In Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia (where bits of Griboyedov are buried), it looks as if the West is back in the Game, too. The opulent U.S. Embassy is painted bright pink; the new German Embassy is a garish tangerine. But the real power lies in the Russians’ shabby embassy. Last year Russians provided intelligence and equipment to rebels fighting the government of Eduard Shevardnadze. Now Shevardnadze has sought Russian help and joined the Moscow-dominated Commonwealth of Independent States. “It is in the national interests of Georgia,” says Russian Ambassador Vladimir Zemsky, “to recognize the interests of Russia.”
Bill Clinton insisted in his State of the Union address that Russian peacekeeping efforts must be “in strict accord with international standards.” But since the West won’t commit substantial forces anywhere in the region, this just means, says one diplomat in Washington, that the Russians “can do what they like as long as they don’t pull too many fingernails out.” Russian policies are often chaotic and contradictory. Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev talks of his country’s “vital interests” on its borders; he sought to defend the 25 million Russian-speakers outside Russia. Russia is “peacekeeping” in Tajikistan, and probably will soon be doing so in Georgia. It also has covert military trainers in Azerbaijan. A week after Kozyrev looked forward to “union with Belarus,” the reformist Belarusian leader was voted out of office, opening the way for a pro-Moscow government.
Is all this worrying? One view says the West should be realistic. Russia has long been the dominant power on its border and will be so again; the West has little to gain by encouraging former Soviet states to dream of genuine independence. Besides, the argument goes, while the West has interests on Russia’s European border, all it wants in the Caucasus and Central Asia is stability.
But at what price? Some of the world’s biggest reserves of oil and gas are in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Three years after Western firms began negotiating to tap the Azeri reserves, the government in Baku has caved in to a Russian demand for a 10 to 20 percent stake in the deal, and has shelved a pipeline project through Turkey that would have weakened Russia’s hammerlock on oil exports. In Kazakhstan, British Gas. trying to develop the huge Karachaganak deposit, now faces Russian demands for a piece of the action.
This is extortion. It implies that in return for the dubious benefits of past Russian colonialism, the Russians can milk future Kazakh wealth. it’s not clear why the West should buy that line, or grant special protection for Russians left outside Russia. French and British colonialists left in Algeria or Kenya hardly got succor from the international community. Yet when Clinton was in Moscow, he said (in what sounded suspiciously like an ad lib) that he would “press strongly” the idea that Russian-speaking people in the Baltic states “must be respected.” That alarmed officials in Latvia, negotiating for the removal of 12,500 Russian troops by next August. According to Ojars Kalnins, Latvia’s ambassador to Washington, Clinton quickly called the Latvian president to reaffirm that he meant no linkage between the question of troop withdrawals and the treatment of Russian-speakers.
Clinton may have soothed the Baltic states. but the Western air of complacency in the face of a neoimperial Russia could be a tragic mistake. Though many governments of the old Soviet republics are kowtowing to the Russians, nationalist movements want real independence. In Tajikistan, for example, the imposition of a pro-Russian government has not brought promised stability but the opposite, with refugees learning how to fight a guerrilla war from their Afghan neighbors (the undisputed champions of the Great Game). Nationalist attacks on Russians could one day provoke the kind of reaction in Moscow that the West could not ignore. So the next time you’re in Central Asia, keep a close eye on the kebab stalls.
