Russia has responded ingeniously to the argument that its forces should leave Georgia – by redefining Georgia!

Having announced that Russia recognises the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states, Moscow now can say that its troops on the ground in these territories are no longer in Georgia. Howzat?

As and when needed it also has the option of proclaiming some sort of a new ‘union’ of these territories with Russia, so that any attack on them is an attack on Russia itself.   

Sorted?

Recognising the ‘independence’ of Abkhazia and South Ossetia needs international support. And Moscow is off to a strong start, with Hizbollah, Syria and Belarus looking to be on side.

This manoeuvre gives Russia a veneer of international law legitimacy at least one molecule thick. But that, combined with Facts on the Ground, might be enough for the Kremlin’s immediate purposes:

"Hey, Kosovo has not been recognised by anything close to a majority of states round the world. Nor have S Ossetia and Abkhazia. What’s the difference?"

Meanwhile is Russia playing chess while the Americans are playing Monopoly? Thus:

The board game Monopoly is won by placing as many hotels as possible on squares of the playing board. Substitute military bases, and you have the sum of American strategic thinking.

America’s idea of winning a strategic game is to accumulate the most chips on the board: bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, a pipeline in Georgia, a "moderate Muslim" government with a big North Atlantic Treaty Organization base in Kosovo, missile installations in Poland and the Czech Republic, and so forth. But this is not a strategy; it is only a game score.

However:

Russia is fighting for its survival, against a catastrophic decline in population and the likelihood of a Muslim majority by mid-century. The Russian Federation‘s scarcest resource is people. It cannot ignore the 22 million Russians stranded outside its borders after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, nor, for that matter, small but loyal ethnicities such as the Ossetians. Strategic encirclement, in Russian eyes, prefigures the ethnic disintegration of Russia, which was a political and cultural entity, not an ethnic state, from its first origins.  

… like a good chess player, Putin has the end-game in mind as he fights for control of the board in the early stages of the game. Demographics stand at the center of Putin’s calculation, and Russians are the principal interest that the Russian Federation has in its so-called near abroad. The desire of a few hundred thousand Abkhazians and South Ossetians to remain in the Russian Federation rather than Georgia may seem trivial, but Moscow is setting a precedent that will apply to tens of millions of prospective citizens of the Federation – most controversially in Ukraine.

What if this is at least plausible? That Russia wants to redefine the post-Cold war settlement by scooping within its borders most Russians left adrift when the Soviet Union collapsed?

There are two ways to achieve this.

  • Crank up separatist plebiscites in Kazakhstan and Ukraine where the largest Russian communities live, then push through partition. Absorb Belarus one Sunday afternoon. Brutal – but potentially decisive.
  • Or try to force Kazakhstan and Ukraine into some sort of more explicit formal union with Russia so that all their respective dealings with the USA/EU are conducted on Russian terms – no more creeping Westernisation or ‘Europeanisation’. Less brutal, less decisive.

Maybe even Putin’s Moscow does not have the nerve for the unheavals which entering such unfathomable complications would create.

So instead for now it can keep the game in a state of dynamic imbalance. Grab a couple of pawns from Georgia and leave the threat that this is part of a wider ruthless strategy hanging menacingly over the board?

Foreign Policy.

On a Grand Scale.