The outbreak of open warfare between Russia and Georgia over the disputed territory of South Ossetia underlines the dangerous volatility of the post-Cold War political situation in the Caucasus. The region's numerous nationalities enjoyed an enforced amity under Soviet rule, but after the collapse of the USSR in 1991 ethnic nationalism reasserted itself and rival groups came into conflict. Bitter and bloody in themselves, these Caucasian clashes have a broader significance because of the part they can play in wider geopolitical struggles.
The first such wider struggle which was reflected in the Caucasus was the emerging clash between a newly resurgent Islam and its infidel enemies. Christian Armenia sought to aid the independence struggles of the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh within the neighbouring Muslim state of Azerbaijan. Between 1992 and 1994 Russia assisted the Armenians in their war, finally forcing Azerbaijan to give up its efforts to subdue Nagorno-Karabakh, which became a quasi-independent state linked to Armenia.
However, if Russia could defeat Islamic aspirations abroad, it had less success at home in certain parts of the Caucasus which remained within the Russian Federation. The Muslims of Chechnya proved the biggest problem. They had a tradition of resistance to Russian hegemony that reached back several centuries and achieved its peak in Shamil's great struggle during the nineteenth century. It was hardly surprising that when the Soviet Union broke up, the Chechens declared their own independent state.
In 1994-96 the Russians carried on a bitter war to end Chechen independence, but in the end they were defeated. In 1999 Russia resumed its onslaught on Chechnya, leading to further heavy fighting. Nevertheless by 2005 the Chechen resistance had been broken and violence sank to manageable levels. In part this had been achieved by Russia offering deals to certain Chechen resisters. They were allowed to run the state so long as they stayed loyal to Moscow.
In the aftermath of 9/11 it might have been expected that the USA and its allies would show more sympathy for Russia's struggles against Islamist insurgents in Chechnya, but this proved not to be the case, Britain, for example, still providing refuge for Chechen militants. This Western coolness towards assisting Russia in the Caucasus was because that area was now becoming a battlefield for another wider geopolitical struggle. This was between an expansionist USA and a Russia which felt itself increasingly threatened by NATO encirclement.
The Americans made determined efforts to befriend those Caucasian states which had political grievances against Russia. These were Georgia, angry at Russian support for the break-away regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia within its territory, and Azerbaijan, which wished to regain its lost region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Another reason for American interest in these countries was oil. The potential of the vast oil and gas reserves around the Caspian Sea became well known during the 1990s. The chief problem in exploiting them was that most of the pipelines from the area to the wider world passed through Russia. The United States wished to find a pipeline route that avoided Russia and seemed to have found it through the Caucasian corridor formed by Azerbaijan and Georgia. There already was an old pipeline following the route from the Caspian to the Black Sea, but the Americans favoured a new pipeline that would go from Azerbaijan through Georgia to Turkey, with a terminal at Ceyhan, a Turkish port on the Mediterranean Sea. This pipeline is now operational.
To further secure its new position in the Caucasus, the USA gave military aid to both Georgia and Azerbaijan, and held out the possibility of NATO membership to Georgia. In return President Saakashvili of Georgia was happy to send Georgian troops to America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Saakashvili's anti-Russian rhetoric increased markedly during the first half of 2008 and he made clear his intention of repossessing both Abkhazia and South Ossetia, by force if necessary. Apparently both Washington and Moscow did not take his words seriously, given the surprise of both the USA and Russia at Georgia's military move into South Ossetia.
For Russia this is clearly a provocation that cannot be ignored. If pro-Russian South Ossetia falls to Georgia, it can only encourage Azerbaijan to renew its efforts to retake Nagorno-Karabakh. That in turn would probably rekindle the insurgency in Chechnya, seriously undermining Russia's position in the Caucasus. Moscow has chosen to fight. The Georgians are clearly counting on the USA and its NATO allies to come and save them, but are those countries ready to escalate a regional war into a great power confrontation that risks worldwide conflict?
