Putting Bush to the Test: The Caucasus and Democracy Promotion

Ian Bremmer is president of Eurasia Group, the political risk consultancy, and senior fellow at the World Policy Institute.

American foreign-policy choices produce effects throughout the world—and not simply in the countries and regions for which they were designed. The Bush administration’s talk of freedom, democracy, and respect for human rights resonates with those who, inspired by the rhetoric, have the power to complicate the more “pragmatic” aspects of the US foreign-policy agenda. Local actors, inspired by encouraging words and gestures from Washington, sometimes adapt American idealism to assert their own interests and, in the process, can pull Washington into conflicts it might otherwise work to avoid.

Just such a scenario could soon unfold in the former Soviet states of the South Caucasus—Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia—where US and Russian interests are increasingly at odds. It’s not that the Bush administration shouldn’t take a genuine interest in the development of viable democracies in the Caucasus; in the abstract, the United States believes pluralist democracy is preferable to tyranny in every corner of the world. But foreign policy is never crafted in the abstract, and the sharp transition of reliably stable, but authoritarian, states into potentially chaotic democratic ones may not be in Washington’s—or anyone else’s—short-term interest.

In some areas of the world, regional volatility can cause severe harm to Washington’s interests. Local unrest in the Caucasus, for example, could do lasting harm to Washington’s already damaged relationship with Russia, an important strategic ally in the global war on terrorism. This danger is present in the Caucasus for many reasons.

First, while Washington has largely ignored the region of late in favour of engagement in the politics of Ukraine and of Central Asia, the United States has security and economic interests there. Second, Moscow believes political upheaval in the Caucasus threatens Russia’s security, and it will act to address that threat without regard for international opinion. Finally, there are a number of local actors in the Caucasus who believe they have reason to destabilise the existing status quo. As Washington pledges support for reform over tyranny, the peoples of the Caucasus are listening.

From Unanimity to Difference

Broadly speaking, there have been three phases in the impact on the Caucasus of the US–Russian relationship since the end of the Cold War. The first phase began with the emergence of the Russian Federation from the rubble of the Soviet Union in 1992. The second began on 11 September 2001. The November 2003 “Rose Revolution” in Georgia launched the third phase.

During the first phase, the United States and Russia shared a common interest in stability in the Caucasus. For Russia, the collapse of the Soviet Union into its constituent parts ignited fears that the new Russian Federation might soon follow suit. Russia’s southern tier seemed to both Moscow and Washington the most likely source of destabilising unrest, particularly from restive Muslim populations. While the Russian military did take steps to ensure that a potentially hostile Georgia remained weak and divided, Russia’s political elite, generally speaking, viewed stability in the southern Caucasus as a buffer against the influence of Muslim states to the south on Russia’s own Muslim population.

The United States had two principal reasons to favour stability over change in the Caucasus in the 1990s. First, stability along Russia’s borders increased the likelihood of stability in Russia. President Bill Clinton hoped Boris Yeltsin’s efforts to move Russia towards democracy, free-market capitalism, and better relations with the West would reward the United States with an important strategic partner in Moscow and would end the threat of nuclear war that dominated the Cold War period.

Second, following the first Gulf War and the imposition of sanctions on Iraq, the United States looked to the potentially oil-rich Caspian Sea region to diversify America’s oil supply away from the politically volatile Middle East. The United States saw value in the construction of an oil pipeline that bypassed politically hostile Iran and unstable Afghanistan while moving crude oil from the Caspian directly to the Mediterranean. In addition, because Russia then held a virtual monopoly on oil and gas pipelines that connected Central Asia with the West, the United States and Europe conceived the new pipeline project to bypass Russia, removing any temptation for a future, less friendly, Russian government to use energy as a weapon against the West. The result was the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, which was finally completed on 25 May this year by an international consortium led by British Petroleum. Because the BTC pipeline crosses the territories of Azerbaijan and Georgia, stability in the Caucasus was essential for the successful completion of the project.

