Sergey GLEBOV: Professor Jones, as you probably know, the conflict in Georgia and especially the Russian recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia raised questions about the role of Kosovo as a precedent-setting phenomenon in many cases where there are separatist conflicts. As recently as the summer of 2008, Charles King published an article in NewsNet, the newsletter of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, in which he drew attention to Kosovo as a possible blueprint for what was going to happen in different parts of the post-Soviet world. Could you please comment on this?

Stephen F. JONES: Well, it may not be so much about whether Kosovo was a precedent or not, as it is about whether it can be used as a precedent, whether Russia considers it a precedent when we are looking at the Caucasus. There may be, arguably, parallels between Kosovo’s recognition and separation from Serbia and that of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia. I don’t think they are real parallels. There are many, many differences between the two cases. For example, one of the main things that happened in Kosovo was the establishment of an international regime to deal with reestablishing some sort of order and statehood, and it was an international regime, and, of course, we haven’t seen something like that in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, where it was simply the matter of occupation by Russian forces. So, there are many differences between the two cases, between that of Kosovo and of Georgia. On the other hand, as I said, it’s about perceptions, and the Kosovo precedent clearly feeds into the current Russian psychology that the West is just using double standards, and that it’s about time that Russia stood up in defense of its own interests. So in that sense the Kosovo precedent is important as it feeds into this defensive psychology in Russia that we have seen in the past several years.

SG: Recently, Nikolai Zlobin suggested that by recognizing South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Russia did a favor for the West. The argument goes as follows: In the two decades following the fall of the Soviet Union, as a weak state forced to rely on the old system of international order and institutions, Russia was very defensive of these institutions. She criticized unilateralism, and clung to the Cold War international order, pursuing a kind of legitimist policy. Many in the West, though, wanted to change that old international system to adapt it to the new, post-Cold War realities. By recognizing South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the Russians de facto agreed with the breakdown of the old system of arrangements. Can you comment on this?

SFJ: I haven’t read the article, so I am not sure what the details of this argumentation are, but let’s see… Has Russia done a favor for the West by clarifying the lines, so to speak, by clarifying the rules of the game? Some people have been speculating that this might represent the start of a new Cold War, so I think the Georgian crisis has tremendously complicated Russia’s relations with the West, rather than clarifying the lines. Maybe what Zlobin is getting at is that what emerged after the Georgian crisis will require some reconsideration of the traditional understanding of the relations between Russia and the United States, and more broadly, of the traditional security structures. And certainly that might be the direction of the new U.S. administration, so it will be interesting to see how they deal with this problem. To some degree, the situation has been changed by the Russian actions, although the Russians would say that what they did was precipitated by the Western actions in Kosovo. Russia’s offer, and in particular Medvedev’s initiative to rethink the security arrangements and his idea of some kind of new security arrangements would sideline NATO and other traditional organizations, and perhaps will have an impact on institutions such as the Security Council. In some sense, Russian actions have opened up these possibilities, because Western governments surely now have to reassess their relations with Russia, the traditional view of containment or engagement – that is something that now has to be reinterpreted. I don’t think necessarily that this is a satisfactory path – some new structures to replace the old – but some new ideas about Western–Russian relations have to be developed.

SG: This raises a very interesting question – many post-Soviet countries find themselves caught not just between Russia and the US, but also between some other regional players. Do you think it is rational for the Georgian government to throw themselves so wholeheartedly toward the US? It has already generated Russian resentment and attack, it might also generate some discomfort of the Iranians. I can imagine there is a level at which it can complicate relations with Turkey. The more Georgia becomes a U.S. ally in the region, the more complicated their relations with their immediate neighbors might become.

