Post-Soviet syndrome: The independence-seeking statelets
Syed Fattahul Alim | Saturday, 28 June 2008
The communist revolution in the first half of the twentieth century followed by the second world war created what was called communist Eastern Europe with Soviet Russia as if its family head. It also marked a kind of political division of the world between the East and the West. Such political division of the world also created the military blocs to protect the two parts of the politically divided world from each other. The West created its force under the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) which came into being in April 4, 1949.
On the other hand, to counter NATO, the Eastern Europe under the leadership of the then Soviet Russia established the Warsaw Pact comprising Central and Eastern Europe. It came into being on May 14, 1955 in Warsaw, Poland. The treaty was signed in Warsaw on May 14, 1955.
During the entire period of Cold War between the American-led NATO bloc and Soviet Russia-led Warsaw Pact bloc faced each other for about four decades.
Both the blocs were nuclear armed and the common fear in those times was if war breaks out between the two blocs that would be the beginning of the end of the world.
But the scenario suddenly changed in the last decade of the twentieth century.
The communist Russia collapsed. The 15 states that joined Russia under the leadership of Lenin to make what was known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) on December 30, 1922 fell apart on December 26, 1991.
Countries like Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania was part of the huge Soviet empire. Though the socialist constitution provided that the members, who, in theory, had joined the Union according to their free will and as such were also free to opt for separation, in practice they became part of an imperial Russia under the socialist dispensation. With Russian as the de facto state language, these republics became an integral part of the single country called USSR.
But the 1991's collapse made USSR redundant. The breakaway republics were now in a state of confusion about how to redefine their borders and consolidate suddenly found identity as an independent nation for which they did not have to lodge any war or shed any blood. The age-old ethnic and nationalistic conflicts between many of these newly independent states resurfaced. Russia itself was all at sea, its leadership in a state of self-doubt about their future status and role in the world. The Warsaw bloc also lost its raison d'etre. Meanwhile, many pockets in the erstwhile republics where ethnic Russians settled became concerned about their future status. They looked up to nationalist Russia for the patronage to exercise their separate identity.
But Russia was then in shambles. It needed a strong leadership that could inject in the minds of the people a sense of national revival and integration. But the new leadership with ageing and frail Boris Yeltsin at its head was not in a position to infuse a revivalist tempo among the Russian populace. Yeltsin's successor Vladimir Putin was more resolute, focused and with a sense of mission. So, he started to build a new Russia which was confident, determined and ready to declare a new message to the rest of the world, especially to NATO which has been taking erstwhile Soviet republics one after another under its fold. Meanwhile, newly elected president Alexander Medvedev has taken charge of Kremlin pledging to pursue Putin's policies. So, the new Russia is now flexing its muscles to counter NATO's encroachment on its own backyard.
The statelets within the newly independent states like Georgia want Russia's protection. Abkhazia is such an ethnic Russian-dominated area, now at war with Georgia, aspiring for independence with Russian protection.
Fred Weir writes in details about the latest development in the Christian Science Monitor.
Tensions are again spiking here on the lush, subtropical Black Sea coastal plain, where heavily armed Russian troops aided by United Nations observers have held apart the warring armies of Georgia and insurgent Abkhazia for 15 years.
Last Wednesday, two powerful bombs exploded in the Abkhaz capital of Sukhumi, destroying a section of a railroad recently repaired by Russian construction troops that Georgia says are illegally in the rebel statelet, which Tbilisi - supported by most of the world - views as Georgian territory.
The next day, a few miles from this border post, Georgian police arrested four of the Russian peacekeepers, who have been in place under a 1994 cease-fire deal, leading a top Russian general, Alexander Burutin, to warn that if it happens again, "the consequences will be grave and there could be bloodshed."
If the fragile 1991 settlement that enabled the former Soviet Union to break relatively peacefully into 15 countries starts to unravel, the flash point may well be right here. But the antagonists would not be ragtag irregulars of the 1993 war but real armies, probably backed on one side by a resurgent Russia, on the other by NATO.
Peering over the half-mile-long bridge that separates Abkhazia from the Georgian town of Zugdidi, Ruslan, a burly Abkhaz border guard, says he helped to drive the fleeing Georgian Army across that bridge 15 years ago and expects to see them - now trained and equipped by the US - attempt a return any day now. "We will never agree to be part of Georgia again," he says. "I intend to live as an Abkhazian in a free country, and I'll fight for as long as it takes."
