RUSSIA IN THE CAUCASUS
ISN – International Relations & Security Network, Zurich, Switzerland
Feb 25 2013
Despite the attempts by Western powers to penetrate the Caucasus,
Russia continues to exert unmatched influence over the region. In
today’s Questions and Answers presentation, the CSS’ Aglaya Snetkov
outlines some of the differences between Moscow’s North and South
Caucasus policies.
By Aglaya Snetkov for the ISN
What are Russia’s core security challenges and objectives in the
Northern Caucasus?
Russia’s contemporary security challenges in the North Caucasus date
back to the first Chechen war (1994-96), and more recently to the
restart of the large-scale military campaign in Chechnya in 1999.
However, despite (and often directly as a result of) Russia’s policies
in the region, the situation in the North Caucasus remains insecure.
While conditions in Chechnya have to a large extent stabilized under
the iron-fist rule of President Ramzan Kadyrov, the situation in the
rest of the region remains tense. Instability, societal insecurity
and terrorist attacks since the mid-2000s have now spread to the
rest of the North Caucasus, particularly Ingushetia, Dagestan and
Kabardino-Balkaria, with the Caucasus Emirate – a pan-Caucasian
Islamist terrorist organization – continuing its operations in the
region. In addition, poor economic, political and social conditions,
as well as arbitrary violence on the part of the federal and local
forces, all serve to destabilize the region even further. Recent
incidents in Stavropol Krai demonstrate that violence may now also
be spreading beyond the confines of the Northern Caucasus.
Indeed, large scale terrorist attacks in the rest of Russia continue
with regularity. The most notable incident in recent years was the 2011
bombing of the international arrivals terminal at Domodedovo airport,
Moscow. Terrorism-related crime, primarily in the North Caucasus,
remains high year on year, with the Russian authorities recording
365 terrorism related crimes in 2011. The region has also witnessed
a number of high profile killings and attacks on politicians, Muslim
clerics and journalists. The Russian authorities as well as independent
analysts alike are now also concerned over possible terrorist attacks
during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
Accordingly, Russia continues to face major terrorist and security
challenges in the region, with no particular end in sight.
What are Russia’s core foreign policy objectives in the Southern
Caucasus?
Russia has had a long presence in the South Caucasus. However, while
Russia is keen on retaining its influence in this region, its actual
ambitions and relations towards each of the South Caucasus states are
rather distinct. Since the early 1990s, its closest ally in the region
has been Armenia, the poorest state in the region. Despite Yerevan’s
attempts to balance a pro-Western and a pro-Russian position, Russia
remains Armenia’s main trading partner and source of economic and
military support.
In contrast, relations between Russia and Azerbaijan have ebbed
and flowed over recent times. Particularly tense in the 1990s with
frictions over Russia’s support of Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh and
the energy and pipeline issues, more recently, relations have thawed.
The most turbulent and problematic relationship for Russia has been
with Georgia, coming to a head in the 2008 Russia-Georgia war over
South Ossetia. At their core, Russia’s objectives in Georgia are
motivated by realpolitik. It wants to retain its influence over
Georgia, by curtailing its pro-Western ambitions, and by exerting
pressure on its domestic sphere by supporting the independence
movements in Georgia’s two secessionist enclaves: Abkhazia and South
Ossetia. It also seeks to prevent any future NATO-expansion that would
include Georgia. Aside from hard geopolitical objectives, relations are
often also tense for much pettier reasons. Issues such as the personal
animosity between Putin and Georgia’s President Mikheil Saakashvili,
or provocative posturing and gesturing, exacerbate already tense
relations. A potential window of opportunity has, however, opened
up in the last few months, with the election of Bidzina Ivanishvili,
a wealthy businessman with strong connections in Russia, as Georgia’s
prime minister in October 2012. Immediately following his election,
Ivanishvili offered Russia an olive branch.
However, with Putin back in charge in the Kremlin, Russia has so
far not reciprocated. However, future positive developments in the
relationship should not be ruled out.
How does Moscow plan to achieve these objectives?
In the North Caucasus, Russia’s current federal policy appears to be
stuck in a rut, veering from one ‘tried and failed’ initiative to the
next. Unfortunately, even new initiatives such as meetings between
Salafi and Sufi leaders in Dagestan have not succeeded in quashing
the violence on the ground.
In Chechnya, despite a general stabilization and mass rebuilding
program, particularly in the capital Grozny, concerns remain over
the Kadyrov regime. The personalization of the regime around Kadyrov,
its arbitrary use of violence and a program aimed at the revival of
Chechen cultural and religious ‘traditions’ are all cause for concern.
