Competing Views of Sovereignty - SSRN papers

Complexities of Sovereignty: Kosovo, Georgia, and Russian Foreign Policy

Charles E. Ziegler Department of Political Science University of Louisville Louisville, Kentucky 40292 Email: [email protected]

Prepared for presentation to the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, September 2-5, 2010, Washington, D.C. Rough Draft—please do not cite or quote without permission.

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This paper argues that Russia’s international behavior can be conceptualized by understanding how events in the late 20th and early 21st centuries shaped the country’s views on sovereignty. The central research question is the following: how have perceptions of sovereignty shaped Russian foreign policy in the post-communist period? And how does Moscow reconcile its vigorous opposition to Kosovo’s independence with support for the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, when the two situations are roughly comparable? This study analyzes how competing views of sovereignty have shaped Russian foreign policy by drawing on two events in post-communist era: NATO’s defense of Kosovo and the bombing of Yugoslavia, with the subsequent recognition of the latter as an independent state; and the Russo-Georgian war of 2008, with Moscow’s subsequent recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Each case highlights fundamental security issues for both Russia and Europe, and each presents a rich body of material for assessing varying conceptions of sovereignty and how these affect international relations. These cases have been chosen because they present a dilemma that Russia’s leaders have not been able to resolve. Moscow’s positions on the sovereignty of secessionist provinces have been inconsistent—Russia has vigorously opposed sovereignty for Kosovo, yet is supported secession and international sovereignty for Abkhazia and South Ossetia. This paper first explores the domestic factors underlying Moscow’s conceptualization of sovereignty, then uses the Kosovo and Georgian cases to explicate the international dimensions that shape Russian views on sovereignty.

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The Complex Concept of Sovereignty A thorough review of the huge body of literature on sovereignty is beyond the scope of this paper; a brief survey, however, will be useful in placing Russian perceptions of sovereignty in context. 1 Key to the definition of sovereignty is the exercise of supreme authority over a geographically defined territory. One of the most useful studies of the subject is Stephen Krasner’s Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (1999) in which he outlines four types of sovereignty—international legal, Westphalian, domestic, and interdependence. International legal sovereignty refers to mutual recognition; Wesphalian sovereignty to exclusive control over one’s internal affairs and the exclusion of any external authority structures from the state’s internal decision-making processes; domestic sovereignty refers to the effective exercise of authority within a territory; and interdependence sovereignty relates to the ability to regulate movement across boundaries and the potential erosion of control through such developments as globalization. Krasner argues that very few states possess all the attributes of sovereignty— weaker states routinely have their domestic authority violated by more powerful states, and international recognition does not follow clearly established norms. As will become clear later in the paper, disputes involving each of these forms of sovereignty are apparent in the Kosovo and Georgia cases. Sovereignty may be understood as a key article in the constitutions of international society which define state authority. International constitutions—sets of norms embodied formally in international documents such as United Nations declarations, treaties, and more informally in customary law and understandings—obligate states through legitimacy and practice, although they are not necessarily enforced (Philpott: 2001: 21-22). Indeed, Krasner’s 1

See, inter alia, Krasner 1999; Philpott 2001; Spruyt 2005; Fowler and Bunck 1995; Jackson 2007.

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chief argument is that sovereignty is less a set of binding norms than it is a convenient operating principle frequently violated in practice by powerful states—it is organized hypocrisy (Krasner 1999). Although still very important and highly prized by states, sovereignty is subject to the national power and interests of states, and their behavior tends to be governed more by these concerns than by international norms. 2 Norms provide the best guides to predictable state behavior during periods of international stability. Major shocks or seismic historical events (such as the collapse of communism) challenge orthodoxies, resulting in new ideas. The end of the Cold War, for example, encouraged the evolution of norms on sovereignty and new approaches to the acceptability of intervention in nations’ internal affairs, with the development of such concepts as the responsibility to protect. Revolutions in sovereignty result in major changes in at least one of the three faces of authority—who the legitimate polities are, who may become one, and what their prerogatives are (Philpott 2001: 54). This raises the question of how new states (either postcolonial or post-Soviet) embrace these new norms, especially if they are based on customs or understandings. Over the past century Russia’s relationship to international norms has followed a disjointed rather than an evolutionary path. Russia was reborn as a new state twice in the 20th century—with the creation of the revolutionary Bolshevik state in 1917, and with the rejection of the communist single-party authoritarian state in 1991. Following the break-up of the Soviet Union the new Russian state confronted a severe crisis of national identity. Russia was no longer a leader of the communist world, nor was it a superpower. It was no longer authoritarian, nor yet

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Alexander Cooley and Hendrik Spruyt make a strong case that states frequently divide and cede their sovereignty to other states. Cooley and Spruyt 2009.