The terrorist attacks of 11 September 2024 pushed Washington’s relationship with Moscow into a second phase and brought their security interests closer together than at any time since the end of the Second World War. Faced with a war in Afghanistan, Washington relied heavily on intelligence from the Kremlin to oust the Taliban and to root out the al-Qaeda terrorist organisation. Vladimir Putin hoped to harness George W. Bush’s zeal for eradicating jihadist terrorist cells to his own “war on terror” against Chechen separatists. If Putin felt he needed stability in the Caucasus to protect Russia’s security and to stem the flow of Islamists from Central Asia towards Afghanistan and the Middle East, so much the better for Washington. Bush famously looked into Putin’s soul and caught a glimpse of the many good reasons to resist any temptation roundly to condemn Russia’s violent suppression of Chechen separatists in the northern Caucasus. And, as the BTC pipeline neared completion, stability along its route served America’s energy interests as Washington again went to war with Saddam Hussein.

But the Georgian revolution in late 2003 began a new phase in the US–Russian relationship in the Caucasus, one that continues to develop and to drive a wedge between US and Russian calculations of national interest. In this third phase, Russia is more determined than ever to support stability over change in the Caucasus. The policy-shift has come in Washington, where a new emphasis on the global spread of democracy leads the White House to favour popular reform movements over preservation of the status quo.

A Widening Gulf

As the horror of 9/11 has receded in the American consciousness, the perception of the US-led global war on terror has evolved towards a longer-term view that demands more than military victories and highly publicised arrests of al-Qaeda members. Immediately following his re-election in November 2004, President Bush adopted a new strategy. A consensus has emerged within the White House that winning the war on terror requires that Washington undermine what the administration calls the world’s remaining “outposts of tyranny”. It is now widely accepted that authoritarian regimes that have not yet joined the global march towards democratic values have spawned a deep popular frustration, particularly in the Muslim world, and that this frustration is a primary source of men and money for Islamist terror groups.

Even before the change in Bush administration rhetoric had fully crystallised, 36-year-old Mikheil Saakashvili led a peaceful revolution for democratic reform in Georgia in November 2003. The US-educated, Western-oriented lawyer promised to attack Georgia’s endemic corruption, rescue its ailing economy, and lead Georgia towards possible membership in Western clubs such as NATO and even the European Union. The Bush administration was slow to back the revolution, but as it became clear that Saakashvili’s triumph was a fait accompli, the White House hailed it as a victory for democracy. Hoping to protect Russia’s strategically valuable alliance with Washington in the war against Islamic radicals, and despite criticism from Russian nationalists, Putin quietly acquiesced.

But when protests erupted in Ukraine over its hopelessly rigged elections in late 2004, neither Bush nor Putin could hide the fact that they were directly at odds over democracy in a former Soviet republic. On 3 December, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich was declared the winner in the bitterly contested presidential election, while Western-sponsored exit polls suggested that opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko was the true winner. Despite reports from European and Ukrainian election monitors of widespread and egregious voting fraud, Putin quickly recognised Yanukovich, the candidate who favoured close Ukrainian ties with Moscow, as the winner. As European and American officials publicly condemned the election, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov warned that Ukrainian politics should be considered an “internal matter”, and expressed concern that Western countries were secretly pulling Ukraine towards the West. Putin himself grumbled about Western interference in the former Soviet space, and he paid a heavy price domestically for backing down in the face of the Western consensus that Yushchenko, deeply suspicious of Russian manipulation of Ukrainian politics, was the rightful Ukrainian president.

By the time the angry and frustrated citizens of Kyrgyzstan unceremoniously sent their president, Askar Akaev, into exile in Moscow in March 2005, the conflict between Washington and Moscow over change in the former Soviet space was moving dangerously towards critical mass.

Putin has begun to wonder if Washington’s promotion of democratic change in the former Soviet Union might not be directed at Russia itself. He may be on to something. Much has changed since the early days of the Bush–Putin strategic alliance. It is not simply events on Russia’s periphery that leads the Bush administration to emphasise the need for democracy in the post-Soviet space: Putin’s own autocratic actions have led the Bush team towards a forward-leaning approach to democracy promotion in the region.

