![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
Abstract
Analyses of the motivations behind Russia's recent war against Georgia, its unrelenting pressure on Ukraine to cede more and more aspects of its sovereignty, and its ambitions not only to dominate the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) but to prevent the enlargement of NATO and the EU and return the world to the bipolar order that existed during the cold war era, as well as the security implications for Europe and the United States if Russia succeeds in realizing its plan, constitute the central focus of this article.
Notes
James Traub, “Taunting the Bear,” The New York Times, August 11, 2008, www.nytimes.com
Isabel Gorst, “Blow to Hopes of Oil Pipeline Security,” Financial Times, August 10, 2008, www.ft.com
Atlantic Council of the United States, Restoring Georgia's Sovereignty in Abkhazia, David L. Phillips, Project Director and Author, 2008, 12 (Henceforth Phillips).
Tesmur Basilia, “Eurasian Commentary,” Jan H. Kalicki and Eugene K. Lawson, eds., Russian-Eurasian Renaissance?: U.S. Trade and Investment in Russia and Eurasia, (Stanford, Calif., 2003), 166.
Sabine Fischer, “Ukraine As a Regional Actor,” Sabine Fischer, ed., Ukraine: Quo Vadis, Chaillot Pape no. 108 (Paris, 2008), 119.
Dmitri Furman, “A Silent Cold War,” Russia in Global Affairs, IV, no. 2 (April–June, 2006): 72.
Ibid., 73.
Moscow, Agentstvo Voyennykh Novostey Internet Version, in English, July 28, 2008, FBIS SOV, July 28, 2008; Moscow, Agentstvo Voyennykh Novostey Internet Version, in English, July 28, 2008, FBIS SOV, July 28, 2008.
Vladimir Socor, “Moscow Makes Furious But Empty Threats to Georgia and Ukraine,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, April 14, 2008; “Ugroza Kremlya,” www.kommersant.com, April 7, 2008, Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty Newsline, April 8, 2008; “Putin Hints at Splitting Up Ukraine,” Moscow Times, April 8, 2008; “Putin Threatens Unity of Ukraine, Georgia,” Unian, April 7, 2008, www.unian.net
“Ugroza Kremlya.”
Moscow, Agentstvo Voyennykh Novostey Internet Version, in English, July 28, 2008, FBIS SOV, July 28, 2008; Moscow, Agentstvo Voyennykh Novostey Internet Version, in English, July 28, 2008, FBIS SOV, July 28, 2008.
“Georgian Breakaway City in Ruins”; “Russian War Ships Sail For Georgia,” Russia Today, August 10, 2008 www.russiatoday.ru/news/news/28759
Anna Roze and Andrei Terekhov, “Sergei Ivanov Didn't Say Anything Dramatic,” Nezavisimaya Gazeta, September 15, 2005, 5, cited in Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press (Henceforth CDPP), LVII, no. 37 (October 12, 2005): 13.
Dmitri Trenin, Toward a New Euro-Atlantic “Hard” Security Agenda: Prospects for Trilateral U.S.-EU-Russia Cooperation, Washington and Paris, 2008, 6, www.csis.org, www.ifri.org
Stephen Blank, “The Values Gap Between Moscow and the West: The Sovereignty Issue,” Acque et Terre, no. 6, 2007: 9–14 (Italian), 90–95 (English).
Robert Larsson, Nord Stream, Sweden and Baltic Sea Security (Stockholm, 2007); Robert Larsson; Russia's Energy Policy: Security Dimensions and Russia's Reliability as an Energy Supplier (Stockholm, 2006).
Ilyas Sarsembaev, “Russia: No Strategic Partnership with China in View,” China Perspective, Perspectives Chinois, no. 645 (May–June 2006), 33.
“Russian Security Services Main Threat to Tajikistan—U.S. Envoy,” BBC Monitoring from the Avesta Website, September 9, 2005.
Ruth Deyermond, Security and Sovereignty in the Former Soviet Union (Boulder, 2007), 198.
Vladimir Socor, “Putin Offers Ukraine “Protection' for Extending Russian Black Sea Fleet's Presence,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, October 30, 2006.
The Jamestown Monitor, June 18, 2000.
Ibid.
Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty Newsline, from Radio Mayak. Moscow, October 11, 2005 www.ft.com
“Russian Minister's Military Pact Comment Seen as Warning to Rice in Central Asia,” NTV, Mir, October 11, 2005. Retrieved from Lexis-Nexis.