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was it a fully consolidated democracy. The country initially sought a foreign policy identity close to that of Western Europe and the United States (the idea of a “common European home”), but quickly rejected that identity as constraining and demeaning. Eurasianism gained a few adherents, but the concept provided little in the way of guidance toward constructing a workable foreign policy identity. It was not until Vladimir Putin replaced Boris Yeltsin and began the process of restoring Russian power that a foreign policy based on a broad domestic consensus began to take shape. However, Russian approaches to international legal norms remain fluid, frequently marked by contradictions and “double standards.” The events of 1999 and 2008 were critical in shaping Russian perceptions of international norms, and views of sovereignty were at the very center of these two crises.

Domestic Dimensions of Sovereignty in Post-Communist Russia Over the past century Moscow’s perceptions of sovereignty experienced dramatic shifts, from the radicalized communist utopian approach of the early revolutionary period, through the Soviet imperial outlook of Stalinism and Brezhnevism, to the post-Soviet loss of empire and rebuilding of national identity. The dissolution of the Soviet Union was traumatic for Russians. One of the key components of any sovereign entity is supreme authority of the state over a clearly defined geographic region. The Soviet experience was virtually unique in modern history. The leaders of one of the world’s two most powerful nations voluntarily and with minimal bloodshed relinquished sovereign authority over five million square kilometers of territory and fourteen territorial units, each of which subsequently became a sovereign nation in its own right. In addition, nearly half of the Russian Federation’s remaining subnational units (at

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the urging of Boris Yeltsin) asserted some measure of sovereignty, several came close to seceding, and at least one (Chechnya) declared full independence . Post-communist Russia’s conceptions of sovereignty have been strongly influenced by and reflected in domestic politics, in particular the evolution of federalism. Soviet-era propaganda consistently asserted the fiction that each union republic exercised sovereign authority, up to and including the right of secession. In reality, the Communist Party central apparatus guaranteed that such action would not be tolerated, since it by definition contravened the interests of socialism. In the late perestroika period one consequence of the struggle between Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and Russian President Boris Yeltsin was the latter’s support and encouragement for devolution of power among the non-Russian republics (that would eventually become fully independent) and the various ethnic and non-ethnic territorial units of the Russian Federation. In 1990 Yeltsin famously advised the republics and regions to “take as much sovereignty as they could swallow,” and the result was what has been called a “parade of sovereignties” (Walker 2003: 55-86; Kahn 2000). Federalism seems to present an especially sticky problem for national sovereignty. The idea that sovereign power is not divisible was debated at length during discussions on the U.S. Constitution, and was only resolved after a lengthy and bloody civil war that left the central government ascendant (Rabkin: 2005: 62-65). Certainly an absolute view of sovereignty is inconsistent with the principles of federalism, although Cooley and Spruyt argue persuasively that states regularly bargain and contract over concessions of sovereignty (Cooley and Spruyt 2009). Putin’s recentralizing project indicates that he, and much of the Russian elite, perceived Russia’s nascent federalism as a dangerous erosion of Moscow’s domestic sovereignty. By appointing regional supra-executives, suspending elections of governors, eliminating Yeltsin’s 6

treaties with the regions, and emasculating the Federation Council, Putin sought to restore the center’s sovereignty. While it was to be expected that the more nationalistically-minded republics such as the Baltic and Caucasian states would use the term sovereignty (suverenitet) in their political discourse, it is curious that the Russian Federation units employed the concept of sovereignty, rather than autonomy (avtonomiya) or self-determination (samostoyatel’nost’). The concept of sovereignty was never clearly spelled out in late Soviet discourse; Edward Walker has identified at least fifteen distinct meanings of sovereignty that emerged during the Gorbachev era. The ambiguity of the concept proved useful for opposition forces voicing a wide variety of demands on the central government. (Walker 2003: 6-13). Likewise, Jeff Kahn’s study illustrates how sovereignty was a poorly thought out political strategy of Boris Yeltsin’s, and a strategy used by regional elites to strengthen their bargaining position with the center (Kahn 2000). In fact, most of the Russian territorial units, unlike the fourteen Union Republics, seemed to want greater autonomy from Moscow rather than real sovereignty; the right to realize the benefits of their natural resources, political rights for ethnic minorities, and the right to retain greater budgetary and taxation powers. Yeltsin’s strategy in promoting this decentralization was designed to challenge Gorbachev’s position, and to undercut demands for secession, and in large part this strategy worked (with the notable exception of Chechnya, which declared independence in 1991). However, the result was a hyper-federal system where Moscow negotiated treaties with 46 territories, and often could not enforce national law if powerful governors resisted the center’s authority. Moreover, it was an asymmetric federalism, where the ethno-territorial and richer units negotiated greater concessions than did poorer and Russian ethnic regions. Russia under Yeltsin 7

