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Rational or reckless? Georgia's zugzwang in the Caucasus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

David S. Siroky  and
Valeriy Dzutsev
David S. Siroky*
Affiliation:
School of Politics and Global Studies, Arizona State University, Arizona, USA
Valeriy Dzutsev
Affiliation:
School of Politics and Global Studies, Arizona State University, Arizona, USA
*
∗Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Although the 2008 Russian-Georgian war was a military defeat for Georgia, it has only reinforced Georgia's westward trajectory. One noteworthy difference from Georgia's pre-war policy is a new regional strategy — the North Caucasus Initiative — that seeks to create a soft power alternative to Russia's military dominance in the region. We suggest that this approach is rational rather than reckless, as some critics have claimed. It represents a carefully calculated strategy that is already benefiting Georgia and from which all concerned parties, including Russia, stand to gain. If the South and North Caucasus were more open and less divided — a direction in which this new initiative appears to point — the Caucasus could become more prosperous and more stable. That would serve Russia's long-term interest by significantly reducing the cost of subsidies to sustain and stabilize the volatile region.

Keywords

North Caucasus InitiativeGeorgiaRussiaforeign policysoft powerasymmetric strategies
Type
Analysis of Current Events
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 40 , Issue 3 , May 2012 , pp. 303 - 314
Copyright
Copyright © 2012 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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Footnotes

1.

David S. Siroky is Assistant Professor of Political Science in the School of Politics and Global Studies at Arizona State University, and faculty affiliate of the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict as well as the Melikian Center for Russian, Eurasian and East European Studies. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science and M.A. in Economics from Duke University and was then Henry Hart Rice Fellow at Yale University before arriving at ASU. His work has appeared in Comparative Sociology, Defence and Peace Economics, Democratization, Ethnopolitics, and Statistics Surveys.

2.

Valeriy Dzutsev is a doctoral student in the School of Politics and Global Studies at Arizona State University, and North Caucasus analyst for the Jamestown Foundation. He previously worked for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting as director for the North Caucasus, based in Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia.

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