With the Russian Federation nearing the finish line in its marathon race to join the World Trade Organization, Moscow has restarted negotiations with Georgia. They will have a full agenda stemming from Russian actions before and during the war with Georgia in 2008. These talks are taking place because the Georgia is in a position to use its veto as a member of the WTO to blackball Russia’s membership. Russia therefore needs Georgia’s assent to join the WTO. The negotiations are therefore about both the consequences of the Russo-Georgian war and overcoming them to  obtain a way for Georgia to approve of Russia’s candidacy to the WTO.

BACKGROUND: Russia forcibly amputated Georgian sovereignty over the two disputed provinces, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, in the wake of the 2008 war. It declared them independent states, recognized them, encouraged its friends and partners to follow suit, and subsequently signed a raft of agremeents with these provinces that predictably turned them into Russian protectorates dependent on Moscow for their defense and ruled by Russia’s agencies. Since 2008, Moscow has made it abundantly clear that it will not countenance retreating from its declaration of independence for Geogia’s provinces while Georgia continues to insist on its sovereignty, a sovereignty that is overwhelmingly accepted across the globe. Russia must now deal with Georgia in a way that it has refused to do since 2008 in order to surmount the last hurdles for WTO membership.

Much rides on Russia’s WTO membership. Undoubtedly it is the biggest single economic gain that could accrue to Russia in the process generated by the Obama Administration’s reset policy and would be a significant inducement to U.S. and other foreign investors to invest in Russia. That is something Moscow clearly desires as the bilateral ties with the U.S. suffer grievously from the fact that there is no true economic relationship between the two states. On the other hand, Georgia has its own immediate demands. It wants a role in the customs administration in Abkhazia and South Ossetia as a legal-political sign of its continuing soveriegnty over those provinces, which Russia refuses to recognize. Georgia may also want international observers on the Russian side of the border resembling the European Union’s monitoring mission based outside the separatist region of Transnistria in Moldova.  Alternatively, Georgia could demand an end to the sanctions imposed by Russia upon its trade to Russia in 2006 even though Georgia successfully compensated for this embargo by developing new markets for its proudcts. In any case, Georgia now has an unexpected leverage in the negotiation process with Russia because Moscow badly wants Georgia to abstain from using its veto to block its membership in the WTO.

Until now the negotiations have gone badly. They are deadlocked over Abkhazia and South Ossetia. And more recently, Russia stated that it could join the WTO even if Georgia vetoed it. That statement triggered a Georgian response threatening to veto Russian entry. Georgia has also benefited from the fact that while the U.S. had officially adopted a neutral stance on the WTO issue, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Tina Kaidanow recenty conceded that Georgia has legitimate trade concerns that must be addressed in the WTO negotiations, presumably meaning Russian sanctions, and possibly customs administration in its provinces.

IMPLICATIONS: Trade and sovereignty issues are clearly linked in these negotations. But in the larger sense, this episode underscores that Russia too lost the 2008 war. Even before the war in 2008, Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied any interest in recognizing Abkhazia and South Ossetia, mindful of the precedent that could be used and is now being employed against Russia in the North Caucasus which is on the verge of being out of control due to its homegrown Islamist insurgency. Nevertheless, the Russian military demanded that these Georgian provinces be  severed from Georgia so that it could maintain bases in them and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin undoubtedly wanted to humiliate Georgian President Sakaashvili, if not drive him out of office. 

However, what Moscow has done is to create a permanent irredentist situation in Georgia. Although it will be exceedingly difficult for Georgia to reincorporate Abkhazia and South Ossetia into Georgia, no Georgian political leader will accept that fact until Georgian sovereignty over these territories is restored. Thus the present situation, despite the disparity in power between Russia and Georgia, resembles the relationship between France and Germany after the 1870 Franco-German War over the German annexation of Alsace-Lorraine. Russia now has a permanent enemy that it did not need to acquire and two territories it must defend that add nothing to its power, position or status. In the meantime, the attempt to detach them from Georgia can conceivably cost Moscow a much greater price, membership in the WTO and the benefits thereof.

Having created a permanent enemy in Georgia and equally permanent regional tension, Russia has unsettled the security of the South Caucasus while failing to secure the North Caucasus. Neither does Russia benefit even if it is fortifying its forces in these provinces in defiance of international agrements and law. What has become clear is that Russia, due to its abdication of true civilian control over its  armed forces and its thirst for territory and revenge on Georgia and Sakaashvili, has  created a permanently unstable condition on its frontier that has leeched into its interior. As long as Russia holds on to these two provinces it cannot have security either in the South Caucasus or in the North Caucasus. Although growing numbers of Russians may think that the best solution is to leave the North Caucasus, Moscow cannot do that and remain – or even pretend to be – a South Caucasian, let alone Middle Eastern power. If its lines of communictions southwards are blocked, the geopolitical ramifications of that situation are vast and quite negative. All this was reasonably clear in 2008. Therefore, the prerequisite of a stable and legitimate security situation in the South Caucasus should have been clear to Moscow. In 2008, Moscow could simply have ejected the Georgian army from South Ossetia and restored the status quo ante. Then the door would have been open to stabilizing the region. That is no longer the case. Thus today the tables are turned and Moscow needs Tbilisi’s assent.

CONCLUSIONS: Tbiliisi now has an opportunity to score some points in its camapign to restore its recognized and legitimate authority over Abkhazia and South Ossetia pending resolution of the long-standing conflicts in these provinces with Georgia. But a truly statesmanlike approach on both sides would not confine these talks to haggling over the points listed above, which remain important for bilateral relations and must be resolved. Although either a stalemate or a mutually acceptable compromise are equally possible as outcomes of the WTO negotiations, the parties also have a third option before them. 

The parties should see in these talks the possibility for both sides to take the first steps towards a broader reconceptualization of the security problems of the South Caucasus and begin moving from a state of war or frozen conflict to something approaching a sate of non-belligerency if not genuine peace. If the two parties were to take this broader view, they could simultaneously move towards a solution that removes sanctions from Georgia, exposes the Russian economy to greater contact with global standards embodied in the WTO, and makes acceptable progress towards resolving the complex issues of soveriegnty for Georgia’s rebellious provinces.  Russia must come to realize that  its territorial conquests will never be legitimated  regionally or internationally and therefore will continue to provide a source of never-ending tension and instability in the South Caucasus. Georgia must come to understand that its relationship with its rebellious provinces can only be sustained on the basis of much greater legitimacy than has hitherto been the case. Moreover, until it resolves that problem it is unlikely to gain its greatest objective, membership in NATO and eventually the EU. As is now clear, both sides lost the war in 2008. Will they realize that the current stalemate hurts them both or will they merely go on plowing the same disputed acres to no result? If they follow this second course of action, the results are more of what we already see. But if they both want a chance for real peace and security, they should take advantage of this opportunity to build for the future and not for the past.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Stephen Blank is Professor at the U.S. Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA 17013. The views expressed here do not represent those of the U.S. Army, Defense Department, or the U.S. Government.