RUSSIA'S GEORGIA POLICY: "THE CAUCASUS BENEATH ME"

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 MOSCOW 007385 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/12/2016 TAGS: PREL MARR MOPS GG RS SUBJECT: RUSSIA'S GEORGIA POLICY: "THE CAUCASUS BENEATH ME" REF: A. MOSCOW 7340 AND PREVIOUS B. TBILISI 1647 AND PREVIOUS C. OSC CEP20060702950094 Classified By: Ambassador William J. Burns. Reason 1.4 (b, d) Summary -------------- ¶1. (C) Russia's policies towards Georgia are the product of three factors: anger unleashed by perceptions of betrayal and disrespect, fear of encirclement by a West intent on dismembering Russia's conception of the "Post-Soviet space," and solidarity with the separatist Abkhaz and South Ossetians, especially among their ethnic kin in the North Caucasus and among the Russian military. Those three factors do not produce a coherent policy which might, for example, promote the growth of Russian economic preponderance within a Georgia that, like Azerbaijan or Armenia, balances between Russia and the West. Instead, childish exchanges of rhetoric are punctuated by hostile acts, whether centrally ordered (such as the bans on Georgian wine and mineral water) or not. ¶2. (C) Russian policymakers see separatist conflicts as their strongest lever in dealing with Saakashvili's government, which they universally view as belligerent, amateurish, and out of touch with the Georgian people. But, paradoxically, that leverage cannot be used, because Russia's over-riding goal is to preserve the status quo in the conflicts. Russia has little incentive to seek to resolve the conflicts, even in exchange for Georgian agreement to drop its NATO aspirations. Nor will it annex the territories. Some in Russia may be tempted to use the conflict lever to oust Saakashvili, but most Moscow policymakers fear the consequences. Most Russian officials seem to believe that Georgia will re-start hostilities in South Ossetia this summer, and the Russian military is taking steps to counter that perceived threat to the status quo. Georgian Government and Parliament action on the PKOs in South Ossetia and Abkhazia are likely to keep the cycle of rhetoric and tension rising over the next few months. End Summary. Paradise Lost -------------- "Some years ago, There, where the currents Of the Aragvi and the Kura flow together, Embracing like two sisters..." Lermontov, "Mtsyri" ¶3. (C) No issue engages Russian emotions (as opposed to state interest) as much as Georgia. While Russians look at two centuries of Georgians from Bagration to Stalin as integral to Russia's history, to Georgians those two centuries represent just the latest episode in over two millennia of transient alien occupations to be survived with charm and cunning. The "spoiled child of the Russian Empire," as one Georgian put it, Georgia was enshrined in the Russian soul as a playground where the northerner could relax at song-filled feasts, enjoying the companionship of the friendly natives, drinking endless toasts to each other in Georgia's prized wine, beaker after hedonistic beaker full of the warm South. As the Georgian Ambassador here put it, the Georgians always told the Russians how much they loved them, "and they actually believed us." What a betrayal, then, when the Georgians pushed the Russians away and started feasting with none other than the Americans! As one Russian general said grumpily when the first American trainers arrived to implement the Georgia Train and Equip Program, "The Americans think they will teach the Georgians to fight. In reality, the Georgians will teach the Americans to sing." ¶4. (C) That was under Shevardnadze, for whom the Russians had nothing but loathing -- "liar" and "swindler" were among their more polite labels for him. All that is forgotten, and Russians now remember him as a "statesman" and a "real politician" -- in comparison with his successor, Mikheil Saakashvili. This change has more to do with Saakashvili's personality than his policies. If anything, he is more straightforward and honest with the Russians than Shevardnadze was. But it is clear that Putin thinks of Saakashvili as a disrespectful punk (though an entertaining conversationalist),and words of conventional wisdom here describe Saakashvili as "unpredictable," "irrational," "emotional," and "incapable of thinking ahead." The Russian political class is convinced that Saakashvili is out of touch with the Georgian people, to whom, they claim, he has failed to deliver good government and economic improvement. Empire Lost -------------- MOSCOW 00007385 002 OF 004 ¶5. (C) Though Saakashvili's foreign and security goals are not so different from Shevardnadze's, the times have changed and Georgia has come much farther towards reaching those goals, including NATO membership. At the same time, Russia has seen its position within the region deteriorate. A wave of hysteria has swept Russia that the U.S. fomented both the Orange and Rose revolutions to encircle Russia with hostile regimes and NATO bases, and Russian pundits warn that the U.S. (and George Soros) now have Russia in their sights. Although Ukraine's NATO prospects engage Russia's state interests more, Saakashvili and his vocal sidekick DefMin Okruashvili are the incarnate bogeymen of the Color Scare. Beyond the popular hyperventilation, there is consensus among Russia's political class that the country's security is threatened by "Orange technologies" emanating from Washington, and that Russia must defend itself along the border of the former Soviet Union -- the architecture of the "Post-Soviet Space" must stay intact to keep Russia whole and free of foreign domination. Brethren Regained -------------- ¶6. (C) The restive North Caucasus is a haven of support for anti-Georgian separatists in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. That affects Russian policy as a whole, especially as the North Caucasus is