SFJ: There are a couple of answers to it. With Georgia taking a more pro-Western line, it might complicate relations with other powers like Iran. On the other hand, reading reactions from Iran, China, and countries like that, this is not a significant factor in their policies in the Caucasus. They are much more regionally oriented on the Caucasus. Iran, for example, wants to play a mediating role, and through that mediation, may be, regain some influence. I don’t think the fact that Georgia is a pro-Western country constitutes a significant factor in how they should deal with the Caucasus. The second point is that Georgia’s commitment to the West clearly antagonized the relationship with Russia. But the problem is that first, it raised expectations in Georgia itself that the West would come to the rescue. Of course, this was always Georgia’s psychology – Georgia belongs to Europe and Europe will save Georgia. So the orientation raises expectations at home, as we have seen now – I think as a result of the August events – not only is that going to be a disappointment in the sense of disillusionment with the West, which is, perhaps, not desirable for people like Saakashvili, but also we have this problem that if you’re going to be pro-Western, pro-US, you’ve got to be realistic about what the United States and other countries will be willing to do. And the West has to be realistic about what it’s willing to do. The problem is that either Saakashvili raises expectations or the West raises expectations about its ability to have some impact, or to come to Georgia’s defense in some way, and then doesn’t follow through. This will undermine the credibility of not just Georgia’s policies, including, say, democratic reform, but also the credibility of, say, NATO, or U.S. policy, if they make promises but don’t follow through. It’s a question of recognizing limitations. Limitations for both sides, for the West, as to what it can do, and for Saakashvili, as to not raising expectations as to what the West will do. Understanding these limitations is very important in terms of creating realistic policies, in terms of domestic reform that is supported by the West, and in terms of national security of Georgia.

SG: There is this question of complexity of the Georgian case, exactly because of this theme of democracy, and you mentioned at the panel at Smith College recently that Georgia is the most successful example among recent cases of democratization. Can you evaluate broadly the extent of Georgia’s democratization? What is the degree of its success?

SFJ: Well, it’s all relative. If you were looking at neighboring countries, in the CIS, for example, then you have some degree of success in Georgia. And I think that in some sense this success is what has been an alarm for Russia, although Ukraine, of course, has been relatively successful until recently, and now you see it descending into political games and chaos. So, I think Georgia’s democratization is a factor in the Russian attitude toward Georgia, and maybe it was an issue that played a role in their decision to do what they did in August. Obviously, it was a multifactor decision, there were many reasons why they decided to invade Georgia, but this may have been one of them. It was a country that was not only economically successful with 10 to 12 percent GDP growth, but also showed that in the CIS some countries can introduce relatively successful democratic reforms, and that the Russian model wasn’t the only one. Not that this would have much impact on places in Central Asia, or even Moldova, where there is currently no incentive to move in that direction.
In terms of democratic changes in Georgia, it all really depends on how you judge democracy and what your expectations are. No doubt that there have been improvements in Georgia since 2003 and the Rose Revolution, but there have also been great disappointments in terms of what Georgia has achieved as a democratic country. It has not, I think, convinced most Georgians that they now live in a democracy. It may have convinced the Westerners to some degree, although I think they are giving Georgia the benefit of the doubt, I don’t think that many policymakers who really know what is going on in Georgia give it a «green card.» Georgia still faces many problems. There was a recent letter by Nino Burdzhanadze, former chairwoman of the parliament, in which she essentially said that the parliament is a fictive body, that it’s a one-party regime. By quoting this letter I don’t necessarily mean to say that Georgia is an authoritarian state, but there is no real competition, there is no real contestation, so clearly there are points where democracy is not working as it should. There are problems with the independent judiciary and the press, in particular TV, which is largely under the domination of the government, so there are many areas where democracy is not working in Georgia, and there are areas where it’s working, well, ok.

SG: For example?

SFJ: Well, for example, elections. Again, I suggested to you that there was no real contestation, and the government during election time largely has control, particularly in the regions where very often the major party, the National Movement, would appropriate local government resources. But, in terms of fairness of the elections, as the OSCE would put it, this improved, I would say, over the past two or three elections, particularly the general 2008 presidential elections, when Saakashvili got 52 percent; and then the parliamentary elections in May were relatively well conducted. So in that sense you certainly can talk about some success, clearly an improvement, especially over the Shevardnadze years. But, clearly there are still very major problems. You could, in some sense, expect those problems, but more could be done that isn’t being done. Saakashvili is tempted to abuse his power as president, and that’s observable.

