The Blowback Chronicles, Part 3: The Resurgence of the Russian Bear

Russia flexes its muscles in Georgia

Oct 02, 2024

In the waning years of the Soviet Union, nationalism swept across its constituent republics. Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus were some of the most prominent nations to break away from the Soviet Union and chart their own course as independent nations. However, the waning years of the Soviet Union were marked by a surge in ethnonationalism not just among major ethnic groups that were integral parts of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union but also among small ethnic groups residing in these republics.

Georgia was most affected by this dynamic as it had to deal with ethnic non-Georgian minorities who were clamoring for some degree of independence. The historical cases of the Abkhazians and South Ossetians must be taken into consideration to grasp the seemingly perpetual nature of ethnic conflict that gripped Georgia. The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 briefly allowed many nationalities within the Russian Empire to assert their autonomy. That soon came to a crashing halt with the Soviet Union’s Red Army gaining quick control of large portions of territory previously held by Imperial Russia.

After the Red Army invasion of Georgia in 1921, the Socialist Soviet Republic of Abkhazia (SSR Abkhazia) was formed soon afterwards. It would subsequently be united with the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic (Georgia SSR), although it would enjoy a significant amount of autonomy and nominal independence from Georgia. SSR Abkhazia would later be dissolved in 1931 and replaced with the Abkhaz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic under the purview of Georgian SSR.

In South Ossetia’s case it was rewarded autonomous oblast status after the Red Army conquered Georgia. Once it became clear the Soviet Union was on its way out in the late 1980s, the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast declared independence from the Georgian SSR in September 1990.

Post-Soviet Chaos

In April 1991, Georgia broke away from the Soviet Union under the leadership of then-President Zviad Gamsakhurdia, Georgia’s first democratically elected president. As a staunch nationalist, Gamsakhurdia wanted to ensure that territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia did not fall out of Tbilisi’s control. The immediate period following the dissolution of the Soviet Union was marked by high degrees of political instability. Amidst this tumult, Gamsakhurdia himself would be deposed in a coup in early 1992. A civil war soon kicked off as a result of Gamsakhurdia’s overthrow.

Concurrently, on the country's periphery, Abkhazia and Ossetian insurgents attempted to expel the Georgian National Guard. A thousand people were killed in the South Ossetian conflict and tens of thousands ended up being displaced. In a similar vein, intense violence spread throughout the Georgian region of Abkhazia, where Abkhazian leaders moved to secede from Georgia. During the War in Abkhazia (1992-1993), the Abkhazians were assisted by North Caucasian militaries and several elements of the Russian army.

Eduard Shevardnadze, the First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party (GPC), became Speaker of the Georgian Parliament in 1992 during this tumultuous period of Georgian history. As the parliament speaker, Shevardnadze did everything possible to defuse the conflicts in the separatist regions of Georgia.

A ceasefire was finally brokered between the Georgians and South Ossetians with Russian mediation by 1992. The Sochi Agreement of June 1992 set up a joint peacekeeping force made up of Russian, Georgian, and Ossetian troops. Georgia’s conflict with Abkhazia concluded in 1993 when Abkhazian forces captured the capital of Sukhumi and pushed back Georgian forces. A ceasefire agreement was hammered out in 1994, and a joint peacekeeping mission made up of United Nations and Russian peacekeepers was deployed shortly thereafter.

Like the South Ossetian case, Abkhazia achieved de facto independence after the Georgian Civil War, though it did not receive international recognition. The war resulted in the ethnic cleansing of tens of thousands of ethnic Georgians from Abkhazia, leaving the region largely under the control of the Abkhazians.

After the wars of the 90s, both breakaway regions have had to rely on Russian military and financial aid to maintain their autonomy, thereby becoming de facto protectorates of Russia. Naturally, this became fertile ground for a future conflict between Georgia and Russia.

Georgia’s Delicate Balancing Act With The West & Russia

For his leadership during the Georgian Civil War and concurrent conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Shevardnadze would be voted in as the second president of Georgia in 1995 once the office of presidency was restored. The presidential administration of Shevardnadze was focused on stabilizing Georgia’s domestic political situation while walking the delicate tightrope of balancing relations between its nuclear-armed neighbor in Russia and the West.

While Shevardnadze was no puppet of Russia, Western elites believed that Shevardnadze’s foreign policy was too accommodating of Russia. In time, Western leaders began devising schemes to remove Shevardnadze from power.

The West got their wish in 2003, when the Rose Revolution — a series of widespread protests over the controversial nature of that year’s parliamentary elections — led to the resignation of then-president Eduard Shevardnadze.

This was among the most successful of the so-called color revolutions, wherein the U.S., its allies in NATO and the European Union along with a consortium of pro-Western non-governmental organizations (NGOs) manipulated civil resistance movements and mass protests to topple the existing regimes of countries that the West wants to use as battering rams against geopolitical rivals such as Russia in this case.

In the Georgian case, the West was able to get a Member of Parliament and former Minister of Justice Mikheil Saakashvili to assume the presidency. Saakashvili was elected on a platform to fight corruption and modernize the Georgian economy. Another of Saakashvili’s political aspirations was to integrate Georgia into the European community by trying to join the European Union and NATO.

Nothing happens in a vacuum in the realm of geopolitics though. When ex-KGB officer Vladimir Putin assumed the presidency of Russia in 1999, he sought to use Georgia’s disputed territories to gain leverage over it and make it comply with Russia’s geopolitical whims. The West, who was already trying to find ways to cause trouble in Russia’s historical sphere of influence, saw Georgia as a potential vehicle for destabilization.

