#5
CENTRAL ASIA - CAUCASUS ANALYST
September 25, 2002
http://www.cacianalyst.org/
RUSSIA'S GRAB FOR PANKISI: DOMESTIC DIVERSION OR OIL POLITICS?
By Blanka Hancilova

AUTHOR BIO: Dr Blanka Hancilova works for the Institute of International Relations in Prague, Czech Republic.

Russian Minister of Defense Sergei Ivanov recently announced Russia's readiness to unleash unilateral preventive strikes on the Pankisi gorge, and President Vladimir Putin suggested on September 11th that Russia may strike Georgia in self-defense in order to neutralize Chechen guerrillas seeking shelter in Georgia. Although the tensions between the two countries have reached a climax, doubts remain on Russia's military capacity to attack; and even if it should, it is unclear what it would gain. Russia would likely in the end lose more than gain by military involvement, as the US and the EU have fully supported Georgia's territorial integrity.

BACKGROUND: Since the beginning of the second Chechen war in 1999, the Pankisi gorge has developed into a serious security problem for Georgia. Moscow has repeatedly accused the Georgian government of harboring Chechen terrorists, and Russian military aircraft has repeatedly violated Georgian airspace, although denying doing so. Pankisi started to register on the radar screens of western media only in February 2002, when the U.S. embassy in Tbilisi spoke about the possible presence of Al-Qaeda operatives in the gorge - which has nevertheless never been proven.

Russia claims that Chechen fighters can find shelter and regroup in the Pankisi gorge, which seriously hinders Russian success in the Chechen war. This argument has little grounding in reality, as the gorge lays several tens of kilometers to the south from the border, and its rugged terrain makes movement of significant forces difficult even in summer. Russian president Putin in fact uses Georgia as a convenient scapegoat to cover up the failure of the Russian military, which proved incapable of handling the guerrilla tactics employed by highly motivated fighters in Chechnya. The breakdown of the rule of law in Pankisi plays no significant role in the Chechen war and its fortunes. By blaming the Chechen failure on Georgia, Putin attempts to halt raising public discontent over his Chechen war, while appealing to the nationalist sentiments of the Russian populace, and appeasing hardliners who resent US involvement in the Russian "sphere of influence" and who would like to see Russia taking a tougher stand on U.S. involvement in Iraq.

In Spring 2002, the U.S. initiated a small scale 'train-and-equip' program to assist Georgia in tackling the Pankisi issue. Some 200 U.S. experts are training about 1,500 men of the ministry of defense as a rapid deployment force with special focus on anti-terrorist operations, and 500 soldiers of the State Border Defense Department receive additional training as border guards.

Feeling increased confidence in his forces, Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze announced a police-military operation in Pankisi on August 19th with the aim to clean the Pankisi gorge from criminals. Georgia claimed to be able to control and manage the situation in Pankisi. Following Russian air strikes on August 23, which killed one person, Georgia decided to launch the operation earlier than initially planned and deployed about 1,000 soldiers and police there.

Nevertheless, Russia voiced its doubts on Georgia's ability and willingness to handle the Pankisi crisis and indicated that it will fight Chechen fighters on Georgian territory if necessary. Subsequently Putin ordered the military to draw up plans for launching preemptive strikes on suspected terrorist bases in Pankisi gorge; Russian media has reported that the Russian air force is on 10 minute readiness to strike against "terrorists" in Georgia.

IMPLICATIONS: In spite of the latest Russian statements, Russo-Georgian relations are not likely to escalate into an open war in a foreseeable future. Though militarily weak, Georgia has repeatedly shown a strong political will to oppose Russian attempts at military involvement on its territory, which has been a major factor in preventing, so far, the spillover of the Chechen conflict to the South Caucasus. Even if Russian statements create a pretext for a cross-border raid, the question remains whether Russia is capable of a major military action, and what it would gain by it. As the war in Chechnya has shown, Russian ground forces lack the capacity to perform efficiently in mountainous areas. The best of its ground forces are already tied down in Chechnya. Consequently, Russia is incapable of ground involvement across the border unless it moves significant troops from Chechnya, a risky proposition. What Russia can do, however, is to continue using air strikes. Moreover, it cannot be excluded that Russia will target other parts of Georgia than Pankisi only. It may decide to bomb alleged "Chechen terrorists" in the Kodori valley, a Georgian-controlled enclave in the breakaway region of Abkhazia. But in the absence of precision weapons, such air strikes are not likely to successfully target the limited number of Chechen forces and may seriously damage Russian relations with the U.S. and the EU.

Russia's leverage is not limited to airplanes, as Tbilisi knows from experience. Moscow can seriously pressure the Shevardnadze government by cutting off gas supplies to Georgia in the approaching winter and thus possibly trigger public protests. Besides, Russia can continue to pursue its long-term strategy of capturing Georgia's energy assets. Recently, the Russian energy company Itera was close to gaining control over Georgia's vital gas distribution network, a deal put on ice only due to the increased political tensions between the two countries. It should be noted that there may be an entirely different rationale behind the latest Russian saber-rattling. On September 18th, the Presidents of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, joined by the U.S. Energy Secretary, celebrated in Baku the start of construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Main Export Pipeline, which has been under discussion for eight years. The US$3 billion pipeline is expected to be fully operational by 2005, and represents a major U.S. strategic interest in the region. It will help the U.S. reduce its dependence on Persian Gulf oil, while also reducing Georgia's dependence on Russian energy supplies. Russia may seek to further destabilize Georgia in order to delay or to hamper the construction of the pipeline and to keep the U.S. off its backyard.

CONCLUSIONS: The U.S. consultations with Georgian and Russian representatives show that the U.S. is not willing to accept unilateral Russian interference in Georgia. In a letter to Georgian president Shevardnadze, U.S. president Bush praised Georgia's "invaluable contribution to the campaign to free the world of terrorism". This letter seems to be a sign of an increasingly firm pro-Georgian policy on the part of Washington. A unilateral Russian attack on Georgia would seriously damage Russia's reputation worldwide and U.S.-Russian relations in particular, while providing little concrete gains to Moscow. The U.S. is interested in both keeping some sort of stability in the South Caucasus and preventing Russia from entering Georgia without Georgian consent, which would in fact spread the Chechen war into the South Caucasus. Therefore unilateral use of force is not in Russia's interest and is therefore unlikely - unless Russia is ready to pursue a far more confrontational path vis-à-vis the U.S., and there is at present no major indication that this is the case.

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