SG: When I listen to what you have to say about it, I think about this opposition between Russia and Georgia as «nondemocracy vs. democracy,» and it strikes me as a degree, a degree of expansion of authoritarianism rather than a degree of democratization. For instance, you have political exiles from Georgia, something that Putin essentially started his career with, increasing control over central TV channels as the main leverage of power…

SFJ: Yes, there are, there are some parallels between the two. Also in terms of control over business. There are lots of pressures in terms of government control over Georgian businesses, to provide money for the ruling party, for example, and if it turns out that the business is supportive of the opposition then they probably can expect tax inspectors to come in and investigate their records, although that’s not what they want, obviously. So these pressures are in place. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it’s, so to speak, Putinesque. I think there are parallels, but there is more open space in Georgia for discussion, for example, in the media – although I mentioned government pressure or even control over TV channels, newspapers and the radio are relatively free. The problem is how influential they are, what impact they can have – but they are free to express their opinions, there is great pluralism of opinions in the newspaper industry. So the control is not so overt in Georgia, and, let’s say, tactless, as it is under Putin. There are real – although, as I said, the opposition is very weak in Georgia – there are those electoral opportunities to gain seats in parliament, which I don’t think you could say about Russia. It’s clearly effectively manipulated.

SG: In particular, in party politics, parties are really TV phenomena in Russia.

SFJ: Correct. So there are differences that we should be aware of.

SG: It’s also very interesting to see Georgia as a test case for U.S. policy, torn as it is between the rhetoric of democratization and geopolitical interests. What would you suggest is the predominant element of U.S. interest in Georgia – is it democracy or is it the pipelines?

SFJ: Well, in the 1990s it was the pipelines. That was the central focus of Clinton’s policy in the Caucasus and this is why so much money was spent on Georgia. And even if you look at levels of foreign direct investment, it was almost entirely diverted to the construction of oil and gas pipelines. I think at some level, however, and we talked about it at the panel, there is this sense of values here, that Georgia is pro-democracy at some level, that it shares Western values of free market, and in fact is promoting radical neoliberalism, and again, I think this is one level where you see antagonism from Russia, which is founded to some extent on values. On the other hand, if you look at U.S. policy in Azerbaijan, where democracy is not an issue, or in Kazakhstan, where it is also not an issue, and where the US wants to pursue its strategic interest in those countries, in part because of energy resources that they have, so democracy is clearly not the central issue in U.S. foreign policy. But Georgia, at the same time, because it does not have energy resources although it has those pipelines that cross its territory, is the one case, it seems, where U.S. policy in the Eurasian region, a pro-democracy stance in U.S. policy, has worked. It is a poster boy for this pro-democracy crusade. Whether you agree with U.S. policy in terms of democratization – which in many cases, of course, boomerangs – or not, in the Georgian case, it seems at least tenuously, that it has worked. And the US, it seems to me, is hanging on to this experiment, which has more or less – and more or less is the operative phrase here – worked. And it’s the reason for the US’s continuous support. It has also become a pivot in Russian–U.S. relations. Now, after the Russian occupation, of course, Georgian importance has increased in terms of how the West treats Russia. Georgia has become a linchpin in many ways – not the linchpin but it has become part of that relationship – so that now whatever the US does in Georgia is clearly going to reflect on how it treats Russia in the future, or how it sees Russia’s role in the Eurasian region. So U.S. policy is obviously more complicated than simply pro-democracy in Georgia. There are multiple factors. One of them is, of course, the military issue. As we know, American troops have been based in Georgia for the past six years, training Georgians as potential contributors to forces in Iraq. Georgia was the third largest contributor to forces in Iraq, with 2,000 Georgian soldiers there, and this, obviously, is important, too, given instabilities in the Northern Middle East, in Iraq. Georgia potentially could be an important route for supplies to American troops in the Middle East.