Reuben F. Johnson, “The Expansion Process Has Begun,” The Weekly Standard, XII, no. 4 (October 10, 2006).
“Russia Gains a New Uzbek Client,” Jane's Foreign Report, December 8, 2005.
Ariel Cohen, “Preventing a Russian-Georgian Confrontation,” Web Memo, no. 1024, Heritage Foundation, March 31, 2006, www.heritage.org; Ariel Cohen, “Springtime Is for War,” http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed033106a.cfm; in 2006 the author took part as captain of the Russian team in an exercise based on the scenario of a Georgian action in South Ossetia followed by a Russian riposte. The Russian team's actions exactly forecast the operations launched by Moscow here.
Katrin Bennhold, “Europe Taking a Diplomatic Approach to Caucasus Conflict,” International Herald Tribune, August 11, 2008, www.iht.com
M. K. Bhadrakumar, “China Seeks Caucasian Crisis Windfall,” Asia Times Online, August 18, 2008.
“Can the EU Ensure Europe's Security? Bergedorf Round Table, no. 138, Warsaw (Hamburg, 2008), 55.
Ahto Lobjaskas, “NATO Attempts Balancing Act over Georgia-Russia Conflict,” Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty, August 18, 2008; Janusz Bugajski and Ilona Teleki, Atlantic Bridges: America's New Allies (Lanham, MD, 2007), 10–13, 54–56.
Robert Legvold, “Introduction: Outlining the Challenge,” Bruno Coppieters and Robert Legvold, eds., Statehood and Security: Georgia After the Rose Revolution (Cambridge, Mass. and London, England, 2005), 29.
Traub, op. cit.
Svante E. Cornell, David J. Smith, and S. Frederick Starr, The August 6 Bombing Incident in Georgia: Implications for the Euro-Atlantic Region, Central Asia Caucasus Institute and the Silk Road Studies Program (Washington, D.C., and Stockholm, Sweden, 2007), 23–24.
Ibid., 25.
Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty Newsline, December 11, 2007.
Phillips, 17.
Socor, “Moscow Makes Furious But Empty Threats to Georgia and Ukraine”; Conversations with Georgian officials, Washington, D.C., May–June 2008.
Moscow, Agentstvo Voyennykh Novostey Internet Version, in English, June 6, 2008, Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Central Eurasia (henceforth FBIS SOV), June 6, 2008.
Remarks of Georgian Minister for Reintegration Timur Yakobashvili to an audience at the Heritage Foundation, August 18, 2008, available at www.heritage.org
Sophia Kishkovsky, “Georgia Is Warned by Russia Against Plans to Join NATO,” The New York Times, June 7, 2008, 8; Moscow, ITAR-TASS, in English, June 6, 2008; Moscow, Interfax, in English, June 6, 2008, FBIS SOV, June 6, 2008; Moscow, Agentstvo Voyennykh Novostey Internet Version, in English, June 6, 2008, FBIS SOV, June 6, 2008;
Tbilisi, Rezonansi, in Georgian, June 6, 2008 FBIS SOV, June 6, 2008.
Conversations with Georgian officials, Washington, D.C., May, 2008.
Pavel Felgenhauer, “Russia's Imperial General Staff,” Perspective, XVI, no. 1 (October–November 2005), www.bu.edu/iscip/vol16/felgenhauer
Brian Whitmore, “Did Russia Plan Its War in Georgia?” Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty, August 15, 2008, Pavel Felgenhauer, “Moscow Ready for Major confrontations with Pro-Western Georgia and Ukraine,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, June 19, 2008, Pavel Felgengauer, “Eta Byla Ne Spontannaya a Splanirovannaya Voina,” Novaya Gazeta, August 14, 2008, www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2008/59/04.html
Yakobashvili, Remarks.