effectively conceded domestic sovereignty in the interests of territorial integrity, and it did so in a way that promoted inequality and stimulated resentment. The experience with Chechnya illustrated the questionable practice of granting autonomy to the regions, and the first Chechen war (1994-96) highlighted the center’s limited capabilities to exercise domestic sovereignty. Vladimir Putin’s initiation of the second Chechen war (in 1999, following the invasion of Dagestan by Islamic militants and the bombing of several Russian apartment buildings) coincided with a broader program of recentralization domestically, and with NATO’s attack on Serbia in support of Kosovo. Russia’s goals in each case were linked with the leadership’s evolving concept of sovereignty, both domestic and external. Domestically, Putin’s program sought greater control over pluralist forces in Russian society, including independent-minded regional officials, powerful oligarchs, non-governmental organizations (particularly those funded by outside donors), and political parties. Russia’s politics under Yeltsin had been democratic, but a more democratic and pluralist society had evolved in tandem with organized crime, social dislocation, and the rapid influx of foreign corporations, religious groups, and NGOs. For many of Moscow’s elite, particularly the security and military forces (the siloviki), these decentralizing and pluralistic developments threatened to tear the country apart. Putin’s authoritarian approach was aimed at restoring both domestic sovereignty (thorough the “power vertical”) and Westphalian sovereignty. 3 Much of the post-Yeltsin era has witnessed nostalgia for the expansive power of the former Soviet Union, together with a determination to preserve Russia’s territorial integrity at all costs, and a neo-imperial attitude that the former republics should defer to Moscow on critical foreign policy issues. The Soviet model of sovereignty did not connote the same degree of 3

For an explication of these types of sovereignty, see Krasner 2001.

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independence or equality as did the Western model, as the Brezhnev doctrine illustrated with regard to Eastern Europe (see Jones 1990). Russia’s power elite under Putin and Medvedev no longer view sovereignty through the ideological prism of Marxism-Leninism, but rather through the logic of great power politics. Since Russia has been restored to its great power status, it has the right to assert a “sphere of privileged interests” around its periphery according to President Medvedev, in those former republics that are now sovereign states. As Ruth Deyermond has observed, “Post-Soviet interstate relations, especially relations within the CIS, have been characterized by this tension between equality in sovereign statehood and the legacy of federal republic-center relations (Deyermond 2008: 20). Globalization, with its fundamental challenges to the domestic sovereignty of the modern nation-state, presents a dilemma for Russia’s post-Yeltsin leaders. Putin, and to an even greater extent Medvedev, recognize the critical importance of globalization for modernizing the country. Foreign investment and cutting-edge technologies are vital for the country’s development (which is in turn vital for maintaining Russia’s claim to great power status), yet the unregulated influx of people, goods and technologies threatens Moscow’s sovereign control. During the 1990s Russia experienced a flood of foreign consumer products, unfamiliar religious groups, and nongovernmental organizations, along with advice from the IMF and Western economists about the best way to liberalize Russian’s economy. These forces of globalization disseminated within a previously closed system liberal norms and values that were both unfamiliar and largely unwelcome, and contributed to the chaotic environment of the 1990s; from the perspective of many thoughtful Russians, they also eroded the country’s sovereignty (Kokoshin 2006: 15-17). One of Russian leaders’ (and Russian nationalists’) greatest fears has been the prospect of transnational corporations exploiting Russia’s vast natural resource wealth, extracting huge 9

profits while relegating the country to a raw materials supplier to more developed states. For this reason the Putin administration leveraged majority control over large oil and natural gas projects, enhanced the role of the state in the commanding heights of the economy, and enacted legislation designating a range of economic sectors as vital to Russian national security and restricting foreign participation in their development. President Medvedev, by contrast, has emphasized the critical importance of modernizing Russia’s economy, proposing the creation of Silicon-valley style corridors (the Skolkovo innovation city near Moscow), stressing the importance of modern legal foundations for the economy, and attacking Russia’s pervasive corruption (Matthews 2010). Democracy promotion efforts by Western governments and NGOs could also be considered an unwelcome aspect of globalization from the Kremlin’s perspective, or at least a mixed blessing. Even moderate or liberal Russians consider Western-sponsored democratization not as a process of adopting universal values, but rather the promotion of a nationalist (usually American) ideology. In contrast, the Russian position is that democracy is nation-specific, and should be established according to each country’s national and legal traditions. 4 Foreign support for “democratic forces” inside Russia and its neighbors thus is considered one of a series of strategies designed to weaken Russia, together with the eastward expansion of NATO and attempts to counter Moscow’s integrative strategies in the post-Soviet space (Kokoshin 2003: 22). Globalization is critical to the modernization goals of elites, but by strengthening certain regions it also helps them resist authoritarian encroachments on local governmental autonomy,

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Andrei Kokoshin quotes scholar Alexei Bogaturov and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to this effect. Kokoshin 2006: 18-19).

