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Underappreciated Realities of Realpolitik in the South Caucasus

Omar Alansari-Kreger

I would argue that developments in the South Caucasus are underappreciated. Most eyes
are focused on the Ukrainian Civil War in addition to the myriad of events that continue to
ravage the Middle East. Since the collapse of communism, the South Caucasus has been
wrestling with the legacy of the Soviet Union. The Russian Federation is first and foremost a
regional power; that is indicative of its applied foreign policy. Critics of the Commonwealth of
Independent States have argued that its geo-political organization is nothing but the continuation
of Russian hegemony over the geo-strategic & geo-political affairs of the former Soviet
republics. National sovereignty has been used as a means of undermining Russian interests
throughout all areas of the former Soviet Union. Integration with the West has arrived as a
solution to escape the monopoly of Russian hegemonization.
Georgias Rose Revolution combined together with policies undertaken under
Saakashvilis presidency have clearly demonstrated that implication. Yet, the million dollar
question is as follows: how is it possible to project a foreign policy that is diametrically opposed
to Moscow without provoking Russian intervention all under Western support? Russia is a mere
shadow of its former Soviet image, but Moscow has proven time again that it is ready and
willing to dispatch its enemies with little to no hesitation. In the end, it seems highly unlikely
that the West, the United States in particular, will risk World War Three over the territorial claims
of a small former Soviet state. Nationalists suffer from the delusion that the outside world will
come to their rescue if they adopt a pro-Western platform. The reality is that alone does not
eliminate the potential of unconventional war that can create an international conflict.
Ethnocentrism is ultimately destabilizing as an alibi to absolute independence from
Moscow; however, have we truly investigated the potential for a third way alternative in the
South Caucasus? The problem we continue to encounter throughout the second and third worlds
respectively is that an overwhelming majority of nations are caught between two hegemonic
contenders bent on imposing hemispheric control of standing geo-political arenas. Is American
hegemony better than Russian? Governments in the South Caucasus are heavily reliant on
foreign policies of solidarity with larger geo-political power. From a hegemonic point of view, a
geo-political power will project policy wherever there is an advantage for their applied geostrategy; the latter describes the precipice of hemispheric control. For example, in Georgia,
Russia cannot get away with a total military occupation of its territory just as the United States
cannot dispatch Russian ground troops from the air without risking the creation of an
international crisis.
No form of nationalism can substantiate a non-aligned foreign policy on its own as that
projected third way alternative. A federation of the South Caucasus depicts a lofty ideal, but is it
possible to produce a regional geo-political power in a vacuum based on an otherwise lopsided
geo-strategy? Yerevan is pro-Russian because Moscow enables and supports Armenias policy

toward Nagorno-Karabakh as a way of offsetting Bakus pro-Western government. On the

Western end of the South Caucasus, Russia has dug itself into Georgian territory via the de-facto
republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia; the two of the latter are nothing but standing military
beachheads for Russian forces. The overarching geo-political situation of the South Caucasus
shows the blunt reality of realpolitik. However, I would like to end this brief inquiry into the
South Caucasus with an open ended proposition: what if there was an Iranian and federative
Central Asian dynamic added to a third way confederation of the South Caucasus?
The writing is on the wall, Russia would do everything in its power to oversee its sabotage, but
perhaps that could balance policies of hegemonization by using the West as a way of
counteracting threats of Russian realpolitik? This describes a geo-political standard that is much
greater than nuances of foreign policy, but demonstrates potential for a new third way dynamic
where one alliance of second and third world nations need not succumb to the totality of Western
hegemony in order to genuinely assert independence.