| JRL HOME | SUPPORT | SUBSCRIBE | RESEARCH & ANALYTICAL SUPPLEMENT | |
Old Saint Basil's Cathedral in MoscowJohnson's Russia List title and scenes of Saint Petersburg
Excerpts from the JRL E-Mail Community :: Founded and Edited by David Johnson

#28 - JRL 9138 - JRL Home
RIA Novosti
May 3, 2005
WITHDRAWAL OF RUSSIAN BASES FROM GEORGIA: CONCESSION OR REGULARITY?

MOSCOW. (Anatoly Belyayev, head of analysis, Center for Current Politics in Russia, for RIA Novosti) - The foreign ministers of Russia and Georgia have announced that their countries might soon agree on the timeframe for the withdrawal of Russian troops and equipment from Georgia, to begin this year and end by January 1, 2008.

This only looked like a sensation at first sight. In fact, this decision on the part of Russia corresponds to changes in its strategy with regard to the post-Soviet states. These changes are the logical element of the "curtailment" of Russia's geopolitical ambitions in the post-Soviet era, which were crowned with the symbolic and unconditional closure of Russian military bases in Cuba and Vietnam at the beginning of Putin's first term.

That decision formalized the new reality: unlike the Soviet Union, Russia as a global power could not maintain foreign policy competition with the U.S. and had to limit its foreign policy activity and influence to the CIS countries.

At the same time (though too late), Russia launched a policy of creating conditions for developing economic relations with the friendly CIS countries, designed to accelerate integration in the CIS under Russian auspices. This policy took the form of special economic relations with Belarus, the collection of VAT in the country of destination (for the countries of the Common Economic Space), and several other actions.

But internal political developments in several neighboring states removed the elite groups on which Moscow relied in the advance of its integration projects. It appears that the Russian leadership has become wary of supporting the really and formally friendly elite groups in the other neighboring states.

Unfortunately, Russia is not nurturing friendly elite groups in the other countries because it does not have a relevant strategy or a system of foreign policy and financial support for such a project.

In this situation, Russia's only hope is a policy of differentiated foreign economic relations with the post-Soviet states, which calls for gradually eliminating the foreign policy legacy that prevents this new policy from being implemented consistently.

The development of relations with Georgia could become a pilot project of the new Russian foreign policy in the post-Soviet countries. From the military-strategic viewpoint, bases in Batumi and Akhalkalaki do nothing more than mark Russian military presence in the Caucasus region. They could be an element of the system of support for the serious and politically important presence of Russia in Armenia but can hardly fulfill this function because they are located in unfriendly Georgia.

An agreement with Georgia on the status of these bases during the withdrawal period and especially after it could give Russia a chance to establish more appropriate and equitable economic relations with Georgia. That country is financed by Russian energy supplied at prices that are several times lower than global rates.

Georgia might threaten to establish an energy and foreign trade blockade of Armenia, which is friendly with Russia, if Russia refuses to deliver cheap energy to Georgia. But an attempt to turn this purely economic issue into a foreign policy problem would spotlight the anti-Russian nature of the policy.

A consistent policy pursued by Russia, the weakening of the Saakashvili regime, and the presence of a hostile neighbor could create a situation where Georgia would be unable to develop without Russia. This would show that any Georgian government, if it wants to remain in power for a long time, should maintain good relations with its northern neighbor.