IT DOES NOT TAKE A PROPHET: WAR AND PEACE IN THE CAUCASUS
Abstract
Was the August 2008 war between Russia and Georgia, which resulted into a dismemberment of Georgia, predictable and avoidable? Supporters and ideological allies of the current Georgian government have insisted that those who criticize the alertness and behavior of the Saakashvili administration are looking at this issue with the full benefits of hindsight. To be fair, political scientists are much better at predicting the past than the future, and if we follow this logic, the future conflicts between the two neighbors in the Caucasus should be as “unpredictable” and “unexpected’ as this one.
The international system behaves very much like a stochastic system, but it does exhibit certain regularities and carries certain continuity when it comes to behavior of its actors. Despite weaknesses and problems unleashed by the era of globalization, nation-states remain the main actors of the international system. Survival continues to be the main value for these actors, and the system guides the nation-states or those who act on their behalf to do their utmost to preserve this value for themselves and stay as actors in the system. States compete, jostle, combine, and sometimes even collide in order to accumulate enough power and capabilities to provide for their survival. States collide and fight not because they have different values in the international system, but as carriers of the same set of values they come to different understandings and perspectives of how to defend these values based on their individual geopolitical circumstances. Therefore, states may develop different, and often competing interests around the same issue, which occasionally throws them into violent conflicts
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OSCE German diplomat Dieter Boden proclaimed
the presidential election process to be fair and democratic
based long before the official results were released, and the
opposition parties had their chance to complain about irregularities. With less than 3% of votes counted, Saakashvili was declared winner by the organizers of “independent” exit-polls, who subsequently received senior government positions (for more on this, see: L. Tchantouridze,
“On the Results of the Special Presidential Elections in
Georgia,” Central Asia and the Caucasus, No. 1 (49),
.
On 27 June, 2008, the Russian daily Kommersant
reported on the Georgian proposal to Russia regarding the
division of Abkhazia. At that time, both Russian and Georgian sides strongly denied that such a proposal was made.
However, in his televised address on 24 August, 2008, President Saakashvili acknowledged that he had written a letter
to the Russian leadership proposing exactly that.
First proposed by Kenneth Waltz in Man, the State, and War, Columbia University Press, New York, 1954.
See: K. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1979.
States seek military and economic power, as well as intellectual know-how, legitimacy, prestige, etc. in order to
better position themselves in the international system, and ultimately, create better chances for their own survival.
Data is available at “Georgia Donors’ Conference—22 October 2008,” European Commission: External Relations,
available at [http://ec.europa.eu/external_relations/georgia/conference/index_en.htm].
During and after the August war, Prime Minister Putin, President Medvedev, and General Nogovitsyn accused the
U.S. of instigating the war, supplying the Georgian armed forces with instructors, of having American mercenaries fighting against the Russian troops, re-arming the Georgian forces, and being a direct participant of conflict by airlifting the
Georgian troops from Iraq back to Georgia.
Ryan Grist, a former British captain, who was in charge on the ground when the fighting erupted between Russia
and Georgia, initially squarely blamed Georgia, and his version of events was subsequently picked up by many Western
government officials and representatives of the mass media. Eventually it was discovered that during the invasion, Grist
disobeyed orders, argued with his boss, went AWOL to meet Russian and South Ossetian officials, after which he was fired
by the OSCE (see: M. Champion, “British Monitor Complicates Georgian Blame Game,” The Wall Street Journal, 19 December, 2008).
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