Following the horrific September 2004 terrorist attack on a Russian school in the northern Caucasus, Putin took a number of political steps that have led many around the world to question his repeated professions of commitment to democracy in Russia. Putin announced his intention to halt direct popular election of governors in Russia’s eighty-nine regions. The president, subject to ratification by the local legislatures, now handpicks Russian governors. Putin also did away with gubernatorial term limits. Sitting governors now have a chance to hold their posts indefinitely; all they need is the favour of the Kremlin. And if the Russian president amends the constitution and does away with his own term limits—as many of his political dependents have urged—Russia’s governors may be seeking his favour for many years to come.

In addition, parliamentary seats are now filled from national party lists, a move that in effect relieves Russian lawmakers of political dependence on any particular local constituency. Parliamentarians now depend for their seats not on local voters but on party leaders, an effective way for Putin to reduce the number of variables he faces as he pushes legislation through the Duma.

It’s not just regional governors and Duma members that find themselves serving at the pleasure of Russia’s president. In October 2004, by a vote of 175 to 2, Russia’s upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, approved a measure to give Putin effective control over the body that approves would-be judges for the country’s highest courts. It also gives the president the power to discipline and dismiss senior judges if, once chosen, they demonstrate qualities the Kremlin wants to discourage.

The Russian broadcast media have been under the Kremlin’s vigilant control for more than three years. Following the attack on the Russian school, the Kremlin even began to harass and to sack influential members of the print media deemed insufficiently loyal to the president’s anti-terrorist campaign. And the arrest and imprisonment of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia’s richest man and a potential political rival of Putin’s, leaves the Russian president open to charges of being prepared to use Russian law to suit his purposes no matter how much criticism he has to endure, from within Russia or from the West.

Potential Flashpoints

While the forces driving the White House and the Kremlin in opposite directions have many sources and have played out on many fronts, it is in the Caucasus that the relationship may soon reach a dangerous turning point. It is there that the United States and Russia could find themselves on opposite sides of locally inspired armed conflicts.

Armenians may soon prove as angry and frustrated as the Kyrgyz—and for the same reasons. Graft and official corruption plague not only President Robert Kocharian’s government but also the daily transactions by which Armenians live. As in Kyrgyzstan, poverty and economic stagnation afflict those who live outside the capital. Demonstrations in April 2004 calling for a referendum on Kocharian’s government—or even his outright ouster—were brutally put down. While the United States has, so far, done little to support calls for change in Armenia, more intense public protest may soon put Washington’s commitment to democratic reform to the test and leave President Bush with some uncomfortable choices.

In Azerbaijan, the increasingly unpopular authoritarian rule of Heydar Aliev gave way in October 2003 to the increasingly unpopular authoritarian rule of his son Ilham. The younger Aliev’s governing party, “Yeni Azerbaycan”, looks set to lose a significant number of seats from its substantial majority in November’s parliamentary elections. If it does, the result may embolden opposition demonstrators to challenge directly the continued repressive rule of the Aliev clan and lead to unrest, particularly if the largesse Azerbaijanis expect from the BTC pipeline doesn’t trickle down to ordinary citizens—a good bet given the level of official corruption in the country. Washington may well call for respect for the will of the majority and intervene to ensure unrest in the country doesn’t threaten the pipeline. The Kremlin, recognising that all the democracy movements in the former Soviet space may encourage disgruntled Russians to import the unrest to their own country, may defend a government crackdown—as it did when violence erupted in Uzbekistan in May this year.

There is a further threat to stability in both Armenia and Azerbaijan: in the early 1990s, twenty-five thousand died as Armenia won a bitter war with Azerbaijan over the Armenian-dominated Azerbaijani enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. That conflict has been frozen in ceasefire for more than a decade. But Azerbaijan insists the matter is not closed. The revenue Azerbaijan earns from the BTC pipeline—which bypasses Armenia—may finance a resumption of the war and throw the southern Caucasus into violent chaos.