Most of the world breathed a sigh of relief when the USSR's collapse did not bring vast Yugoslavia-like upheavals, and cheerful scenarios seemed to be borne out when the former Soviet Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania joined the European Union and the NATO alliance in 2004.
Little-noticed wars Amid the hopeful 1990s, few people noticed the savage wars of secession that rocked the Caucasus region, leading to the emergence of fiercely pro-Moscow statelets like Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and the Armenian enclave of Nagorno Karabakh in Azerbaijan.
Along with Transdniestria, a rebel Slavic republic in Moldova, these little pieces of post-Soviet unfinished business were tagged "frozen conflicts" because it seemed unlikely that any big country, even Russia, would ever
recognize their de facto independence.
But dramatic geopolitical changes are threatening a return to hot war, this time with an oil-rich, stronger Russia standing unambiguously behind the separatist territories.
After many Western countries recognized the former Serbian territory of Kosovo earlier this year, despite Moscow's angry opposition, Russia eased its 14-year-old economic embargo on Abkhazia and the State Duma passed a resolution demanding full recognition. The prospect of NATO expansion into Georgia and Ukraine - a question that was postponed at NATO's Bucharest summit in April - has prompted Moscow to crank up its rhetoric against Georgia and send construction troops, not covered by the 1994 agreement, into Abkhazia. Those troops were tasked with reopening a dormant railroad link that runs from Rostov, Russia, through Sochi to Sukhumi, and would be crucial for supplying troops in the event of a conflict.
Though war does not appear to be on the immediate horizon, many here fear that it's coming. "Tensions are growing very fast, and we find ourselves on the line of confrontation between Russia and the West," says Oleg Damenia, director of the Center for Strategic Studies, an official think tank in Sukhumi. "Georgia's military budget is now 10 times larger than Abkhazia's. In this situation, we have no choice but to turn to Russia for support."
The Kremlin says the existence of separatist statelets in Georgia should make Europe wary of admitting such a fissiparous country to NATO. At the Bucharest summit, then-President Putin reportedly told President Bush that Ukraine is a similarly unstable place, whose pro-Russian east could tear away.
"Russia is trying to demonstrate the possible price of NATO expansion, by warning that Ukraine is an extremely fragile entity," says Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairs, a leading Moscow foreign policy journal.
"If NATO will push toward Ukraine, Russia might turn to very ugly means. There is huge potential for Russian irredentism in Ukraine," he says.
Last month Moscow's nationalist mayor, Yury Luzkhov, was declared persona non grata in Ukraine after he said that Moscow should take back Crimea, a Russian-populated peninsula that is still headquarters of the Russian Navy'sBlack Sea fleet and which was a "gift" to Ukraine from former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1954.
Some Russian nationalists go further and suggest the time is approaching for a wholesale redrawing of the post-Soviet map, to gather in Russian minorities and other pro-Moscow ethnic groups who felt stranded on foreign soil by the USSR's collapse.
"NATO expansion endangers our national interests, but at the same time Russia has grown much stronger and is in a position to revisit the status quo in the post-Soviet space," says Alexander Dugin, head of the International Eurasian Movement, a Moscow-based group of nationalist intellectuals, businessmen, and policymakers. "Russia understands that we cannot allow Ukraine to enter NATO as a whole state. We will witness a wave of separatism in Crimea and eastern Ukraine. Russia is no longer weak and at the West's mercy; it's on its way to recreating itself as an imperial power."
Future redivision of territory? Mr. Lukyanov says that such extreme views are unlikely to get much traction in the Kremlin, but neither do Russia's leaders rule out a future redivision of post-Soviet territory. "The Russian elite does not consider the current status quo as final," he says. "All the countries of this region are highly unstable, and subject to unpredictable shocks. No one here believes that the transition of the post-Soviet space has reached its final destination."
The new tone in Moscow is music to the ears of Abkhazia's rebel leaders, who believe all the attention now being paid them after 15 years of isolation could be their ticket to full statehood.
"Until now the world community has only recognized the partial collapse of the Soviet Union. But why can't the captive nations inside those states also have
their freedom?" asks Garry Kupalba, Abkhazia's deputy defense minister.