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free media, and other democratic institutions, posing an additional dilemma for the center (Lankina 2009: 248). Globalization tends to facilitate development in the more efficient, geographically favored regions, widening inequalities between regional leaders and laggards. In Russia’s case the Northwest regions, Moscow and St. Petersburg—those closer to the gravitational pull of the European Union—have fared much better than Russia’s southern or eastern regions, and they tend to be more autonomous from the central government. Russian leaders do not yet seem to have resolved this dilemma, but Putin may be seen as representing the more anti-globalization tendency in Russian politics, while Medvedev’s policies seem ready to accept the sovereignty-limiting consequences of globalization as necessary for modernization (“Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation” 2008). Globalization is a challenge for Russia because it establishes limits on the prerogatives of central authorities, and thus constrains sovereignty. From the Russian perspective, genuine sovereignty cannot be separated from power. Russian officials and scholars note that weak and failing states cannot fully exercise sovereignty, and are therefore subject to exploitation by more powerful states. This was the case with Russia in the 1990s. Kokoshin makes the point that a number of major powers—China, India, Brazil, Japan, and the larger states of the European Union—are actively defending and expanding their sovereignty, often in opposition to Washington’s policies, rather than acquiesce to globalization’s erosion of sovereignty. Weak states are also more susceptible to humanitarian catastrophes, genocide, and refugee problems; as a consequence, they often need international protectors. Real sovereignty according to Kokoshin involves a state exercising control over energy resources, rail and air networks, federal roads, and defense industries, and ensuring the independence of major television networks from foreign capital (Kokoshin 2006: 49-50). 11

Increasingly, the Russian concept of sovereignty depends on a strong economy—one that is diversified and modern, a leader in basic science and education. In Kremlin ideologist Vladislav Surkov’s words, sovereignty is a political synonym for global competitiveness (Surkov 2006). The agility of a free market system is necessary to ensure Russian competitiveness, but significant state involvement in the economy is needed to protect the country’s natural wealth and to support large firms in the international economy. Public-private partnerships will help build Russia’s competitiveness and strengthen Moscow’s international influence. 5

Kosovo, Georgia, and Russian Conceptions of Sovereignty For Russian leaders, Yugoslavia’s experience in the 1990s had clear implications for the sovereignty of the Russian Federation, whose internal authority was comparably weak and threatened (Headley 2008). The two countries also faced similar problems with diaspora populations and internal minorities, although enhancing its global role and preserving territorial integrity appeared more important for Moscow than protecting Russians in the near abroad. The shift in Russian foreign policy thinking from liberal internationalism to great power realist concepts under the influence of Foreign Minister Evgenii Primakov (1996-98) led to a greater emphasis on multilateralism, a more assertive defense of Russian interests, including opposition to NATO’s expansion, and efforts to form alliances with emerging great powers, primarily China and India. In remarks delivered in 2004 as a member of Kofi Annan’s commission on the future of the United Nations, Primakov affirmed the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other states, citing the Kosovo case as a prime example of one nation (the United States, 5

Kokoshin uses the term “patriotic free enterprise” (otechestvennoe predprinimatel’stvo) to describe private business acting in partnership with the state, and observes that many American businesses function in a comparable patriotic way. Kokoshin 2006: 58).

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presumably) misguidedly advancing its national interests at the expense of a key UN principle (Primakov 2004). In contrast to Western condemnation of Serbian atrocities against Kosovar Albanians, the Russian position as the Kosovo conflict unfolded was that Yugoslavia’s troubles were a civil war, an internal matter, and that neither side could be judged right or wrong (Headley 2008: 26364). Kosovo was also viewed in parallel with Moscow’s troubles in Chechnya. Moscow voiced deep-seated opposition to terrorist tactics employed by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), equating the group with Chechen terrorists. By supporting Kosovo against Serbia, Washington and Western Europe were taking the side of a territory violating a fundamental principle of international law (territorial integrity) against the will of a sovereign actor. Following the brief Russo-Georgian war in August 2008 and strident condemnation of Russia during the US presidential campaign, rhetoric from Russian scholars and officials became increasingly heated. Washington’s actions in Kosovo, as in Iraq and elsewhere, were seen as part of a pattern of disregard for the basic principles of national sovereignty. America’s promotion of Kosovar independence, and its vigorous opposition to the same for Abkhazia and South Ossetia, confirmed that US policy was trying to portray Russia as an aggressor, to demonize it at every opportunity, and “to prevent Russia’s rebirth as a center of power in the rapidly changing world” (Aksenyonok 2008). Washington, in other words, was rewriting international laws on sovereignty to advance its political interest at Russia’s expense. These views are reflected in official documents--the 2008 Russian Foreign Policy concept stresses the importance of international law and the key role of the United Nations, rejects “arbitrary and politically motivated interpretation by certain countries of fundamental international legal norms and principles such as non-use of force or threat of force, peaceful settlement of international 13

