EURASIA – REGIONAL SECURITY, IDENTITY & NATION BUILDING

“We welcome Russia’s influence in the region. We want help, not tanks”
-- Mamuka Kudava, Georgia’s former Vice-Minister of Defence

 The Soviet era was characterised by colonial attitudes, secularisation, so-called Russification and artificial borders, which have hampered moves to carve out secure nations with their own identities after what Russia has called a “civilised divorce”.

 The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) – uniting Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and the Ukraine – has had only limited success in following Russia’s ideal of multi-faceted cooperation. And there have been serious strains.

 The debate pointed up some of the serious problems facing the region, with different concepts of what the final goal might involve. Some speakers appeared to be stuck largely in the past, while others spoke of new horizons embracing Western society.

 Georgia, scene of the Rose Revolution that forced Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze to resign after accusing Russia of meddling in rigged elections in 2003, is looking towards the European Union (EU). But the country, bordering the Black Sea, believes Russia can play a positive regional role.

 “Clear and dramatic changes since the Rose Revolution have brought nothing but clear success in economic terms, democratisation and building stable institutions,” said Mamuka Kudava, Georgia’s Ambassador to France and a former Vice-Minister of Defence.

 “We welcome Russia’s influence in the region. We want help, not tanks.  The rhetoric has gone down after we hit rock bottom in relations, so we can only progress in bilateral relations. The Black Sea has become an EU sea.”

 “We are ready to discuss with Russia all these issues, as well as relations with NATO,” Kudava said.

 Nikolai Zlobin, Director of the Russia and Eurasia Project at the World Security Institute in the United States, said it was nave to believe that the Soviet Union had disintegrated in one day. “This is a simplification,” he said. “We are still going through the collapse of the Soviet Union… No empire falls apart along artificial borders. The borders of Eurasia will change, with new political influences, new economic interests and, maybe, new countries will emerge.”

 Another speaker said: “Unfortunately, our past is still breathing down our necks. We can say the Soviet Union disintegrated by itself. But this is not true because external forces wanted an end to a world built on two poles. The collapse of the Soviet Union was totally unexpected for all of us.”

 “In the previous 70 years we turned into very close nations. You can’t get away from this. Fifty two percent of Ukrainians have relatives in Russia, for example. This is not going away and we must come to terms with it,” he said.

 Martha Brill Olcott, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in the United States, said she detected “nostalgia” in some of the presentations, adding that people should be sensitive to the difficult process that Russians were going through. “While we are coming to 20 years of independence, I don’t believe every state is going to come out of this process.”

 Dr. Olcott said she did not believe that Central Asia was being caught up in any Great Game, with outside powers vying for supremacy. “I think the greatest problems will come from countries in the region themselves.”

 “I think the states themselves are just taking time to weigh up what their foreign policy priorities are. There is plenty of competition between Russia and the U.S. on transport and so on.

 “China is becoming increasingly visible as a player in the region and in bilateral terms. Central Asians are becoming more skilled at managing these things,” she said.

 Stefanie Babst, Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy at NATO, said the alliance was involved in security consultations on a wide range of issues, such as military to military cooperation, capacity building and emergency planning.

 “These are important for the countries of the region. These programmes have been very tailored and focused. NATO has a strong interest in Central Asia and the Caucasus and is pursuing this in its Partnership for Peace programme.”

 “We are looking at identifying areas where we can match security interests with those of the countries concerned. We have been successful in the past and I think we will continue to be so in the future,” Dr. Babst said.

 But, in the end, it comes down to the human factor. Grigoriy Rapota, Secretary General of the Eurasian Economic Community in Russia, said. “In Russia, the United States or any other country, to be successful in a region you must take an interest in the people living there.

 “There is no alternative,” he said.