"The world thinks we don't exist, but we do. We're building our own state, with all the attributes of a state, including armed forces. And Russia is helping us," he says.
On the other hand, to counter NATO, the Eastern Europe under the leadership of the then Soviet Russia established the Warsaw Pact comprising Central and Eastern Europe. It came into being on May 14, 1955 in Warsaw, Poland. The treaty was signed in Warsaw on May 14, 1955.
During the entire period of Cold War between the American-led NATO bloc and Soviet Russia-led Warsaw Pact bloc faced each other for about four decades.
Both the blocs were nuclear armed and the common fear in those times was if war breaks out between the two blocs that would be the beginning of the end of the world.
But the scenario suddenly changed in the last decade of the twentieth century.
The communist Russia collapsed. The 15 states that joined Russia under the leadership of Lenin to make what was known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) on December 30, 1922 fell apart on December 26, 1991.
Countries like Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania was part of the huge Soviet empire. Though the socialist constitution provided that the members, who, in theory, had joined the Union according to their free will and as such were also free to opt for separation, in practice they became part of an imperial Russia under the socialist dispensation. With Russian as the de facto state language, these republics became an integral part of the single country called USSR.
But the 1991's collapse made USSR redundant. The breakaway republics were now in a state of confusion about how to redefine their borders and consolidate suddenly found identity as an independent nation for which they did not have to lodge any war or shed any blood. The age-old ethnic and nationalistic conflicts between many of these newly independent states resurfaced. Russia itself was all at sea, its leadership in a state of self-doubt about their future status and role in the world. The Warsaw bloc also lost its raison d'etre. Meanwhile, many pockets in the erstwhile republics where ethnic Russians settled became concerned about their future status. They looked up to nationalist Russia for the patronage to exercise their separate identity.
But Russia was then in shambles. It needed a strong leadership that could inject in the minds of the people a sense of national revival and integration. But the new leadership with ageing and frail Boris Yeltsin at its head was not in a position to infuse a revivalist tempo among the Russian populace. Yeltsin's successor Vladimir Putin was more resolute, focused and with a sense of mission. So, he started to build a new Russia which was confident, determined and ready to declare a new message to the rest of the world, especially to NATO which has been taking erstwhile Soviet republics one after another under its fold. Meanwhile, newly elected president Alexander Medvedev has taken charge of Kremlin pledging to pursue Putin's policies. So, the new Russia is now flexing its muscles to counter NATO's encroachment on its own backyard.
The statelets within the newly independent states like Georgia want Russia's protection. Abkhazia is such an ethnic Russian-dominated area, now at war with Georgia, aspiring for independence with Russian protection.
Fred Weir writes in details about the latest development in the Christian Science Monitor.
Tensions are again spiking here on the lush, subtropical Black Sea coastal plain, where heavily armed Russian troops aided by United Nations observers have held apart the warring armies of Georgia and insurgent Abkhazia for 15 years.
Last Wednesday, two powerful bombs exploded in the Abkhaz capital of Sukhumi, destroying a section of a railroad recently repaired by Russian construction troops that Georgia says are illegally in the rebel statelet, which Tbilisi - supported by most of the world - views as Georgian territory.
The next day, a few miles from this border post, Georgian police arrested four of the Russian peacekeepers, who have been in place under a 1994 cease-fire deal, leading a top Russian general, Alexander Burutin, to warn that if it happens again, "the consequences will be grave and there could be bloodshed."
If the fragile 1991 settlement that enabled the former Soviet Union to break relatively peacefully into 15 countries starts to unravel, the flash point may well be right here. But the antagonists would not be ragtag irregulars of the 1993 war but real armies, probably backed on one side by a resurgent Russia, on the other by NATO.
Peering over the half-mile-long bridge that separates Abkhazia from the Georgian town of Zugdidi, Ruslan, a burly Abkhaz border guard, says he helped to drive the fleeing Georgian Army across that bridge 15 years ago and expects to see them - now trained and equipped by the US - attempt a return any day now. "We will never agree to be part of Georgia again," he says. "I intend to live as an Abkhazian in a free country, and I'll fight for as long as it takes."
