Georgia: A Failing State?

Meeting Report, Vol.3, No.2, January 31, 2001

On Wednesday, January 31, 2001, Carnegie Endowment Senior Associate Anatol Lieven discussed Georgia's prospects for transformation and its relations with Russia and the West. The discussion was moderated by Carnegie Endowment Senior Associate Andrew Kuchins.

Anatol Lieven traveled to Georgia many times within the last decade; of all these visits, Lieven said, his most recent journey in December 2000 proved the most depressing. Even in the depth of the civil wars of the early 1990s, people had hope for improvement once the violent period of upheaval was over; today, Lieven said, there is general pessimism about the country's future prospects of westernization and modernization - an impression borne out by the latest opinion polls conducted on behalf of the State Department.

This pessimism is not an entirely negative phenomenon. It means that in comparison with the early 1990s, there is less of a propensity towards radical and violent protest. On the other hand, it also makes it even more difficult to mobilize a genuine mass movement for any sort of wide-ranging reform. Without such a movement for reform from below, Lieven claimed, it is difficult to imagine a strong and lasting improvement in Georgia's position.

Georgia reached its modern nadir in late 1993, by which time ethnic and political conflict had reduced the country to a "truly dreadful" condition. The defeat of the Georgians in Abkhazia led to a new revolt by the supporters of former president Zviad Gamsakhurdia. President Eduard Shevardnadze was able to defeat the "Zviadists" with the help of Russian tanks and other equipment, but in return for this assistance, Shevarnadze was forced to agree to join the CIS and to accept Russia's hegemony in the region.

In the following years, however, Russia's own weakness (especially in the south) was dramatically revealed in the Chechen war of 1994-96, which ended in Russian defeat. This gave Georgia a window of opportunity to escape from Russian hegemony, forge close links with the West, and take decisive steps to strengthen its independent statehood. This opportunity was "overwhelmingly missed," according to Lieven. Georgia did attempt, at least rhetorically, an escape to the West - it stated support for the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline, refused to participate seriously in the CIS, declared its intention of joining NATO, and applied pressure to Russia to close its bases on Georgian soil.

Aspects of this strategy now look like a serious miscalculation, Lieven asserted. Baku-Ceyhan has not been built, nor agreed to by the oil companies. US state funding has not been forthcoming. In any case the $70 to $100 million in annual transit fees are not enough by themselves to transform the Georgian economy, especially given the Georgian state's record. NATO membership remains a mere fantasy for the foreseeable future -- not simply because of geopolitics and ethnic conflict, but because of the extremely poor state of the Georgian armed forces.

In the meantime, Russia regained some of its of its underlying strength. While still weak and corrupt, and certainly not a world power, Russia is the by far the strongest state, and largest economy, in the post-Soviet neighborhood. In the case of Georgia, Russian gas supplies and the $179 million Georgian gas debt furnish Russia with a ready instrument of pressure; and the renewed Chechen war has given Russia both an extra motivation to bring pressure to bear on Georgia and an extra edge in doing so.

In the early stages of the war, Georgia admitted several thousands of Chechen refugees - a generous move, but one that has perhaps proven to be a mistake in terms of Georgian security interests. The Chechen refugees have settled in the Pankisi Valley, an area already inhabited by a Chechen minority, and effectively turned it into a no-go area for Georgian security forces. Lieven warned that while Russia's allegations of about 7,000 Chechen fighters hiding out in Georgia are completely fantastical ( he cited the more realistic estimates of Western diplomats at 200-300), the widespread possession of arms in the region makes it almost impossible to identify the fighters.

There have been no truly major movements of fighters into Georgia according to most indicators; still, the monitoring of the borders by the OSCE and Russian troops has been less than ideal, while the weak and corrupt Georgian forces are in no position to control either the border or the Pankisi gorge. Lieven cited one Westerner's comment that while the OSCE "is holding the door, the windows are open." The "windows" include the Dagestani-Georgian border and the Ingush-Georgian border, where OSCE troops have no mandate, and where the Russians have placed their second-rank interior ministry forces, whose performance Lieven assessed as "pretty miserable."

Last year, Russia had issued a series of demands that its troops be allowed to operate on Georgian soil against Chechen rebels and in concert with Russian forces in Chechnya -- demands that have been firmly and rightly rejected by Georgia. Lieven himself characterized Russia's demands as "ludicrous" -- having failed to control the situation from its own territory, the idea that Russia has the right to spread the war to other countries, is "to put it mildly, ironic."

Lieven believes that such demands will not recur in the short-to-medium if Putin is sincere about his declared plan to scale down the Russian military presence in Chechnya and rely more on the FSB and Ahmed Kadyrov's administration. However, requests that Georgia take more actions of their own against Chechens in the Pankisi will continue, and may even escalate. In the longer term, however, if the Chechen fighters impose humiliating defeats on the reduced Russian forces, the Russian temptation to look for a scapegoat in Georgia may become very strong for Moscow.