disputes, respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity of states, right of peoples to selfdetermination” and denounces the “creative” application of international law (Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation” 2008). Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has described NATO airstrikes on Yugoslavia as an “act of aggression” because NATO attacked a sovereign state without authorization from the UN Security Council, and in contravention of the UN Charter. Russia was concerned with the wider implications of Kosovo, especially the idea of humanitarian intervention, since it set a precedent for NATO involvement in the near abroad, and possibly in Russia too (specifically Chechnya-Headley 2008: 419-20). President Boris Yeltsin feared that a NATO attack on Yugoslavia would undermine progress toward democracy in Russia, stoke anti-Western attitudes, create a humanitarian disaster, mobilize communist and nationalist extremists within Russia, and possibly lead to war in Europe. According to his memoirs, Yeltsin seemed far more concerned with the humanitarian dimension and the impact of NATO’s bombing on domestic Russian politics than he did on the issue of Yugoslavia’s violated sovereignty (Yeltsin 2000: 255-66). As Premier and then President, Vladimir Putin appeared far more concerned with the security and sovereignty implications of Kosovo. Kosovo had a significant impact on the formation of the Russian National Security Concept and the Military Doctrine, both released in 2000, and the Foreign Policy Concept of the same year. NATO’s actions in the Balkans had signaled that the member-states believed they had a legitimate right to act for humanitarian reasons, and outside NATO’s traditional defensive perimeter, even without UN or OSCE authorization (Arbatov 2000). NATO’s Kosovo campaign demonstrated that massive power and the use of force is the final arbiter in international affairs. It was humiliating for Russia, demonstrating its own impotence in the face of NATO’s firepower. The lesson—if a nation 14

wishes to preserve its sovereignty, amassing military power is a far better guarantee than relying on international law (Arbatov 2000). Russia’s position holds NATO’s attack on Serbia to be a clear violation of that nation’s sovereignty, and Kosovo’s February 2008 declaration of independence an infringement on Serbia’s territorial integrity. In the case of Kosovo, Washington arbitrarily interpreted the UN’s principles of national self-determination and territorial integrity to coincide with its geopolitical interests. Vladimir Ovchinsky (2008) argues that UN documents are ambiguous, and the “catches” of self-defense, self-determination, and peacekeeping can be used to justify war against sovereign states. The outcome of this biased view of events led to the illegal recognition of Kosovo. The lesson is that political will is required to defend one’s national interests. The United States demonstrated such political will after September 11, and Russia demonstrated it after August 8, 2008. Ovchinsky draws a parallel between American reactions after 9/11 and Russian reactions in the wake of Georgian military strikes against South Ossetia. Russia had the peacekeeping mandate of the UN, and relied on the UN Charter that affirms states have the right to protect their citizens against aggression. As Ovchinsky observes, “The international law of the 21st century will remain the law of the strong.” While virtually all Russian officials and most analysts have accepted the government’s interpretation that Kosovo’s independence was a clear violation of international law, while Abkhazians and South Ossetians had a legitimate right of self determination, some opposition figures recognized the inconsistency in Moscow’s position. A statement posted on the Yezhednevnyi zhurnal website criticized the government for hypocrisy and disregard for international law. These democrats (Gary Kasparov and Boris Nemtsov were among the ten signatories) noted that Russia’s actions in Georgia were a clear violation of UN Security Council 15

Resolution 1808 (dated April 15, 2008), which reaffirms the commitment of all members to the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Georgia within its internationally recognized borders (“Russian Opposition…” 2008). Russia had signed on to this resolution at the same time that it was preparing to move heavy armor into the Caucasus, several months before hostilities broke out. 6 Russian officials had been under increasing pressure from nationalist politicians and from Abkhazian separatists to recognize the break-away territories well before the August 2008 war. Abkhazian officials had been aggressively lobbying Moscow (and Pristina) for recognition even before Kosovo declared independence on February 17, 2008. In March 2008 the state Duma had adopted a statement urging President Medvedev and the government to consider recognizing the independence of Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transdnestria (“Russian State Duma…” 2008). Abkhazian officials had been encouraged by Kosovo’s actions; the territory’s Foreign Minister Sergey Shamba pointed out in late 2007 that President Putin, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov had all asserted that Kosovo’s independence would set a precedent that would lead to the recognition of other separatist territories (“Abkhazia Calls on Russia…” 2007). As President, Dmitri Medvedev’s foreign policy priorities have included the importance of modernizing the economy, upholding international law, and respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity (Likhachev 2010). In 2008 Medvedev floated a major proposal for a new security concept in Europe, which reflected Russia’s dissatisfaction with the European 6

Russian military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer reported that in May 2008 Moscow began deploying railroad troops to repair track in Abkhazia. Given road conditions in the former Soviet Union, Russian armor can only be moved by rail (Felgenhauer 2008).