Traub; Dov Lynch, Engaging Eurasia's Separatist States: Unresolved Conflicts and De Facto States (Washington, D.C., 2004), 57; Vladimir Frolov, “Russia Profile Weekly Experts Panel: Russia Going to War with Georgia,” ww.russiaprofile.com; “Georgia: A Fresh Outbreak of Violence During Negotiations,” www.stratfor.com, August 7, 2008; “Geopolitical Diary, Decision Time in South Ossetia,” www.stratfor.com, August 8, 2008; Vladimir Socor, “Berlin Consultations on Abkhazia Derailed,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, August 1, 2008; Vladimir Socor, “Ossetian Separatists Are Provoking a Major Russian Intervention,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, August 7, 2008; Boris Dolgin, “Military Continuation: What Is Happening Around South Ossetia,” Moscow, Polit.ru Internet Version, August 8, 2008, FBIS SOV, August 8, 2008; Vadim Dubnov, “Who Fired the First Shot,” Moscow, Gazeta, in Russian, August 6, 2008, FBIS SOV, August 6, 2008; Moscow, Interfax, in Russia, August 6, 2008, FBIS SOV, August 6, 2008; Yevgeny Shestakov, “From South to North Evacuation of Children from South Ossetia Continues,” Moscow, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, in Russian, August 5, 2008, FBIS SOV August 5, 2008; “Talking Through Gritted Teeth,” BBC Monitoring, August 6, 2008, l; Yuliya Latynina, “South Ossetia Crisis Could Be Russia's Chance to Defeat Siloviki,” Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty, August 8, 2008; Georgi Lomsadze, “Georgia Tensions Flare over Breakaway South Ossetia” Eurasia Insight, August 4, 2008; “Who's to Blame in South Ossetia,” Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty, August 8, 2008.
Moscow, Interfax, in English, August 7, 2008, FBIS SOV, August 7, 2008.
Lomsadze, op. cit.; Moscow, Gazeta.ru Internet Version, in Russian, FBIS SOV, August 8, 2008.
Stephen Blank, “The 18th Brumaire of Vladimir Putin,” in Uri Ra'anan, ed., Flawed Succession: Russia's Power Transfer Crises, Foreword by Robert Conquest (Lanham, Md, 2006), 133–170.
C. J. Chivers, “How Top Spies in Ukraine Changed the Nation's Path,” The New York Times, January 17, 2005; Leonid Polyakov, U.S.-Ukraine Military Relations and the Value of Interoperability (Carlisle Barracks, Pa., 2004); for a recent anlaysis of Ukraine's dysfunctional politics see Fischer, ed., op. cit., passim.
Roman Szporluk, ed., The Influence of East Europe and the Soviet West on the USSR (New York, 1975); Vladimir D. Shkolnikov, “Modernization and Russian Democracy,” Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, XXIX, no. 2 (Summer 2005): 21–25.
Conversations with European officials in March–April 2008 who used the term “Mafia state” to characterize Russia.
Sergei Lavrov, “Global Politics Needs Openness and Democracy,” Izvestiya, in Russian, April 24, 2007, FBIS SOV, April 24, 2007.
Vladimir Mukhin, “The Redivision of Eurasia,” Nezavisimaya Gazeta, December 4, 2006, 1–2, retrieved from Lexis-Nexis.
Dmitri Trenin, “Russia Leaves the West,” Foreign Affairs LXXXV, no. 4 (July–August 2006), 85–96.
Sergei Ivanov, “Russia Must Be Strong,” The Wall Street Journal, January 11, 2006, 14.
“Interview given by Dmitry Medvedev to television channels, Channel One, Rossia, NTV,” August 31, 2008, http://www.kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2008/08/31/1850_type82916_206003.shtml
Celeste A. Wallander, “Russian Transimperialism and Its Implications,” The Washington Quarterly, XXX, no. 2 (2007), 117–118.
Robert Larsson, Nord Stream, Sweden and Baltic Sea Security, Stockholm Swedish Defense Research Agency, 2007; Robert Larsson; Russia's Energy Policy: Security Dimensions and Russia's Reliability as an Energy Supplier (Stockholm, 2006); Janusz Bugajski, Cold Peace: Russia's New Imperialism (Washington, D.C., 2004), passim; Richard Krickus, Iron Troikas (Carlisle Barracks, Pa., 2006); Keith C. Smith, Russian Energy Politics in the Baltics, Poland, and the Ukraine: A New Stealth Imperialism? (Washington, D.C., 2004).
Alvaro de Vasconcelos, “Multilateralizing Multipolarity,” Giovanni Grevi and Alvaro de Vasconcelos, eds., Partnerships for Effective Multilateralism: EU Relations with Brazil, China, India, and Russia, Chaillot Paper no. 109 (Paris, 2008), 25.
∗The views expressed here do not represent those of the U.S. Army, the Defense Department, or any other department of the U.S. government.