In the past, increasing Russian pressure has taken the form of intermittent gas cut-offs, and the imposition of a visa regime for Georgians traveling to and working in Russia. The latter tactic clearly violates Georgian sovereignty, as it makes an exception for the populations of secessionist Abkhazia and Southern Ossetia. Lieven stated however that he was not surprised by this development, as the Russians were bound to use this lever sooner or later. After all, estimates of Georgian workers in Russia range up to 850,000, and estimates of annual remittance payments from Russia to Georgia range as high as $1.5 billion dollars. Lieven pointed out that by contrast only a tiny handful of Georgians had been allowed to come to work legally in the United States or the European Union - which as far as many Georgians are concerned, casts a somewhat ironic light on Western professions of friendship.

Lieven drew two conclusions from the circumstances surrounding Russia's pressure on Georgia. First, the phenomenon emphasizes the extent to which most of the former Soviet Union still constitutes one economic region, whose parts are more closely linked with each other than with the outside world.
Second, it confirms the disproportionate weight of Russia within that region, and the degree to which the Russian economy is the engine, which drives or stalls all the others (there are also millions of Armenians, Ukrainians and others working in Russia).

Lieven admitted that he should have been more careful about the title of his discussion; Georgia after all, is not a failed state in the same sense as Sierra Leone or Somalia. For this, Shevardnadze is owed a debt of gratitude. Many Georgians firmly believe that without him, Georgia would have ceased to exist altogether in the mid-1990s. During the period from 1994 to 1996, the Shevardnadze administration succeeded in restoring the basic attributes of a state across most of Georgia. Unfortunately, this could only be done on the basis of the corrupt and retrograde former Soviet elites and structures. This has helped make it impossible for Georgia to date to move to the next stage of development -- that is, a true transformation of Georgian society and economy. This also means that Georgia does not at present possess the capacity to reintegrate all those areas that remain outside the central government's control.

In view of all this, Lieven offered several recommendations for US policy:

· First and foremost, the US and the West should maintain the "red line" against Russian military intervention in Georgia, warning that for Russia to violate Georgian sovereignty would have the gravest consequences for US-Russian relations.

· We should continue to provide aid only to those parts of the Georgian state that look at least relatively hopeful - for instance, the border guards.

· Third, the West as a whole needs to develop an integrated strategy towards post-Soviet debts; Lieven suggested explicitly linking Moscow's behavior to Georgia and Ukraine over their gas debts to Russia to our treatment of Russia's Paris Club debt. On the one hand, this will clearly have to be rescheduled, as it is inconceivable that Russia could pay the presently scheduled $18 billion in 2003. On the other hand, Russia has no right to demand generosity from the West while acting toughly towards its own debtors. Such a new strategy will require close co-ordination between the State Department and US Treasury, and with America's European partners.

· Lieven suggested that the US should adopt a more sensible and realistic approach towards the withdrawal of Russian troops from Georgian bases. Russians have begun withdrawing from the most critical base of Vaziani, near Tbilisi, which presents the greatest danger of destabilization for Georgia. The US should go on pressing for the complete evacuation of Vaziani by the agreed deadline of July 1st. Overall, the Russian forces in Georgia have been greatly reduced and now appear to meet CFE limits.

However, in the cases of the bases at Batumi and in the Armenian-populated region of Akhalkalaki (which Lieven visited in December), a continued Russian presence is the sensible and indeed the almost inevitable prospect. The Akhalkalaki base is the single major employer in the area, and around a third of the "Russian" soldiers are in fact local Armenians. If the Russian army withdraws these are apt to remain as heavily armed local ethnic paramilitaries, thereby posing an even greater threat to Georgia, and one which cannot be so easily controlled by pressure on Moscow. The local population is solidly in favor of the base staying, both for these reasons and because of ancestral fear of neighboring Turkey. Trust in the Georgian state's ability either to compensate or protect them is minimal. Lieven therefore advocated the USA encouraging Georgia to strike a deal with Russia similar to the one Ukraine achieved over Sevastopol, which did something to reduce Ukraine's debts to Moscow and to date has not led to any adverse consequences.

· The USA should recognize that the question of building a Baku-Ceyhan pipeline will be decided by the oil companies themselves on economic grounds (at least assuming a continued refusal of the US to pay for it), and that this decision will not be made for several years. Instead of banging its head against a financial brick wall and compromising its reputation for commitment to the free market, the USA should instead look into supporting other, less expensive and controversial infrastructure projects in Georgia.

· Finally, the West also needs to recognize the depressing realities of the Abkhazi peace process. At present, Georgia has neither the coercive pressure nor the bargaining power to move the process forward. Nor is any outside country (the USA included) prepared to make the military commitment necessary to stabilize any postwar settlement. This issue should therefore be left on the back burner in the hope that it may be healed by time.

Lieven concluded by saying that Georgia and the Transcaucasus are only one small piece of the US-Russian relations jigsaw puzzle, and to claim otherwise involves deceit or self-deceit. But what the USA can do is to make it clear to Russia that military intervention in Georgia would raise the importance of Georgia for Americans to a level where it would have very damaging effects on Russia in other areas.

With regards to Georgia's prospects for a real long-term transformation, Lieven asserted that there is still room for long-term optimism, provided that a new elite can emerge with a new, open and modern ideology. There are numerous historical examples
of such fundamental transformations abound, Lieven pointed out; but unfortunately, there are very few examples of them happening quickly.

Summary by Elina Treyger, Junior Fellow with the Russian and Eurasian Program.