SG: Conservative Russian observers speculated that Georgia could become an American platzdarm for an attack on Iran…

SFJ: Yes. Of course, I am not sure Georgia would agree to that… That’s some idea in the stratosphere, I think – I don’t really believe it’s realistic…

SG: Because of the regional constraints and that Georgia would suffer first should things turn this way?

SFJ: Yes, exactly.

SG: The conflict in Georgia seems like an illustration of the classic thesis by Ernest Gellner of the self-defeating nature of nationalism – you separate from the larger state, but within the separated nation there will be some smaller «nation» seeking independence… What do you see as the most important factor that contributed to the overall failure to integrate minorities in Georgia?

SFJ: I suppose this question goes to the very root of the problem. The ways in which this whole conflict has been treated as some kind of geopolitical conflict, some proxy war between Russia on the one hand and the United States on the other, competing for influence in the Caucasus, competing for access to oil and gas, and this is the reason that we have this conflict. But my argument would be that we should look at this conflict as a combination, really, of these elements with problems within Georgia. It’s not just about external forces operating, it’s also about internal forces in Georgia that have led to South Ossetia and Abkhazia becoming an issue. There have been failures all around in terms of Georgian domestic policies vis-à-vis its national minorities. I would not blame the Georgian government entirely. Very often when we look at situations like this we make excuses for the national minorities as the victims, as the oppressed, but you see the same sorts of chauvinistic nationalist policies in the national areas, in Abkhazia and South Ossetia as you do in Georgia. All the elites have contributed to this failure. However, generally, I would argue that Georgia has failed in terms of integrating its national minorities over the decades, and particularly over the past fifteen to twenty years, starting from Gamsakhurdia, on to Shevardnadze and on to Saakashvili. For example, and not that it is necessary, but there is no national minorities law in Georgia, which many of the former Soviet states have passed, and also happened in Eastern Europe – sort of trying to help clarify relations with national minorities – and we still don’t have that kind of law in Georgia, although there are constitutional stipulations about equal rights and national minority rights, these have not been adequately clarified, even in the constitution in terms of the division of powers between the center on the one hand and autonomous republics on the other. That has been a problem. The other issue is simply practice on the ground. One of the problems, of course, is that Georgia has minimal resources in terms of being able to divert more economic investment to non-Georgian areas, something that could clearly help, but Georgia has no means to do that. Also, the lack of control over the regions in Georgia, particularly under Shevardnadze, has led to regional abuses by regional authorities of minority rights. So there is a lot that explains why South Ossetians and Abkhazians feel the way they do. You add to that the problems that began in the 1990s, under Gamsakhurdia, with this extreme chauvinism, and foolish acts like the abolition of South Ossetian regional status. But, having said that, fundamentally, I see this conflict as one that is not in the interests of South Ossetians and Abkhazians and Georgians themselves on the ground – it’s not. If you go to South Ossetia – as I have done, even two or three years ago, during these conflicts, or in the 1990s – and you talk to them, they don’t really see the point of the war, why they should fight their neighbors, their Georgian neighbors. But there are interests, clearly, among the Abkhaz elite and in Russia itself, which to a large extent has manipulated these conflicts in order to advance what it considers its own national and strategic interests. So these interests have contributed to maintaining these frozen conflicts, even if there have been opportunities in the past twenty or so years to resolve them. But the Russian factor has been significant in preventing that from happening. But, at the same time, we have got to be realistic, that after what happened in the 1990s, in Abkhazia in 1993, that the ethnic nature of these conflicts – which was not so much at the origins – has become such because after war, after murders on all sides, it becomes much more difficult to compromise. The situation becomes polarized and psychology changes. There are fears that if you let the Georgians come back, or if we again become part of Georgia, we will be persecuted. So the conflicts themselves, it seems to me, have generated much of the polarization that is now so difficult to overcome.

