2023 Nanovic Forum Event Brief: “The Failure to Make a More Secure World”

“The Failure to Make a More Secure World”

Giorgi Margvelashvili on the consequences of post-Soviet Bloc politics

Nanovic Forum Lecture

February 8, 2023

Nanovic Forum Lecture

The failure to make a more secure world: Giorgi Margvelashvili on the consequences of post-Soviet Bloc politics

BY GRÁINNE MCEVOY

On February 8, 2023, the Nanovic Institute for European Studies welcomed Dr. Giorgi Margvelashvili, fourth president of the Republic of Georgia (2013-2018), to deliver the 2023 Nanovic Forum lecture. Both online and to a packed Hesburgh Center auditorium at the University of Notre Dame, Margvelashvili delivered a lecture, titled “Russian Aggression in Ukraine and Eastern Europe: Post-Soviet Bloc Politics and Consequences.”

After a brief welcome from Clemens Sedmak, director of the Nanovic Institute and professor of social ethics, Margvelashvili was introduced by Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., vice president and associate provost for interdisciplinary initiatives, associate professor of political science, and Nanovic Institute faculty fellow at the University of Notre Dame. Dowd noted that he had the honor of first meeting Margvelashvili at an annual conference of the Catholic Universities Partnership at Sulkhan-Saba Orbeliani University in Tbilisi in May 2022.

In addition to the speaker’s great warmth and approachability, Dowd said, “he spoke with great clarity about his own country, the challenges it faces, and also about Russia, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the role of universities in this context.”

“Everyone agrees that Ukraine must win, but no one knows how Russia should lose.”

—Giorgi Margvelashvili

Citing an interview with Margvelashvili in 2014, Dowd noted his long-standing warnings about the international community’s failures to punish Russia for aggressive extra-territorial actions. The failure to punish Russia for its 2008 invasion of Georgia, Magvelashvili said in 2014, allowed Moscow to think that it could get away with seizing Ukraine’s Crimea region: “Today we can state with regret that we and the international community have failed to use these six years to force Russia to realize that actions like these are not only wrong but ineffective.”

Closing his introduction, Dowd said: “As a philosopher and political leader but also as a citizen of Georgia that was exposed to Russian aggression in 2008, Giorgi Margvelashvili has a lot to offer to help us to understand the situation that we now find ourselves in with regard to Europe and Russia, Russia and the world.”

Why did we not build a better humankind?

Margvelashvili set up his lecture with some details on Georgia, which, as the first sovereign state that was attacked and violated by the Russian Federation following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, has a history and destiny that is closely linked to the war in Ukraine. Georgia is a small nation of only 3.5 million people, but one with a 23-century history characterized by tolerance and freedom of conscience, regardless of religious, ideological or other differences. This, Margvelashvili explained briefly, is what Georgia is and aspires to be, a Georgia that, before its occupation by the Soviet Army in 1921, had women and ethnic minorities in government.

Margvelashvili then raised a question to which he doesn’t yet have any clear answers. As preamble, he explained that after the devastation of two world wars, two previously dangerous and genocidal countries — Germany and Japan — emerged from the post-war process as “two of the most brilliant nations, with security, economics, democracy, human rights.” Margvelashvili attributes this achievement to the “careful actions of the winning coalition.” In comparing this to the political settlement that followed the end of the Cold War in 1991, a conflict that by some estimates claimed the lives of 10-15 million people, Marghvelashvili asked “did we get a better humankind?” Today, he explained, we have a country in Europe — Russia — that is launching a war in Eastern Europe that could become nuclear. When compared to the close of World War II, Margvelashvili

argued, the resolution following the end of the Cold War was not handled in a way that promoted long-term peace. His lecture highlighted the mistakes that he thinks have been made over the last three decades.

No clear vision for a post-Soviet union

For Margvelashvili, the first mistake was that when the Soviet Union needed to be rebuilt after its collapse in 1991, there was no clear vision, particularly from the U.S. and Western nations, of how that should be done. Without a clear vision, the process of restructuring the former Soviet Union became unpredictable.

At the end of the Cold War, Margvelashvili believed there was a great partnership between U.S. President George H.W. Bush and Soviet President Mikail Gorbachev. These were two leaders, he said, who shared a vision for what they wanted to achieve: to reform totalitarianism in the Soviet Union and to decrease military tension. When Gorbachev lost power and the Soviet Union dissolved, a new concept developed as a substitute: a commonwealth of independent states. This vision for the former Soviet Union was promoted by the first Russian President, Boris Yeltsin, with the goal of unifying formerSoviet nations through a shared commitment to economic goals and partnership. But this, according to Margvelashvili, also failed, in large part because it didn’t answer the needs of individual nations.

As an example, Marghvelashvili cited the inaction of Western partners in the context of a civil war in Georgia in 1993, a conflict that involved proxy participation by Russian forces on one side. While the shells fell on the city of Sukhumi, the capital of Georgia’s Abkhazia region, then-President Eduard Shevardnadze, who had established a reputation as a great partner with Western powers during his time as the Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs, appealed: “Save my people. Humanity cannot be happy, cannot enjoy the goodness of peace [while] the threat of death awaits even the smallest nation.” But, there was no reaction. As Margvelashvili explained, the idea of a commonwealth of nations could not work when it promised nations like Georgians, Armenians, or Moldovans little security.

