POLITICS
GEORGIA TODAY MARCH 11 - 17, 2022
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Could Wars Be Avoided? OP-ED BY NUGZAR B. RUHADZE
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lbert Einstein - 'I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.' I’ve been taking this famous quote by the genius very seriously since the Russian president’s recent verbal threat of nuclear assault resonated throughout the world. Scary, wasn’t it? To bring my negatively-impressed self to senses, I went to one of wonderful Albert’s more encouraging thoughts that peace cannot be kept by force but can only be achieved by understanding. These words fill my boggled mind with some confidence that wars can be avoided if Man starts thinking more rationally and a little wiser than, let’s say, in the time of Mongolian invasions 700 hundred years ago, which resulted in 60 million deaths. Incidentally, the Second World War went something over that figure, which means that Homosapiens have not changed their attitude about violence as such in the thousands of years they have been around. Isn’t this funny? We are still killing each other with the same medieval ease and determination, all the while raising the gravest questions about modern human behavior. The thinking part of the world might still remember that in the recent past, the well-known brief encounter between United States President Donald Trump and North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un gave impetus to a frightening awareness that Mankind is moving closer to a nuclear war. Putin’s hot remark (let’s reservedly call it ‘remark’) on the same subject has strongly substantiated that ominous presumption. Auspiciously, the scientific forces in the field of psychological research are not idle and seem to be optimistic when it comes to the question of whether wars could be avoided. Provided the answer to this question
is positive, another one pops up forthwith: How to do that? How to actually prevent war and make our beautiful earth a safer place to live? Well, if in the past several millennia, Man has not been able to get its act together and find a way to establish stable peace on planet Earth, how could a regular contemporary researcher do the job overnight? But “There is Still Hope, Brother” – this is the optimistic phrase in the finale of the 1959 Stanley Kramer’s post-apocalyptic science fiction drama film ‘On the Beach’, depicting the aftermath of a nuclear war. Having seen that movie, one would not only not threaten their fellow planetdwellers with nuclear attack, but would never think about it even in their most vicious imagination. Writing this, I certainly have in mind the current Russian-Ukrainian war and the possibility of avoiding it if the parties to it, as well as their outside ‘helpers’, had acted more wisely and more rationally, as a result of which the unwanted and totally unjustified bloodshed could have been prevented. I will only attempt here to construct a hypothetical model of a happier development of events: A healthily and pragmatically thinking third party was found and assigned by the international community to take on a logically-strong mediationhonestly, professionally and perseveringly looking for solutions to the dispute between USA-NATO and Russia to resolve the prolonged prewar conflict between them. In doing so, said mediator tried to let both Russia and Ukraine save face and maintain a positive moral image, not letting any of the sides lose sense of their long-earned international authority. The chosen mediator was moderately successful in building trust, encouraging communication among all actors in the given version of prewar interaction, being sure that all parties had a genuine trust of the mediator. The mediator arranged give-and-take exchanges between the conflicting parties, reducing hostilities and building trusting relationships with
final conflict-defusing mutual proposals. The extant psychological research suggests that distrust can be reduced and peace promoted if conflicting nations or groups are engaged in specific cooperative ventures with mutual benefits, and the mediating interventions are most effective when they involve interactions,
considering equal status, common goals and cooperation. More attention needs to be given to developing and implementing prevention strategies that remove the conditions for conflict and war, which was not verily done by America, NATO and Russia before the war became inevitable. Adopting preventa-
tive strategies based on cooperative ventures with mutual benefits is invaluable. The social network threats can simply fuel the fire of conflict, but wellthought-out strategies for mediation and cooperation may well help to extinguish it. And there is no doubt whatsoever that prevention is better than cure.
Georgia’s Balancing Game ANALYSIS BY EMIL AVDALIANI
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ussia’s war on Ukraine is transfixing the world, and for obvious reasons. The sheer brutality and the size of the attack on Europe’s second-biggest state grab all the attention. But under the radar, there lurks another place where Russia’s actions are closely watched, feared, and even antic-
ipated should the offensive in Ukraine present even short-term opportunities to the Kremlin. Georgia is the other country mentioned in Russia’s security demands made in December and addressed to NATO and the EU. The country has waged war with Russia, in 2008, has been invaded, and has two regions occupied (Abkhazia and Tskhinvali, often incorrectly referred to by the Soviet-invented term of South Ossetia.) As you would expect, Georgia is focusing very closely indeed on devel-
opments. Russia’s decision to confront its “Ukraine problem” is only a part of a larger program of pushing Western influence away from its immediate neighborhood and restructuring the European security order. And Georgia is a critical piece of the puzzle. The fear is that if Russia is victorious, it would turn its attention to Georgia. An immediate military campaign is unlikely, but the Kremlin might plausibly extend demands that the country renounces the promise
2008, Russian soldiers block the road on the outskirts of Gori, northwest of the capital Tbilisi, Georgia. Photo by Darko Bandic?AP
made through NATO’s 2008 Bucharest summit that it will one day become a member. Russia could use its small, but heavily armed forces in Abkhazia and Tskhinvali to threaten Tbilisi, which is some 50-60 kilometers away from the occupied zones. This fits the new order Russia has been seeking in the South Caucasus following the Second Nagorno-Karabakh war of 2020. The 3+3 initiative which aims to gather together the three small South Caucasus states and Russia, Turkey, and Iran, is viewed with suspicion by most Georgians. But if Russia wins in Ukraine, Georgia may find it hard to resist the pressure. This partially explains why the Georgian government has been so careful about its position on Russia’s invasion. The mood is febrile, as indicated by days of anti-government demonstrations following Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili’s statement that his country would not impose sanctions on Russia. Later on, Georgian volunteers were reportedly prevented from flying to Ukraine (later denied by the Ukrainian ambassador himself), which caused President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to recall his envoy from Georgia. Internal pressures and wider geopolitical motives put Georgia in a precarious geopolitical position. It needs to simultaneously look attentively at how Ukraine-EU ties develop, not anger Russia, and also respond to wider proUkrainian sentiment. Many remember how Ukrainian President Victor Yushchenko enthusiastically supported Georgia in 2008 and even visited the capital when Russian troops were just 30 kilometers away.
By attempting a nuanced approach, Georgia may be running a risk. In an age of near-unified sentiment against Russia, neutrality could be harmful to a country that made its formal application for European Union (EU) membership on March 3. The war in Ukraine also indicates the status quo ante is no longer feasible. The EU is now emerging as a geopolitical player following its actions against Russia in the last week and the European Parliament has backed Ukrainian membership. Moldova too has applied. Much will depend on how far Russia’s invasion progresses in Ukraine. Cracks in Western resolve will only embolden the Kremlin and push it to act against other neighboring states seeking EU and NATO membership. This precarious geopolitical situation and Georgia is trying to walk a fine line. But here a longer term perspective should prevail: the sudden and nearunprecedented Western unity of 2022 is likely to remain. Russia is turning into what analysts refer to as a “fortress” and is preparing to launch a battle, non-military or otherwise, from the Baltic to the Caspian Sea. Despite its dismal military performance in Ukraine, Russia has significant military and intelligence capabilities; the West has enormous economic, diplomatic and soft power. In the end, the democratic world will prevail against a Kremlin that has painted itself into a corner. How we get from here to there is a question that may present some difficult answers. Emil Avdaliani is a professor at European University and the Director of Middle East Studies at Georgian think-tank, Geocase.