In fact, under Kadyrov Chechnya seems to be moving even further away
from the Russian legal and cultural space, particularly with regard to
the role and place of women, whose freedom has been severely curtailed
in recent years.
Russia will only be able to address the currently instability in
the North Caucasus if it first overcomes much broader structural,
but also leadership, challenges, which have up till now ensured that
Moscow remains a weakened power with a growing terrorist threat inside
its territory. Until this occurs, the question remains – for how long
will Russia retain its effective power and governance over the region?
In the South Caucasus, by contrast, Russia appears to have adopted a
‘carrot and stick’ approach – with the stick usually reserved for
Georgia, and the carrots for Armenia. Indeed, regardless of the
legality or otherwise of its actions during the 2008 Russia-Georgia
war, Russia clearly set out to teach Georgia a lesson. As revealed by
the then-President Medvedev in 2011, Russia’s actions in 2008 were
primarily designed to curtail NATO’s ambitions to expand into the
South Caucasus. In this respect, this approach seems to have worked
(at least for now). However, the 2008 campaign also demonstrated
Russia’s military inefficiencies and weaknesses, and it seems rather
unlikely that there will be another major confrontation between Russia
and Georgia in the near future. And indeed, if Ivanishvili does manage
to craft a rapprochement with Russia, perhaps relations between the two
countries may even become less securitized and hostile in the future.
In relation to Armenia, Russia tends to use its security and economic
weight in order to ensure that it toes the line. Indeed, not only does
Russia allot subsidies to Armenia, it also provides it with cheap oil
and gas imports, at the same time as Russian companies are heavily
investing in the Armenian energy sector. In the security sector,
Russia has also retained its direct military presence through its
102nd military base, and by patrolling the Armenian border with Iran
and Turkey alongside Armenian counterparts. Armenia is currently
involved in a number of Russian-led regional projects. By contrast,
Azerbaijan has been able to use its energy resources to craft a much
more independent foreign policy. And while relations with Russia
have broadened in recent years, Moscow does not have much leverage
over Azerbaijan.
In December of last year, Hilary Clinton warned of Russian intentions
to “re-Sovietize” Eastern Europe and Central Asia through instruments
like the Eurasian Union. What do you make of this statement in view
of Russia’s policy in the Northern and Southern Caucasus?
Putin’s project proposal to create a Eurasian Union by 2015 sent
shock-waves through political and policy circles in the region.
Currently, this idea remains rather vague, but it shouldn’t be seen
as attempt by Putin to create an USSR 2.0 or even to establish a
pan-regional structure like the Commonwealth of Independent States. It
does, however, highlight a series of potential future trends, some
of which might have a direct impact on the South Caucasus. First,
the region now plays a greater role in Russia’s foreign policy
ambitions than even in the mid-2000s. Second, looking at recent
regional developments – Russia’s goals are now geographically much
narrower and more defined than in the 1990s. The focus is primarily
on building stronger and mutually-beneficial, regional institutional
arrangements with key regional economic players such as Ukraine or
Kazakhstan (until now Russia has failed to successfully integrate
Ukraine into its regional institutional arrangements) and its closest
allies, such as Belarus and Armenia. The goal, therefore, is a
‘coalition of the willing’ not ‘an alliance of the coerced’. Third,
in the South Caucasus, these projects really only involve Armenia,
since neither Georgia nor Azerbaijan currently fit within Russia’s
long-term regional integration agenda. Armenia is already an observer
state in the Eurasian Economic Community and its leadership has
already expressed its interest in the idea of a future Eurasian Union,
particularly in economic terms.
A pertinent question that does arise in relation to regional
institutional arrangements and the South Caucasus is what happens
in the event of conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over
Nagorno-Karabakh. This is a much more likely scenario than a repeat
of the 2008 Russia-Georgia conflict. Indeed, over the last few years,
Russia has been progressively beefing up the Collective Security Treaty
Organization (CSTO), a regional structure that provides security
guarantees for its members, which include Armenia. So, in the event
of future conflict in the South Caucasus, Russia and the CSTO might
find itself with no choice but to provide military assistance to
Armenia. Whether, this will happen in practice remains unknown.
Therefore, while Russia’s aspiration to build stronger regional
institutional arrangements at this stage do not automatically or
directly impact upon Azerbaijan or Georgia – they might very well
suffer from indirect spill-over effects.
Aglaya Snetkov is a senior researcher at the Center for Security
Studies (CSS).
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Digital-Library/Articles/Special-Feature/Detail/?lng=en&id=159737&contextid774=159737&contextid775=159733&tabid=1453527586