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international order based on what were called distorted ideological motives underpinned by the NATO and OSCE architecture (Medvedev June 2008). Medvedev sought limits on American influence on the continent by strengthening the role of the United Nations, reasserting Moscow’s hegemony in the near abroad, and enhancing cooperation with Europe in the technological revolution (Medvedev June 2008; Lo 2009). Issues on which the Russian President urged restraint included Kosovo, the expansion of NATO, and the deployment of missile defense systems. From the Russian perspective, the US and some West European powers have focused on the human rights provisions of the OSCE, using the organization’s electoral monitoring functions to interfere in post-Soviet countries’ domestic politics, while neglecting the basket one and two provisions for military-political and economic security. Medvedev called for relations to be based purely on national interests, rather than on ideology. Europe and the United States, as demonstrated through Kosovo, have proved willing to disregard OSCE provisions regarding the inviolability of borders and non-interference in sovereign internal affairs (Mezhuyev 2009). 7 In his address to the World Policy Conference in Evian, Medvedev cited the crisis in the Caucasus as indisputable evidence of the need for a new pact on European security. He castigated the US for approaching the “new” Russian Federation through the old lens of Sovietology (which he described as a sickness), implying that Russia’s perspective on international relations (and sovereignty) was distinct from that of the USSR. Medvedev advanced five fundamental principles vital to international security, of which the first and most critical was the obligation of states to respect sovereignty, territorial integrity and political

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Mezhuyev does recognize that 2008 witnessed double standards on the part of both Russia and the Western powers, with much of Europe and the US recognizing Kosovo’s declaration of independence, and Russia recognizing those of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

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independence of states, along with respect for all other principles embodied in the UN Charter (Medvedev October 2008; Mezhuyev 2009). Medvedev’s Berlin and Evian proposals for a new security framework in Europe reflect a Russian conviction that the OSCE is ineffective at best, and often incompetent. The collapse of the USSR and Yugoslavia led to a vacuum of international law in Europe, in which the United States moved to assert its political will, blatantly disregarding Russian interests. Russian officials fault the United States and Western Europe for concentrating on human right issues (Basket 3 of the Helsinki Accords), ignoring Baskets One and Two on inviolability of territory and economic security. Europe’s borders have continued to change due to Western support for the demands of separatists, not by mutual agreement of all parties. Kosovo is a prime example of the OSCE’s weakness and political ineffectiveness. NATO’s campaign against Serbia set into motion a chain of events, with both Russia and West now using “double standards” as evidenced in their recognition of Kosovo, South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Medvedev’s goal is a new world order in which territorial sovereignty of nation-states should retain the utmost importance (Mezhuyev 2009). While Medvedev’s calls for constructing a new European security architecture putatively drew on universal principles of international law embodied in the UN charter, the Kremlin’s chief ideologist, Vladislav Surkov, has argued that Russia’s unique political culture has imbued the country with a unique view of sovereignty. 8 Surkov famously coined the term “sovereign democracy” which was in large part adopted by Vladimir Putin’s administration and has carried over into Medvedev’s. Surkov stresses that Russia is linked to European civilization, but is a 8

Surkov was appointed Deputy Chief of Staff in the Russian Presidential Office in 1999, Aide to the Russian President in 2004, and First Deputy Chief of Staff in 2008. He is often referred to as the “gray cardinal” of Kremlin politics.

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specifically Russian version of that civilization (Surkov 2008, 2009). Russian political culture is more holistic, centralized, and emotional than Western cultures, and more personalized. Individuals, he reasons, may serve as institutions, as in the case of former President Putin or the leaders of Russia’s personalistic parties. Russia also has a tendency toward chaos and fragmentation if not held together by a strong executive, and such fragmentation undermines Russian internal sovereignty. The West, Surkov charges, encouraged Russian weakness and muddle-headedness in the 1990s by supporting its version of “democracy” at the expense of social stability. Russian sovereign statehood was further weakened by criminal oligarchs, excessive reliance on the export of raw materials, and technological backwardness. Surkov presents the Russian case for authoritarianism and centralization: “The consolidation and centralization of power were necessary to preserve the sovereign state and turn it around, away from oligarchy and toward democracy” (Surkov 2008: 96). Curiously, he argues that Russians are virtually incapable of acting collectively, and so need a strong personality to ensure the sovereignty of the country. Weak countries such as Georgia and Kyrgyzstan cannot exercise sovereign control over their domestic affairs, and so become dependent on stronger states, multinational corporations, and other powerful global actors. Sovereign democracy presupposes “the liberalization of international relations and the demonopolization of the global economy.” For Surkov, personal freedom (democracy) is interconnected with and cannot be separate from national freedom—that is, sovereignty. The basic resource for maintaining sovereignty is not just military power, but general competitiveness. 9 The threat to Russia’s sovereignty is real—from outsiders who covet the country’s natural resources or nuclear

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(Surkov 2009: 12. Actually, P.G. Shchedrovitskii of the School of Cultural Policy came up with the idea of sovereignty as competitiveness well before Surkov (Shchedrovitskii 2003).