SG: I have noted the importance of references to historical factors in these conflicts on all sides – Sergei Lavrov, for instance, referred to the status of Abkhazia prior to the incorporation of Georgia into the Russian empire, Abkhaz, Georgian, South Ossetian historical claims, so I would like to ask you several questions about historical factors in the recent events. But I would like to begin with how the most important political force in Georgian history, the Social Democrats of the 1920s, saw the problem of national minorities.

SFJ: If you were to draw parallels between the First Republic, as it’s called, 1920–1921, and the current situation, first, the parallel that you can see is the political and economic crisis, which occurred after the collapse of empires, the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, and they occur in times of military conflict and raise the insecurities of the national minorities – their cultural future, even their physical future is threatened – so these parallels are there. The other parallel is that both the Georgian government in 1921 and the last three governments, if you like, Gamsakhurdia, Shevardnadze, and Saakashvili, failed to deal with this problem effectively. So, for example, the Social Democrats, when they came to power, came to power with an understanding that nationalism was not the answer. After all, they were Marxists on some level, and they believed in the policies of self-determination within the Georgian state. But, again, this was a chaotic time. There was war on their borders, there was the Russian factor, conflict between the Bolsheviks on the one hand and the Volunteer Army. Although the Georgian Social Democrats were open to the idea of cultural autonomy within Georgia for both the Abkhazians and the South Ossetians, there were both South Ossetians and Abkhazians who wanted more than that, and Georgia came into conflict with both South Ossetia and Abkhazia on this issue. There were military conflicts, and some of the arguments today that you hear from Ossetians and Abkhazians about why they need to separate are because of what happened during the First Republic – in other words, they are suggesting that this is nothing new, this is a long-standing Georgian attitude. The complication in the First Republic was that some of these «ethnic» conflicts were fought also in parallel to political conflicts, when South Ossetians and Abkhazians, at least groups of them, were pro-Bolshevik, and, of course, the Georgians were Menshevik. So the Mensheviks could categorize these conflicts they were having with Ossetians and Abkhazians as ideological and a threat to the security of the state, although there were underlying prejudices and ethnic issues, if you like, against South Ossetians and Abkhazians – although they were topped, if you like, by these ideological issues. So, parallels, indeed.
But at the same time, I would argue that if you looked at the First Republic, and the Georgians didn’t solve the problem, in fact, it was only in February 1921, when they were about to be overrun by the Red Army, that they finally came up with a constitution where they finally tried to settle these issues, and told the Abkhazians and South Ossetians what to expect in terms of autonomy. In fact, Abkhazia was promised autonomy, but South Ossetia was not. But there were many Abkhazians and South Ossetians who were willing to accept autonomy within Georgia. There were splits within their communities, and I think that maybe you can’t say that about Abkhazia today, at least the way they understand it now it’s either independence or nothing. But I still think, less so now, but there is room in these communities. It’s not a complete homogeneity about being anti-Georgian, not to be part of Georgia, particularly in South Ossetia. Much depends, of course, on how Georgians react to that, how they deal with that, and of course, the Russian factor is very important.

SG: In Georgia itself, how much do narratives of the past, narratives of Georgian nationhood, play a role in the formation of attitudes toward national minorities? One recalls, for example, interviews with Zviad Gamsakhurdia in the first post-independence years, when Gamsakhurdia would proclaim that there is no such thing as South Ossetia, there is a historically Georgian territory, Shida Kartli, and that was the end of the story. How much of it is visible today? Do you see any attempts to utilize the experience of reconciliation commissions, the dialogue between Turkish and Armenian historians, or attempts to rethink Georgian history in terms of a multiethnic country?

