obligations, including the mandate
for the Commonwealth of Independent Countries' peacekeeping operations in
Georgia, and avoids any precipitate steps aggravating the problem of the
breakaway republic of Abkhazia.
The resolution specifically seeks an extension of the UN mandate for the
Russian peacekeeping forces in Abkhazia until April 2007. The Russian
resolution is due to come back for an open vote at a Security Council meeting
next week.
Moscow is also attempting to checkmate the Anglo-American gameplan on NATO
expansion by harping on the trend-setting nature of the referendum in Kosovo
(and Montenegro) recently held with EU endorsement and US support on the
province's separation from Serbia. Moscow has argued that what the West
considers acceptable in Kosovo (or Montenegro), namely, the right of
self-determination, should be equally acceptable to Trans-Dneister, Abkhazia or
South Ossetia (the breakaway regions of Moldova and Georgia).
Moscow is confidently asserting an important point of principle, comfortable in
the knowledge that the overwhelming popular opinion in these breakaway regions
of Moldova and Georgia is for close ties with Russia. Of course, if a string of
newly independent states with pro-Russia outlook were to appear in Eurasia,
that would throw NATO's expansion plans into disarray.
Speaking at a news briefing in Slovenia on Friday against the backdrop of a
joint meeting with NATO defense ministers, Ivanov gently reminded Washington
that taking all factors into account, Russia was not short on options if driven
into a corner.
Ivanov said: "We should not forget that 90% of the population of Abkhazia and
South Ossetia are Russian citizens. They were never citizens of Georgia. After
the collapse of the Soviet Union, the local population in the region, which was
then holding Soviet passports individually, sought formal Russian citizenship.
And we issued passports and granted citizenship rights not only to the citizens
of the former Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic but also to the residents in
all other former Soviet republics.
"Millions of people opted for Russian citizenship. That was their right and
prerogative".
All in all, therefore, the "frozen conflicts" when applied to the post-Soviet
scenario, while appearing to lend themselves as a convenient lever for
Washington to purge Russian influence from Eurasia, could in reality turn out
to be a historical trap. For the fact remains that to resolve the conflicts
they need to be "defrosted" first. And no one can foretell with certitude the
consequences of such a step.
The point is, present-day ethnic conflicts in the region began historically
with a process of development of national consciousness a long time ago in the
run-up to the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and Russian empires.
The ideology of national self-determination is still alive in those regions and
may have, arguably, become even stronger in the post-Cold War era. Indeed, the
list is long: Armenian enclaves in Georgia, Crimea, Trans-Dneister, Gaguzia,
Transylvania, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Kurdistan, etc.
Speaking on the subject in May, Putin called on Washington to understand that
given the complexities of sub-nationalism and ethnicity in the region,
geopolitical rivalries should not assume the nature of a "sports competition".
"I believe," Putin said, "we all can, and should, cooperate to draft common
rules and uniform approaches ... otherwise, there will be chaos." Emphasizing
that "Russia has never raised the issue of annexing any territories outside its
present borders", Putin, however, cautioned, "when we hear that one approach is
possible in one place but is unacceptable in another, it becomes difficult to
understand, and is even more difficult to explain to people".
Putin pointed out that similar processes were underway in Europe, too, and
Russia was seriously concerned about it. He was underlining that Russia would
share common interests and concerns with Europe apropos conflict resolution in
Eurasia - unlike the US, which was busy consolidating its trans-Atlantic
leadership role in the post-Cold War era.
M K Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service
for more than 29 years, with postings including ambassador to Uzbekistan
(1995-98) and to Turkey (1998-2001).