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weapons. Surkov suggests that Russia should use its education, science and arts as sources of soft power. He warns against the “unconstrained transnationalization of Russia’s economic and political assets” by oligarchs or bureaucrats, which will result in the loss of nationhood and the country’s dissolution in globalization rather than participation in it (Surkov 2009: 12, 17). Of course, states may be fully sovereign without being democratic—the presence of sovereignty tells us nothing about the form of government. Although the concept Russia’s sovereign democracy emphasizes the country’s uniqueness, it is not clear how this differs from the sovereignty of other democracies (Mezhuev 2009). For many Western (and some Russian) observers, sovereign democracy seems little more than a justification for Putin’s authoritarian form of governance. Russia’s reassertion of its great power status and its defense of sovereignty impair the country’s integration into the global economy, and threaten to place Russia in opposition to much of the rest of the world (Mezhuev 2009: 31). Surkov’s interpretation of sovereignty highlights the paradox in Russia’s approach—Moscow demands the observance of international law in reference to Kosovo, yet has not constructed a law-based state in Russia. Law is central to democracy (something Surkov glosses over), and Mezhuev likens it to mathematics—the principles of law are universal, and cannot be said to be relative. President Medvedev would use the argument of self-determination and universal international rules in justifying his decree recognizing the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In an article to the Financial Times online Medvedev said “We argued consistently that it would be impossible, after that (the recognition of Kosovo’s independence—CZ), to tell the Abkhazians and Ossetians (and dozens of other groups around the world) that what was good for the Kosovo Albanians was not good for them. In international relations, you cannot have one rule for some and another rule for others” (Medvedev 2008). In international relations, however, 20

wide variations in power and competing interests guarantee that recognition of a state is a thoroughly political process, not a consistent legal one, and so the rules do vary according to the situation (Krasner 2009). Russia’s justification for backing South Ossetian and Abkhazian independence rests on equating their situation with that of Kosovo. Prime Minister Putin has repeatedly stated that in moral and political terms there is no difference between the Kosovo case and South Ossetia/Abkhazia. In his remarks during a press conference with South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity Putin outlined Moscow’s perspective: …the international community must agree on which rules we will live by. Either we will privilege the principle of countries' national sovereignty and will all follow this rule - but then Kosovo needs to remain part of Serbia, or we will privilege people's right to selfdetermination - and then we need to secure this right for other minority groups that are striving for their independence, such as the peoples of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. 10 The Prime Minister failed to explain, though, how Russia could justify its strong support for the independence of Georgia’s breakaway regions, while continuing to withhold recognition for Kosovo. The answer is that it is an issue of power politics and state interests. At this same press conference Putin asserted that under international law, the recognition of one state was sufficient to make them an international legal entity. Putin went on to observe that “not many members of the international community use sovereignty in the full sense of the word,” and that all states were under pressure from Washington to carry out that country’s political will. The lesson, from Putin’s perspective, was that power and politics are more likely to shape international events than international law. The Georgia conflict was a great victory for Russia not because of the

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Press conference of August 28, 2009, Russian Prime Minster website, http://premier.gov.ru/eng/events/news/4802/ (accessed August 24, 2010).

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military outcome (which was far from ideal), but because Moscow demonstrated that Russia is, to use economic terms, not simply a price taker but increasingly a price maker, able to set the terms of global “commerce.” However, some thoughtful Russian legal experts acknowledge that the right to self-determination and the principle of territorial integrity are contradictory, and Russia has placed itself in an international legal bind by recognizing Georgia’s breakaway regions. By equating Abkhazia and South Ossetia with Kosovo, as Putin and Medvedev have done, Russia can no longer argue for an absolute right of territorial integrity. 11 But this has not prevented Medvedev, Putin, and the Russian Foreign Ministry from condemning the July 2010 ruling of the International Court of Justice. Serbia appealed to the ICJ in October 2008 seeking a ruling on the legality of Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence. Russia, along with China and Spain, filed written statements with the Court supporting Serbia’s application. 12 The ICJ decided in a 10-4 advisory opinion that Kosovo’s declaration of independence did not constitute a violation of international law, though the Court avoided declaring Kosovo’s actions legal. The ICJ noted in its finely parsed decision that it had not been asked to determine whether international law conferred on Kosovo or any other entity a positive entitlement unilaterally to declare independence and separate from another territory, but only whether Kosovo’s specific action violated international law (International Court of Justice 2010). 11

See the remarks by I. Volodin and Yu. Maleyev in the roundtable discussion “On the Recognition of States” (2010). Volodin is acting head of section, Legal Department, Russian Federation Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Maleyev is professor at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. 12

In its written brief to the Court, Russia cited the “safeguard clause” from the 1970 UN Declaration on Principles, holding that the right to self-determination should not be construed to authorize or encourage any action that might dismember or impair the territorial integrity of a sovereign state. Unilateral secession could only be justified under extreme conditions where violent acts of discrimination were being committed against the people in question, and all possibilities for resolving the problem had been exhausted. “Written Statement by the Russian Federation” (2010).