a center of Russian policy incoherence. North Ossetia, the linchpin of Russia's hopes for stability in the North Caucasus, is not anxious to integrate the heavily armed Southerners, whose economy has been dominated by criminality for the last 15 years. But North Ossetia will oppose any Georgian attempt to reintegrate South Ossetia -- and the North's importance to stability will make Russia listen. The Adyg peoples -- Kabardians, Cherkess and Adyge -- are ethnic cousins to the Abkhaz and fought against Georgia in the Abkhaz separatist struggle (the Abkhaz defense minister is a Kabardian). They, too, will oppose Russian concessions to Georgia, and the growing Islamist insurgencies in those republics will tend to dissuade Russia from making such concessions, which would predictably weaken the pro-Moscow leaderships. The Russian military, too, supports the separatists, in part because Abkhazia was always a vacation spot for the generals, and the shrinking Russian military presence abroad has left fewer such opportunities for deployment in lucrative postings. Lurching Towards Policy -------------- ¶7. (C) The nostalgic hostility, fear of NATO encirclement, and North Caucasus concerns do not allow Russia a consistent set of goals in dealing with Georgia. Russia's one true security goal -- neutralizing a perceived western containment -- should lead Russia to treat Georgia as it does Armenia and Azerbaijan, allowing it to balance its western and Russian relations while ensuring it does no real damage to Russian interests; all the while increasing Russia's investment and share of trade. But Russia has never pursued this goal single-mindedly, instead embroiling itself in separatist conflicts that appease the North Caucasians, the military, and the lunatic fringe of neo-Imperialists in Moscow. ¶8. (C) This has given the separatists and the emotion-driven an inordinate say in Russia's policy towards Georgia. Russia has allowed itself to be drawn into childish shouting matches with Georgian politicians that often end in Russia having to show who's got more testosterone by taking some counter-productive action. A case in point is the ban on Georgian wine and mineral water. Russian fringe politicians and Georgian officials call each other names; the Georgians include the Russian government and Putin in their name calling; and Russia imposes a ban on Georgian wine. This engenders a new cycle of name-calling; Georgian DefMin Okruashvili says Russians can't tell the difference between wine and "fecal matter," and Russia bans Georgian mineral water. The net result is that Russia alienates the very Georgians who most want good relations with Russia -- exporters of products such as wine and mineral water. Wine alone made up just under 49 percent of Georgian exports to Russia in 2005. ¶9. (C) Another case in point is the set of explosions in southern Russia on January 22 that cut off deliveries of Russian gas and electricity to Georgia. All we know of the perpetrators is that they were targeting Georgia and that they had the reach to conduct simultaneous operations in two widely-separated points in the North Caucasus. Whether lunatic fringe or separatist, the perpetrators were enabled by Russia's atmosphere of hostility to Georgia, support for the separatists, and policy incoherence and instability in the North Caucasus. The net result of the explosions was MOSCOW 00007385 003 OF 004 that Saakashvili had a concrete example to show the Georgian people that their sufferings did not originate with government shortcomings in Georgia, but in subversive action taken in (and, in his view, originating with) Russia. ¶10. (C) Much publicity has been given to the possibility that Russia could cut off remittances home from Georgians working in Russia. Russians tend to view these remittances as a form of Russian "aid" to Georgia, rather than as part of the profit made by productive contributors to the Russian economy. Cutting off remittances would probably be counterproductive. Nonetheless, future rounds of nasty rhetoric could lead Russia to cast around for some action to show its displeasure, and the chattering classes have seized on this as a way of showing Russia's might. Supporting the Separatist Status Quo -------------- ¶11. (C) The status quo in the separatist conflicts over Abkhazia and South Ossetia is optimal, in the Russian view. Russia controls the two territories, the military is kept happy, and Georgia's emotions over the regions make them valuable cards for Russia in dealing with Georgia. Russian officials have told us that they view the unresolved conflicts as deterrents against NATO acceptance of Georgian membership. Since the regions border Russia, NATO would "have to think twice," an MFA official told us, before accepting a member which might lead NATO into a conflict with Russia. Any change would be worse for the Russians, who would either lose control (if Georgia reimposed sovereignty) or take on international responsibility and probable opprobrium (if it annexed the territories, as Georgia accuses Russia of wanting to do, and as some in Russia recommend; or if it recognized their independence). Fighting would threaten the status quo and subject Russia to heavy pressure from the North Caucasus to annex the regions, something Moscow (as opposed to Nalchik or Mozdok) would prefer to avoid. ¶12. (C) Russian peacekeepers are in place in both separatist regions. The belief here is that those peacekeepers are all that stand in the way of war and genocide, and that the peacekeepers have died to protect the peace. We would also note that for nearly fifteen years Russian officers have found their deployments to the Abkhazia and South Ossetia PKFs to be lucrative, and the Russian military is deeply committed to remaining in place -- and deeply irritated by Georgian suggestions that the Russians be replaced by more neutrally oriented international