![Sample our Area Studies journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5922/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Area-Studies.jpg"})
Abstract
Although the 2008 Russian-Georgian war was a military defeat for Georgia, it has only reinforced Georgia's westward trajectory. One noteworthy difference from Georgia's pre-war policy is a new regional strategy – the North Caucasus Initiative – that seeks to create a soft power alternative to Russia's military dominance in the region. We suggest that this approach is rational rather than reckless, as some critics have claimed. It represents a carefully calculated strategy that is already benefiting Georgia and from which all concerned parties, including Russia, stand to gain. If the South and North Caucasus were more open and less divided – a direction in which this new initiative appears to point – the Caucasus could become more prosperous and more stable. That would serve Russia's long-term interest by significantly reducing the cost of subsidies to sustain and stabilize the volatile region.
Notes
David S. Siroky is Assistant Professor of Political Science in the School of Politics and Global Studies at Arizona State University, and faculty affiliate of the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict as well as the Melikian Center for Russian, Eurasian and East European Studies. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science and M.A. in Economics from Duke University and was then Henry Hart Rice Fellow at Yale University before arriving at ASU. His work has appeared in Comparative Sociology, Defence and Peace Economics, Democratization, Ethnopolitics, and Statistics Surveys.
Valeriy Dzutsev is a doctoral student in the School of Politics and Global Studies at Arizona State University, and North Caucasus analyst for the Jamestown Foundation. He previously worked for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting as director for the North Caucasus, based in Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia.
On soft power, see Nye.
The Circassian people occupied the entire western part of the North Caucasus, up to the Black Sea, before the Russian conquest of the region in the nineteenth century. Most of the Circassian population was killed by the Russian army or deported to the Ottoman Empire. The majority of the Circassians now reside in Turkey and in the Middle East (see Bullough).
On July 5, 2011 at a meeting with president of Russia Dmitry Medvedev, Emil Pain, a Russian academic specializing in the study of ethnicities, cited undisclosed polls showing for the first time that the majority of Russians, over 60%, favor cutting off the North Caucasus from the Russian Federation (“Zasedanie Soveta”). A number of online polls also showed that Russia's population strongly favors leaving the North Caucasus, e.g. the popular Novy Region website's audience indicated 73% support for the withdrawal from Ingushetia, Chechnya and Dagestan. In Russian (“Kak vy otnosites k idee”).
See the extensive report on Georgia by Thomas de Waal; also Levitsky and Way.
Interview with the former Kabardin field commander Ibragim Yaganov. Live Journal. 27 Dec. 2011. Web. 13 Mar. 2012. <http://avrom-caucasus.livejournal.com/143413.html>.
See Transparency International report on Georgia (Transparency International)
Having renounced membership in the Russia-led CIS club, Georgian citizens lost their right to enter Russia by land, while both Armenians and Azeris have retained that right.
Russian news agency Interfax, October 12, 2010, (in Russian). On rebel sanctuaries see Saleyhan.
Under Presidential Executive Order 13224.
Open source monitoring results of the specialized website of Caucasian Knot. 12 Jan. 2012. On violence between rebels and government forces in the North Caucasus, in Chechnya specifically, see Lyall.
Comparing the situation in the North Caucasus to Afghanistan, the newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta noted the casualty statistics for 2011. Over 700 people were killed in the North Caucasus in 2011, including government forces, insurgents and civilians, January 12. In Afghanistan, the total number of fatalities in 2011 was 2,500, including US-led coalition forces. The paper concludes that the difference between the officially “peaceful” North Caucasus and Afghanistan, which is in state of war, is not large (“Region, kotoryi nelzya poterjyat”). However, if we compare Afghanistan's population of 30 million to the North Caucasus's population of 6.5 million, it appears that, in relative terms, the “peaceful” North Caucasus suffered proportionally more casualties in 2011 than Afghanistan (Dzutsev).
On the conditions under which the ruling political elites of a state target minorities with assimilationist policies instead of granting them minority rights or excluding them, see Mylonas, The Politics of Nation-Building. Mylonas's theory would have predicted that Georgia's policy would lead to more exclusionary policies pursued by Russia toward the ethnic groups that enjoy external support.
On February 18, head of Ingushetia Yunus-Bek Yevkurov officially admitted that the security services are involved in kidnappings of civilians in this small, volatile republic in the North Caucasus. Rights activists had pointed to this phenomenon for years. Lenta.ru. 18 Feb. 2012. Web. 18 Feb. 2012. <http://lenta.ru/news/2012/02/18/suspect/>.
Yaganov, Ibragim. Interview with Avraam Shmulevich (Yaganov).
Prielbrusye resorts are closed to tourists because of the counterterrorism operation regime introduction in Kabardino-Balkaria (“Kurorty Prielbrusya zakryty dlya turistov”).
Russia unilaterally introduced a visa regime with Georgia as early as 2000, well before Mikheil Saakashvili came to power, whereas South Ossetia and Abkhazia enjoyed visa-free entry into Russia, regardless of whether they held Russian citizenship.
On how minority empowerment from abroad can have negative and arguably unintended consequences, see Jenne; Mylonas “External Involvement”.
On the role of ethnic ties in foreign policy, see Saideman.
Russian news agency Interfax, 12 Oct. 2010. <www.interfax.ru>.
Karachay-Cherkessia is dominated by the Turkic-speaking Karachays, traditional rivals of the Circassians. Since it is farthest away from Georgia, it also has relatively less to gain economically.
Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization puts the figure of the Circassians, living outside of their homeland at 3.5 million (Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization). Circassian activist websites assert that “nearly 90%” of the Circassians currently live outside of their homeland, or approximately 6 million people in absolute terms. Reportedly, 1.5 million Circassians were slaughtered during the Russian army's conquest of the Caucasus (“14 Reasons for Opposing Sochi 2014”). Official Russian estimates do not fall much behind the Circassian data (see Russian Federation Council).
Circassian activists across the globe set up numerous websites trying to coordinate their actions. One major Circassian diaspora is located in Turkey, but significant diasporas are reported in several Middle Eastern countries, the E.U. and the U.S. See: http://nosochi2014.com/