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Following the ruling the Russian Foreign Ministry officially stated that its position remained unchanged, noting that the ICJ had not expressed an opinion on Kosovo’s broader right to secede from Serbia unilaterally (“After UN Court Ruling…” 2010). The fear in Russia was that the Court’s ruling would encourage forces for separatism in other post-Soviet conflicts (Transdniestria/Moldova and Nagorno-Karabagh, and possibly Chechnya, Tuva and Tatarstan) and around the world (Northern Cyprus, for example). Observers also expected the ICJ ruling would generate a wave of recognitions beyond the 69 states that had already established relations with Kosovo. By contrast, Abkhazia and South Ossetia had by the end of August 2010 garnered recognition from no additional states, and seemed resigned to strengthening economic and military ties with their patron to the north. 13

Concluding Observations The cases of Kosovo and Georgia’s breakaway territories illustrate the paradoxes in Russian concepts of sovereignty; specifically, in its attempts to reconcile the principle of selfdetermination with that of territorial integrity. It would appear inconsistent for Russia to advocate sovereignty for Abkhazia and South Ossetia, while denying it to Kosovo. Although the scale of atrocities visited upon Kosovo by the Serbs dwarfs that of the Georgians against the Abkhazians and South Ossetians, the situations are comparable. In each there is an overwhelming desire for self-determination, or at least separation from the former territory. All three are weak states unlikely to survive without considerable external support. And each has a powerful protector. 13

In 2010 Russia signed agreements with both territories establishing military bases, and began deploying S-300 air defense systems in Abkhazia (RIA Novosti, August 13, 2010, at http://en.rian.ru/trend/s300_abkhazia_2010/ (accessed August 13, 2010).

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The two former Georgian regions are dissimilar, however, suggesting they will follow different paths in terms of their international status. Abkhazia is large enough and with assistance (which it has already received from Russia) could be viable as an independent state. South Ossetia, by contrast, is extremely poor and has a population of only 70,000. While economic and political relations of both will remain close to Russia, South Ossetia is likely to develop a sort of “associated status” with Russia, comparable to that of American Samoa or the Marshall Islands (Kazin 2009). 14 However, incorporating either into the Russian Federation would pose significant problems for Moscow, given the widespread poverty and unstable political situation in the North Caucasus (King and Menon 2010). As of September 2010 only three additional states had granted Abkhazia and South Ossetia recognition—Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Nauru. In commenting on this on Zvezda TV, Prime Minister Putin made a revealing statement: “Abkhazia and South Ossetia became international legal entities from the moment when they were recognized by just one subject of international relations,” adding that “Russia’s recognition is sufficient” (Russia not to tolerate…” 2009). Although there is no clear definition of what constitutes a sovereign state in international law, in practice sovereignty generally involves recognition by a large number of other sovereign states (Fowler and Bunck 1996). By this standard, Kosovo is much closer to achieving international acceptance as a sovereign state than are Abkhazia or South Ossetia. However, using the additional standard attributes of supreme authority over one’s internal affairs and external independence, none of the three can be deemed fully sovereign.

14

Mikhail Delyagin (2009) suggests that Abkhazia can build its tourism industry and serve as an offshore banking center, maintaining independence but with very close links to Russia. South Ossetia’s poverty, lack of a viable state, and absence of natural resources make it likely the territory will be incorporated into the Russian Federation, probably merged with North Ossetia.

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This study suggests that Krasner is correct in noting that few states possess all the attributes of sovereignty, and that in practice the principles of territorial integrity, recognition, internal autonomy and control of transborder movements are frequently violated. In the cases under discussion, each great power—the United States and Russia— advanced persuasive arguments based in international law for and against recognition of these three territories, interpreting sovereignty as they wished. This international discourse on sovereignty has been shaped by domestic politics of the respective great powers. Russian nationalists and derzhavniki found an ally in Vladimir Putin; together they managed to equate the NATO campaign against Serbia and Kosovo’s declaration of independence with real or imagined violations of Russia’s sovereignty. Moscow adroitly mirrored US and Western European justifications for Kosovo’s status by recognizing Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In turn, American reactions to the RussoGeorgian conflict and the breakaway territories were heavily influenced by the 2008 presidential campaign and traditional suspicions of Moscow, chilling the climate for bilateral relations. Neither side was consistent in applying principles of sovereignty, but then the international system has for years accommodated alternatives to the generally accepted institutional arrangements of sovereignty. Sovereignty has endured not because it is institutionalized in a set of inflexible rules, but rather because its principles can be molded to fit the situation and the interests of the major protagonists.

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