Putin and the West

Margvelashvili explained that a new phase of relations between the West and Russia began when Vladimir Putin emerged as Yeltsin’s successor. Putin, he reminded the audience, was very positively greeted as a partner by George W. Bush, and when Barack Obama came to office in 2008, he was also ready to work with Putin and to press reset on the U.S.-Russia relationship. This beginning, according to Margvelashvili, set the U.S. and its Western allies on a course of weak, ineffective responses to progressive Russian aggression against its neighbors.

For Margvelashvili, Putin’s “Munich speech” in 2007 was a key development in which he articulated an understanding of a world order in which Russia would fight for its national interests, interests that Putin defined as confronting the Western influence. Because of this positioning, Margvelashvili explained, many geopolitical analysts today rationalize Russian foreign policy as a response to threats to its national interests, but they do so without indicating any specific example of where these interests were threatened. This understanding of Russian foreign policy, he continued, fails to take into account the experience of its neighboring countries, “and the 100 million people who lived under the fear that Russian national interests would suddenly be exercised on their territory with the hard power of Kalashnikovs.”

In a survey of the subsequent chain of events, Margvelashvili described how in August 2008, just months after a NATO conference in which Western allies gave a vague promise of security to Russia’s neighbors, Russia occupied 20% of Georgia’s territory with military force, carried out ethnic cleansing, and declared two new nations within Georgian territory. He described this military move by Russia as “a response to the weakness of our partners.” When Russia moved into Crimea and regions of eastern Ukraine in 2014, “again, there was no clear message … that this is unacceptable.” When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Margvelashvili argued, the lack of a more forceful response from the U.S. and Western allies was rooted in predictions that Ukraine would fall within weeks and that President Volodymyr Zelensky should be encouraged to flee his country.

The response of Western powers to this pattern of Russian incursions and invasions, Margvelashvili argued, has been: “Let them do it. It’s their sphere of influence. We don’t accept this, but let them do it.”

Then, he continued, suddenly everything changed. This change was not the result of complex strategic thinking or high-level decision-making but due to the actions of one individual who “decided he is going to fight and die for his nation, an individual that … united the nation.” Margvelashvili continued: “It is a very interesting thing that [Zelensky] standing up to this aggression has triggered the process that is forcing the leaders of the free world to start to support them.” He praised the Ukrainian president’s decision to forgo closed-door meetings and use the more public fora of speaking to parliaments and assemblies where he could speak boldly and openly, “making his case because he is on the side of the truth and he doesn’t have to hide anything.” Margvelashvili explained that by making appeals in this way, Zelensky created dynamics within the free societies of Western countries where citizens have put pressure on their political representatives to respond much more boldly to Russian aggression in Ukraine.

Ukraine must win, but how will Russia lose?

The willingness of the Ukrainian people and their leader to fight, Margvelashvili continued, has brought us to a situation where Western societies and their political elite agree that Ukraine must win. In a reflection of the dynamic in 1991 where there was goodwill but no agreement on how the Soviet Union should collapse, today, he said, “everyone agrees that Ukraine must win, but no one knows how Russia should lose.” The same open questions exist now as in the 1990s: what will happen with the nuclear resources on Ukraine’s territory when it wins? How will Ukraine’s victory affect Russia, which does not have any kind of model for the succession of power nor any political or economic elite who could take responsibility for change?

Preempting this power vacuum, Margvelashvili issued a warning about the dangerous development of the creation of private, mercenary armies in Russia, some directly recruited from prison populations. This, he said, presents a very unclear picture of what will happen to Russia and its people after a defeat in Ukraine, particularly given that there is “no plan from our allies and friends and no clear vision of how it has to continue.”

Returning to his question about why the post-war settlement in 1991 was not as successful as that of 1945, Margvelashvili presented one possible answer: political elites were confronted with a new

reality in which the winning side was responsible, but they allowed that responsibility to be diluted by political theories about the balance of power, by corruption, and by economic interests. What we are left with, he concluded, is a more dangerous Europe and a more dangerous world, and the approach of turning a blind eye to violations of agreements in order to have an easier life has not worked.

Margvelashvili concluded with an anecdote about a meeting he had at the beginning of his presidency with a political club of decision-makers in a European capital. In this private conversation, Margvelashvili described Russia’s invasion of Georgian territory, the ways in which it was a violation of international law and principles, and made a plea for support. The leader of the group suggested that, as a philosopher, Margvelashvili’s approach was not that of a political realist. Margvelashvili pointed out that Western leaders say idealistic things in public but present an often conflicting, “realistic” position in private. Putin, on the other hand, is always consistent in his message, prompting Margvelashvili to ask: “why is the villain … more sincere than you?” For Margvelashvili, ideological hypocrisy demonstrates weakness. This, he believes, is the reason why we have been unable to make a better and more secure world for ourselves and for our children.

The event ended with a rigorous question and answer session in which Margvelashvili expanded on his position around the topic of a new Marshall Plan in Ukraine and other parts of the former Soviet Union, the Western media, and NATO membership. To hear Margvelashvili’s responses to these questions and watch his lecture in full, please visit the Nanovic Institute’s website or YouTube page.

The Nanovic Forum, facilitated by the Nanovic Institute for European Studies, deepens Notre Dame’s rich tradition of connections to Europe by bringing prominent figures to campus in a wide range of fields to explores, discuss, and debate the most pressing questions about Europe today. Generously sponsored by Robert and Elizabeth Nanovic, the Forum invites its distinguished guests to interact with Notre Dame in ways they most wish, which can be surprising. For a complete archive of lectures visit nanovic.nd.edu/forum.