But the most likely US–Russian flashpoint may well arise in Georgia. Saakashvili, emboldened by (what he believes is) near unconditional support from Washington, may launch a military campaign to restore Georgian control of the breakaway, Russian-supported autonomous regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Saakashvili has shown little capacity actually to govern his country, and the Bush administration can fairly be accused of having already offered the Georgian president too much slack. The United States has demonstrated some willingness to rein Saakashvili in when his provocations directly threaten US interests—as when he threatened to use US-trained Georgian troops to settle a political standoff in Ajaria, another of Georgia’s breakaway regions. But the Bush administration has made such a point of supporting the Georgian president that he may be forgiven for assuming deeper US backing for his government than actually exists. Most recently, Bush braved Kremlin anger by visiting Tbilisi following his trip to Moscow for ceremonies marking the sixtieth anniversary of the allied victory in the Second World War—ceremonies Saakashvili conspicuously boycotted.

The Georgian president successfully returned Ajaria to Georgian rule last year. But South Ossetia and Abkhazia pose much more difficult, and potentially bloody, challenges. Saakashvili pledged in 2004 to “finalise the status” of the two regions before the end of his presidency. But the continued presence of three thousand Russian soldiers in Soviet-era military bases in Georgia and the belligerence of leaders in both the secessionist enclaves suggest Saakashvili will pay dearly if he tries to retake them by force. Low-level, but deadly, skirmishes last year reminded many in Georgia that the wars there in the early 1990s exacted a heavy price on all sides. Particularly dangerous was the fighting in South Ossetia in August 2004, following a failed anti-smuggling campaign by the government, a step towards attempting to regain control of the region. This was the most serious fighting for years and brought Tbilisi to the brink of outright war with South Ossetia again. It was a perfect example of how poorly implemented policies can worsen the security environment. If the Georgian president failed to notice, he may stumble into a conflict that places the United States and Russia on opposite sides of a bloody civil war and that does lasting harm to the US–Russian relationship.

Awkward Choices

In the end, the Bush administration could decide, of course, that it won’t be drawn into conflict with Russia, no matter what develops in the Caucasus. But it is highly unlikely that Washington will back off altogether if Russia is seen actively to support autocracy in the region or if it takes steps that threaten the BTC pipeline. The White House’s response to unrest in the Caucasus will depend on how and where it occurs.

The May 2005 violence in Uzbekistan and the muted reaction to President Islam Karimov’s bloody crackdown on dissent demonstrate the limits of US support for democracy movements that don’t directly alter matters in the more “European” areas of the former Soviet territory. The Pentagon’s support for Karimov flows directly from the assistance he has provided in combating terrorism in Afghanistan and Central Asia. And the Bush administration has proven more willing to wink at the suppression of dissent when there is any hint that opposition leaders may be Islamic fundamentalists, violent or not. But Washington has already certified Georgia’s “European credentials” and continues to support Saakashvili’s government with cash and training for Georgian troops. (Armenia may benefit from the European designation too.)

In that respect, Azerbaijan may be the true test. The jury is still out on how Washington would respond if a credible Azerbaijani opposition movement directly challenged Ilham Aliev’s rule. Because November’s parliamentary elections may precipitate such a challenge, it is a question Washington would do well to begin considering now, if it has not done so already.

Finally, the Bush administration has few near-term options for reversing Putin’s autocratic behaviour in Russia. But the United States now enjoys unprecedented influence in the Caucasus, and many of the potentially dire scenarios foreseeable there are preventable. President Bush has ample opportunity to impress on Mikheil Saakashvili that, while Washington heartily supports genuine democratic reform in Georgia, it will offer him nothing if he continues to threaten a war on his territory that will damage all concerned. The Bush administration can also make clear to Robert Kocharian that it cannot indefinitely ignore his habit of frustrating reform efforts in Armenia. And it can persuade Ilham Aliev that dynasties don’t last forever, and that if Azerbaijan intends to protect its good relations with the United States, his government cannot completely ignore calls for genuine political change.

In the meantime, the Bush administration knows it cannot afford a one-size-fits-all approach to reform movements everywhere in the world. Support for democratic change and fair elections in Ukraine and Georgia was grounded in Washington’s confidence that well-organised and competent opposition figures were waiting in the wings to establish capable governance in the ashes of regimes unworthy of their citizens. That credible alternative government was not necessarily available in Uzbekistan; it may not be available in Azerbaijan.

On the other hand, if the Bush White House ignores the Caucasus in favour of conflict zones it believes are closer to the front in the war on terror, it may soon be faced with unnecessarily difficult choices in a potentially volatile region.