Window on Eurasia

‘Americanization’ of South Caucasus Could Help Moscow, Analyst Says

Paul Goble

Vienna, July 10, 2006 – In its still-weakened state, the Russian Federation
desperately needs stability along its southern flanks and consequently
“it is not all that important” who supplies it – even if the
provider turns out to be the United States, according to a leading
Moscow specialist on ethnic conflicts and security in the Caucasus.

In an essay posted online last week, Sergei Markedonov argues that
Moscow officials who view the decline of Russian power in the southern
Caucasus and the rise of American power there as a zero-sum game are
not only making a conceptual mistake but also are ignoring Russia’s real
national interests.

On the one hand, he writes, Moscow lacks the political resources to
promote on its own the kind of stability it needs in the southern
Caucasus if it is to stabilize Chechnya and other portions of the
northern Caucasus. Consequently, opposing the U.S. or seeking to
compete with Washington there is counterproductive.

And on the other, Markedonov suggests, Washington’s interests in the
region are not all embracing but rather limited to ensuring that the
Baku-Jeyhan pipeline will function. Only if Moscow raises the stakes
there or elsewhere will the United States respond in kind.

Indeed, the Moscow analyst says, the Russian government made a major
mistake in setting itself in opposition to the United States over Iraq
rather than trading its support in Iraq for American backing of Russian
positions in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)
[http://www.polit.ru/author/2006/07/05/sng_usa.html].

The Americans might very well have been prepared to make such an
exchange, given their focus on the war against terrorism and their
absence of plans for regulating conflicts in the southern Caucasus or
elsewhere along the periphery of what was once the Soviet Union.

And that provides Moscow with an opening, at least for the time being
because Washington has not yet “finally” pushed the Russian
Federation out of this region and does not appear to have either the
understanding of or willingness to commit resources to its problems.

“If the Kremlin does not have the resurces to play the role of
regional policeman,” Markedonov asks rhetorically, “then would it
not be simpler to divide these functiosn with Washington?” --
presumably with the U.S. providing much of the muscle and blessing and
the Russian Federation most of the ideas.

“The Americanization of the Caucasus,” which has provoked so much
Russian anger and concern, Markedonov continues, “is not a secret
anti-Russian conspiracy.” Instead, it is “a geopolitical offer,”
one that Moscow has not exploited as a result of its own failures in
understanding what is going on.

Once officials in Moscow do grasp the essence of the new geopolitics in
the southern Caucasus, however, they will be able to see that in that
region, the United States and the Russian Federation “are condemned
to cooperation,” something that Moscow can use to its advantage if it
wants to.

“Today,” Markedonov concludes, “Russian diplomacy has to learn to
live with the American presence,” something it will be able to do if
it understands the following fundamental reality: longterm “regional
security is more important” than tactical victories against the
Americans, however sweet they may be.

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