peacekeepers. As long as the conflicts remain frozen in the status quo, the Russian military has a justification for remaining in place; occasional crises help bolster that justification. The Russian PKO support for South Ossetia's reaction to Georgia's July 9 closure of its de facto border with South Ossetia -- in retaliation for the July 8 Russian closure of its border with Georgia -- showed a willingness to inflame a crisis. ¶13. (C) The need to preserve the status quo means Russia will not, in our view, engage in a good faith effort to resolve the separatist conflicts. It also means that Russia would probably not hand the regions back to Georgia, even in exchange for Georgia giving up its NATO aspirations. Though Lavrov (but not Putin) has dangled that deal before Saakashvili, no Russian could trust Georgia not to revive its NATO aspirations at a later date, nor could Putin deliver Abkhazia and South Ossetia to Georgia without risking a major explosion in the North Caucasus. ¶14. (C) Some in Russia will be tempted to welcome a Georgian resort to fighting in South Ossetia -- or even to engineer it themselves -- as a means of ousting Saakashvili. They would reason that fighting would spread to Abkhazia under the pact reached by Kokoity and Bagapsh in Sukhumi June 14. Abkhaz and Ossetians could displace tens of thousands of Georgians in South Ossetia and Abkhazia (a reprise of May 1998 in Abkhazia). This demonstration of Saakashvili's inability to defend the people might lead to a popular uprising against him. However, the Russians have no candidate to take Saakashvili's place, and they would be forced to annex or otherwise take responsibility for Abkhazia and South Ossetia. On balance, Moscow would probably reject such an operation. As Russia's special negotiator for South Ossetia Yuriy Popov told us June 30, "Saakashvili gets under our skin ... but we like him right where we've got him." However, the January 22 explosions are a worrying precedent. Some -- possibly separatists in South Ossetia or Abkhazia -- have shown that they are willing to start action whose consequences the GOR has to live with. In June, Georgian authorities foiled a plot to assassinate an opposition political leader. Georgians charge that the alleged perpetrator, an Ossetian from Georgia resident in North Ossetia, was tasked by unnamed MOSCOW 00007385 004 OF 004 special services with carrying out the assassination to destabilize Georgia by making it appear as though the Saakashvili administration were behind it. ¶15. (C) The high level of tension -- and of mutual suspicion -- could also lead to an "August 1914" scenario of sides slipping into conflict despite themselves. Popov told us June 30 that Russian intelligence was reporting that Saakashvili had ordered his forces to engage in "small provocative attacks" against the Russian PKF in South Ossetia (he added that the same analysts believed the U.S. was encouraging the Georgians to take such action). Popov pointed to Georgian deployments to mixed villages in South Ossetia (he had just come back from a meeting in Tskhinvali between the Georgian and South Ossetian Interior Ministers to resolve the issue),other reinforcements in the region, and military exercises. The Russian military, he said, was prepared to counter the perceived threat, deploying itself "to be ready to counter any contingency." We pointed out to Popov that the Georgian military was likely to perceive the new Russian deployments as a threat, and would also deploy itself to counter "any contingency," leading to a cycle of increased military confrontation. Dialogue and Its Background -------------- ¶16. (C) The June 13 conversation between Putin and Saakashvili did not produce concrete results, but the fact of dialogue was a damper to tensions. The Tskhinvali meeting between MinInt Merabishvili and "MinInt" Mindzayev did produce some results, including a commitment for the two men to meet monthly. Saakashvili is due in Moscow July 21 for an informal CIS summit. On June 13, he and Putin discussed holding a bilateral meeting on the margins. ¶17. (C) The meetings may have new fires to put out, however. The Georgian parliament is expected imminently to take action on the Government's February 15 report about the Russian PKF in South Ossetia. DefMin Okruashvili recently urged Parliament to demand the withdrawal of the PKF (Ref. C). (DFM Karasin drily noted to U/S Burns and EUR/AS Fried on June 28 that the PKF was not in South Ossetia at the invitation of the Georgian Parliament or Government, and would not leave at their unilateral behest). On July 15 the GoG is due to report to the Georgian Parliament on the CIS (read Russian) PKF in Abkhazia, starting the cycle of tension there. It was in expectation of those actions that the "Presidents" of South Ossetia and Abkhazia met June 6 in Vladikavkaz and again June 14 in Sukhumi (with Transnistria leader Smirnov) to announce a mutual security pact to counter Georgian "aggression" against the peacekeepers. ¶18. (C) With these events forcing tensions higher, dialogue becomes even more of a necessity -- just to keep the situation from going further downhill; real improvement is a long way off. Emotion towards Georgia and pressures over the separatist conflicts have disbalanced Russia's policy (itself none too clear). On the conflicts, the center is caught -- between the demands of Georgia and the West to work towards resolution, and the demands of the separatists and military to pursue annexationist policies. The center wants neither of these options, and would prefer to steer a course between the two. However, Russia's emotions towards Georgia make even that option murky, and without dialogue to dampen emotions the cycle of childish rhetoric and pointless hostile actions will continue. The U.S. can best contribute by promoting that dialogue and letting the Georgians and Russians talk face to face. BURNS