SFJ: I would say that as far as most Georgians are concerned, that despite all the conflict, there is not an irreconcilable hostility toward Abkhazians and South Ossetians, on the ground at least, and many are open to reconciliation and the possibility of living together in a common community. If you go back, Georgians on the one hand feel certain superiority – they are the titular group, they are the majority group, they feel that they should have certain rights as a majority group; on the other hand, you hear very often this sense – and maybe it’s an idealistic view, but it’s something that could maybe be built upon – of «yes, we are a multinational state, we do have traditions of tolerance, and we can build on these, and we could reconstitute this country.» There is this element in Georgians’ attitudes that could be useful in the process of reconciliation, they see their history as a multinational one, and see the virtue of it. On the other hand, there are nationalist parties in Georgia, nothing like we had in the early 1990s, but they still find it very useful to exploit ethnic issues to build visibility and support. For example, there is a radical view of Abkhazians as interlopers, not an indigenous people, which can attract some constituencies. It’s an interesting bifurcation. On the one hand, there is a sense that it’s a multinational community, has always been, and that’s a virtuous thing, but on the other hand there is a strong nativist concept about Georgians, this being their territory, and they have always lived there, that they have certain privileges as a nation that has been there for 2,000 years, and as a nation that has a long cultural history. There is a sense that they are more advanced than Abkhazians or Ossetians, so there is this tension, I think, between these two views among the Georgians.

SG: Although there are examples elsewhere in the CIS – I am thinking in particular of Iaroslav Hrytsak’s ideas of Ukraine as a multiethnic country with a corresponding multinational history – it has been a great difficulty for the post-Soviet states to escape the notion of homogeneous ethnic bodies and to reimagine the past as a history of a multiethnic community. I imagine it hasn’t been easy for the Georgians, either.

SFJ: I must say that Georgians learned from the lesson of Gamsakhurdia, because it was a dead-end. And also the West’s reactions to Gamsakhurdia let Georgians understand that they have to be more tolerant toward their national minorities. Engagement with the international community also gave them an additional perspective. They understand that democracy wasn’t simply about majority voting, but also about sharing power or distribution of power with national minorities. So that changed after Gamsakhurdia. And with the Rose Revolution, with Saakashvili, again you see these tensions – on the one hand, he is taking a pro-Western view. What does that mean? Well, it means abiding by international norms, regarding the way you conduct your domestic policies, vis-a-vis national minorities, so there is that acceptance that there should be a multinational community with participation of national minorities. On the other hand, Saakashvili in many ways reflects this bifurcation in the Georgian mentality, if you listen to Saakashvili, he, in order to maintain his popularity – and he is a populist in many ways – feeds into that other sense, that Georgians have priorities reflected in the constitution, where, for example, the Georgian Church has a special role. So this reformist part of the Rose Revolution has led to a revision of history, and a sense that national minorities have to be given a visible role in Georgian history, and that tolerance should be taught at the school level. That is there. On the other hand, when you want to generate political support, and also when you’re facing these crises with national minorities in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the other side of conflict and what might be characterized as historical enmities, including of the past twenty years also, counteracts, then, that reformist policies and the impact of schools. So I think there have been some changes in terms of trying to conform to this new approach to tolerance, but on the other hand this constant need to create a Georgian state, that state-building impetus that pushes Georgian interests into the lead. So you have these democratization ideas on the one hand, and this intolerance on the other. I don’t think they’re incompatible, but there is certainly a tension there that makes it difficult.

SG: Last question. Dominic Lieven once suggested that a Russian attempt to undermine the territorial integrity of some neighboring states will be a kind of a test of Russia’s determination to assert itself in the region. Do you see the Georgian conflict as marking the beginning of that kind of assertion?

SFJ: Part of it, definitely. I think that given Western policies, in particular with NATO, whether you see this as a realistic reaction or not, Russia, particularly with those revenues from oil and gas that it collected, now sees that it has the possibility of reasserting its influence in the region. It’s in part a lesson to Georgia, the August events, but I think more broadly it’s a lesson to other countries in the CIS, in the former Soviet space, it’s not overt military threats but it’s certainly a form of intimidation and claims for hegemony. I think that Saakashvili in that sense is right, it’s not about Georgia, it’s more broadly about Russia’s place in Northern Eurasia and its relationship with the former Soviet republics, and its really – given NATO’s decision to draw a line at some level – promising that Ukraine and Georgia will be members at some point. It also was a signal, I think, when in April in Bucharest both were not given MAPs [NATO membership action plans], that, maybe, Russia could push this idea of its own sphere of influence.