Eventually it became clear to Russian authorities that Georgia was quickly drifting out of its orbit. Historically speaking, Georgia has been under Russia’s direct control or at least within its sphere of influence. Russian strategists wanted to keep Georgia at least neutral geopolitically. However, a pro-Western Georgia that became host to NATO military assets would be an intolerable prospect for Moscow.

The combination of Saakashvili’s enthusiasm towards aligning Georgia with the Western bloc and an ascendant Russia’s aspirations to re-assert its dominion over its historical sphere of influence put the two countries on an inevitable collision course.

Russia and Georgia On the Inevitable Path to Conflict

A major challenge during Saakashvili’s time in office was restoring Georgian territorial integrity and sorting out the territorial disputes Georgia had with the Abkhazians and South Ossetians. All nations with aspirations of joining NATO had to first settle their ethnic and external territorial disputes. Territorial integrity has been a fixture of the post-World War II order, and nobody thought that it would ever be disturbed.

This all changed when Kosovo unilaterally declared its independence from Serbia in 2008. This move was largely recognized by many Western and Western-friendly nations. For the Abkhazians and South Ossetians, this confirmed their belief that secession without the parent state’s permission was feasible.

The Russians were infuriated by Kosovo’s independence from Serbia, owing to its historical ties with the Orthodox Balkan nation. Still Russian authorities saw opportunities with this unilateral declaration of independence, as they now viewed Abkhazia and South Ossetia as strong geopolitical chess pieces that could be separated from Georgia. It also didn’t help that in NATO’s 2008 Bucharest Summit membership invitations were extended to Georgia and Ukraine. Even though there was no official move to immediately incorporate the two countries into NATO, Russia viewed such a prospect as a major threat to Russian national security interests.

The previous year during the 2007 Munich Security Conference Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized US interventions in Iraq and the Balkans. In the same speech, Putin was especially critical of NATO expansion, declaring “it [NATO expansion] represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust.”

Coming to Blows

The summer of 2008 appeared to be the breaking point for the two countries. Hundreds of unarmed Russian soldiers would be deployed to Abkhazia in May of 2008 to ostensibly repair railroads. Saakashvili was perturbed by Russia’s posturing in addition to the ongoing territorial disputes Georgia had with Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Saakashvili’s leadership was thoroughly Intoxicated with the desire to join NATO. Saakashvili was on a mission to settle the country’s territorial disputes with the Abkhazians and South Ossetians once and for all. Soon, Georgian military forces started to amass around South Ossetia to which Russia responded in kind by deploying more military assets close to the area. Violent incidents did not cease in South Ossetia, prompting the Georgian forces to take the initiative on August 7, 2008 by shelling the de facto South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali.

From the outset, the Georgians assumed that the Russians were not going to intervene in South Ossetia or at least intervene in a resounding manner. Moreover, they operated under the assumption that the West would bail out the Georgians in the case of a Russian military intervention.

The Georgian government’s escalation eventually prompted Russia to intervene on behalf of its South Ossetian protectorate. In this instance, Russia was under the leadership of then-President Dmitry Medvedev, who was initially perceived as a more liberal, pro-Western leader in contrast to the hardened realist in Putin. However, Medvedev’s decision to intervene demonstrated geopolitical continuity within Russia’s national security elites.

There was a consensus that the situation in Georgia had to be dealt with it. Despite some initially hiccups in Russia’s military operation in Georgia, the Russians were able to push Georgian forces out of South Ossetia and move into Georgia proper and launch attacks against the city of Gori.

Following five days of combat, the French brokered a ceasefire between Georgia and Russia. Both sides were culpable of escalating tensions in the lead-up to this conflict — as is the nature of conflicts dealing with territorial disputes. However, the European Union commissioned an independent report on the Russo-Georgian war later that year to determine who started the crisis.

The following year, the EU released the report and blamed Georgia for instigating the clash when it shelled Tskhinvali. The same EU report blamed Russia for its illegal occupation of several parts of Georgia. Both parties to the war rejected the EU’s accusations. As a result of the conflict, Georgia lost the territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, of which Russia has recognized as independent states.

The neoconservative and neoliberal elites of the West condemned Russia’s military incursion into Georgia, however, the rest of the international community was not particularly interested in condemning Russia’s military actions.

The Geopolitical Equation Has Changed

The 1990s were marked by talks about the US’s unipolar status and an end of great power competition on the world stage. Such lofty assumptions came to a grinding halt after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the US’s military quagmires in Afghanistan and Iraq. They were further put to rest by Russia’s intervention in Georgia. When a perceived “pro-Western” leader such as Medvedev did the unthinkable in Georgia, it began to slowly dawn on Western officials that Western encroachments in Russia’s domain would be met with pushback.

The 2008 Russo-Georgian war marked a turning point in modern international relations. History, contrary to what some political scientists argued, had not ended. Russia’s decision to intervene in Georgia was a sneak preview of the resurgence of great power competition with the West in the forthcoming decade. It also served as a model for Russia’s new strategy of backing separatist political bodies in countries of strategic interest to it, usually located in its historical sphere of influence.

Russia did not rush to annex these two breakaway regions. It has been playing a long game where it’s likely preparing to use Abkhazia and South Ossetia as bargaining chips in future negotiations with the West concerning the lifting of sanctions and other issues of strategic importance to the Russian state.

Even when Russia demonstrated its willingness to buck the so-called rule-based international order, the NATO network still maintained a large degree of arrogance on the world stage and still did not fully appreciate Russia’s commitment to pursue its national interests in a forceful manner.

It would take a crisis in Ukraine in 2014 for many Western commentators to finally realize that Russia was no longer playing games on the world stage.

NEXT: The Blowback Chronicles, Part 1: The Iranian Misadventure

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