One of the first steps the new Georgian government of Bidzina Ivanishvili made last October was to announce that Georgia would definitely be attending next year’s Winter Olympic Games in Sochi. It was part of the new strategy to normalize relations with Russia on every issue except Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
The question that hangs over the games like a black cloud is that of security. Had Georgia boycotted the games it would have been all too easy in the event of some terrorist incident for the Russian authorities to find a “Georgian trace” in it. We would go back to the same dynamic of accusation and counter-accusation as the one over the Pankisi Gorge that spoiled relations between the two countries during the Second Chechen War beginning in 1999.
As it is, Georgia is now as invested in the success of the Winter Olympics as any other participating nation. But a deeper question remains: Can the two states work together to thwart any security threat?
Here I am skeptical. The Russian North Caucasus shares a very long international border with Georgia, yet there is very little history of cooperation across it in the last 20 years. From the first Chechen war to the furor over the Pankisi Gorge to last summer’s mysterious shoot-out in eastern Georgia near the border with Dagestan, it has been obvious that various militants have regarded the mountains as a porous border to be crossed at will. The Russian side made things worse in 2004 when they voted against their own interests to disband the border monitoring mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on the Georgian side of the mountains.
In April, at a NATO parliamentary assembly conference in Tbilisi both the Georgian envoy in talks with Russia, Zurab Abashidze, and the Russian commentator (of Georgian ancestry) Georgy Kunadze shared a panel. I asked Abashidze whether the topic of the North Caucasus had come up in his discussions with his Russian counterparts, and Kunadze for his comments on the issue. Abashidze said the topic had not come up—although he hinted that he hoped it would. Kunadze said that he thought the issue was not a relevant one for discussion with the Georgians.
Maybe there are secret conversations going on, but I doubt it. The best evidence suggests that Georgia and Russia are each planning for a quiet trouble-free Winter Olympics—but independently of one another.