Most of the world breathed a sigh of relief when the USSR's collapse did not bring vast Yugoslavia-like upheavals, and cheerful scenarios seemed to be borne out when the former Soviet Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania joined the European Union and the NATO alliance in 2004.
Little-noticed wars Amid the hopeful 1990s, few people noticed the savage wars of secession that rocked the Caucasus region, leading to the emergence of fiercely pro-Moscow statelets like Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and the Armenian enclave of Nagorno Karabakh in Azerbaijan.
Along with Transdniestria, a rebel Slavic republic in Moldova, these little pieces of post-Soviet unfinished business were tagged "frozen conflicts" because it seemed unlikely that any big country, even Russia, would ever
recognize their de facto independence.
But dramatic geopolitical changes are threatening a return to hot war, this time with an oil-rich, stronger Russia standing unambiguously behind the separatist territories.
After many Western countries recognized the former Serbian territory of Kosovo earlier this year, despite Moscow's angry opposition, Russia eased its 14-year-old economic embargo on Abkhazia and the State Duma passed a resolution demanding full recognition. The prospect of NATO expansion into Georgia and Ukraine - a question that was postponed at NATO's Bucharest summit in April - has prompted Moscow to crank up its rhetoric against Georgia and send construction troops, not covered by the 1994 agreement, into Abkhazia. Those troops were tasked with reopening a dormant railroad link that runs from Rostov, Russia, through Sochi to Sukhumi, and would be crucial for supplying troops in the event of a conflict.
Though war does not appear to be on the immediate horizon, many here fear that it's coming. "Tensions are growing very fast, and we find ourselves on the line of confrontation between Russia and the West," says Oleg Damenia, director of the Center for Strategic Studies, an official think tank in Sukhumi. "Georgia's military budget is now 10 times larger than Abkhazia's. In this situation, we have no choice but to turn to Russia for support."
The Kremlin says the existence of separatist statelets in Georgia should make Europe wary of admitting such a fissiparous country to NATO. At the Bucharest summit, then-President Putin reportedly told President Bush that Ukraine is a similarly unstable place, whose pro-Russian east could tear away.
"Russia is trying to demonstrate the possible price of NATO expansion, by warning that Ukraine is an extremely fragile entity," says Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairs, a leading Moscow foreign policy journal.
"If NATO will push toward Ukraine, Russia might turn to very ugly means. There is huge potential for Russian irredentism in Ukraine," he says.
Last month Moscow's nationalist mayor, Yury Luzkhov, was declared persona non grata in Ukraine after he said that Moscow should take back Crimea, a Russian-populated peninsula that is still headquarters of the Russian Navy'sBlack Sea fleet and which was a "gift" to Ukraine from former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1954.
Some Russian nationalists go further and suggest the time is approaching for a wholesale redrawing of the post-Soviet map, to gather in Russian minorities and other pro-Moscow ethnic groups who felt stranded on foreign soil by the USSR's collapse.
"NATO expansion endangers our national interests, but at the same time Russia has grown much stronger and is in a position to revisit the status quo in the post-Soviet space," says Alexander Dugin, head of the International Eurasian Movement, a Moscow-based group of nationalist intellectuals, businessmen, and policymakers. "Russia understands that we cannot allow Ukraine to enter NATO as a whole state. We will witness a wave of separatism in Crimea and eastern Ukraine. Russia is no longer weak and at the West's mercy; it's on its way to recreating itself as an imperial power."
Future redivision of territory? Mr. Lukyanov says that such extreme views are unlikely to get much traction in the Kremlin, but neither do Russia's leaders rule out a future redivision of post-Soviet territory. "The Russian elite does not consider the current status quo as final," he says. "All the countries of this region are highly unstable, and subject to unpredictable shocks. No one here believes that the transition of the post-Soviet space has reached its final destination."
The new tone in Moscow is music to the ears of Abkhazia's rebel leaders, who believe all the attention now being paid them after 15 years of isolation could be their ticket to full statehood.
"Until now the world community has only recognized the partial collapse of the Soviet Union. But why can't the captive nations inside those states also have
their freedom?" asks Garry Kupalba, Abkhazia's deputy defense minister.
"The world thinks we don't exist, but we do. We're building our own state, with all the attributes of a state, including armed forces. And Russia is helping us," he says.