Moldavia and Armenia to Break Out of the Russian Sphere of Influence Also? (Along with Georgia and the Ukraine)
A Stratfor article on places obscure and "far, far away" but very important (assuming they are right) if one looks out over world politics over the next decade or two.
Dabum,
I also have been trying to improve my trading skills and make money in this very difficult economic environment and very much appreciate your posts on your "set up" thread. Thanks.
Bruce
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THE GEOPOLITICAL INTELLIGENCE REPORT
The Next Wave of 'Velvet Revolutions'
January 07, 2005 1905 GMT
By Peter Zeihan
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili and Ukrainian President-elect Viktor
Yushchenko -- both leaders who rose to power via popular movements backed by
the West, which challenged electoral results in which their opponents were
declared "official" victors -- shared a New Year's Eve party and a ski
vacation in the Ukrainian Carpathians which ended Jan. 5. Just before heading
their separate ways, the two issued a joint "Carpathian Declaration" that
hailed recent political changes in their countries as "a new wave of
liberation of Europe, which will lead to the final victory of freedom and
democracy on the European continent."
The declaration is a warning to Moscow that it can look forward to losing
even more influence throughout its former empire. The Kremlin backed -- in
some cases rather ham-fistedly -- Saakashvili's and Yushchenko's opponents
and rightly has perceived the newcomers' victories as a palpable blow to
Russian influence in its near abroad.
Anti-Russian sentiment is never far below the surface in much of the former
Soviet Union (FSU), but considering that none of the Commonwealth of
Independent States is exactly a democracy where personal safety is the norm,
opposition tended to be shrill but limited to some very well-connected -- and
protected -- personalities. Ukrainian oligarchs are, if anything, more active
in Ukrainian politics than Russian oligarchs are in Russia -- and that, too,
is a pattern replicated throughout the region.
Breaking that mold requires one very important thing: the threat of popular
uprisings that government forces are not bold enough to put down violently.
Such uprisings, however, do not come naturally to people in Russia's sphere
of influence. The vast distances involved in many FSU states make
communication difficult and concentrated government force effective at
turning protests into bloodbaths. The result is a polity that normally can be
relied upon to suffer quietly. Where else can coal miners and teachers
solider on with wages six months or more in arrears? (Do not expect that
passivity -- or the arrears -- to change anytime soon in countries which have
experienced revolutions, by the way.)
Some examples of the worst government irresponsibility can be laid at the
feet of FSU rulers. Turkmenistan's Turkmenbashi (formerly known as President
Saparmurat Niyazov) has turned his country into a personal amusement park
with hundreds of golden statues -- one that rotates with the sun --
glorifying his status. Protests are unheard of. Uzbekistan held a
presidential election in 2000, in which the challenger voted for the
incumbent, President Islam Karimov. Apparently the race was too close -- some
10 percent of the electorate voted for the "challenger" -- so in 2004
parliamentary elections, opposition parties were simply banned. When former
Russian President Boris Yeltsin ordered tanks to fire upon the rebellious
Duma -- before the heady optimism of the post-Soviet era had evaporated --
Moscow slept.
Protests -- much less revolutions -- just do not happen often in this part of
the world. Ukraine's and Central Asia's first taste of indigenous government
only came with the Soviet collapse, and -- we are bracing ourselves for the
onslaught of e-mail -- the Caucasian states' claim to long independent
traditions of governance are dubious at best.
While we do not necessarily believe everything our sources within the Kremlin
communicate to us -- for some of them every cloudy day is a CIA plot to keep
Russia dependent on Midwestern cereals -- there is more than a grain of truth
to their assertions that the West orchestrated the social/political movements
in Georgia and Ukraine. After all, Saakashvili and U.S. President George W.
Bush explicitly discussed this strategy on the phone Dec. 7.
Overcoming the built-in passivity of the FSU psyche takes real effort, real
organization and real money. No offense to those who participated in the
protests, but money does not grow on trees -- even in Tbilisi and Kiev. And
historically these country's polities while certainly not zombiesque, have
not ever been what one could call rambunctious.
To understand where the trend of velvet revolutions is going, one must first
see where it came from. It did not begin in Georgia.
Back during Saakashvili's rise to power, Stratfor noticed that a few
representatives of a little-known (in the United States) group called Otpor
played a limited coordinating and planning role in the "Rose Revolution."
Otpor is a student/youth movement in Serbia that helped unseat former
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. While the U.S. Institute for Peace
played a part in funding Otpor, it struck us as odd that a handful of Serb
youths would find themselves running around downtown Tbilisi shouting "Down
with Milosev-, err, Shevardnadze!"
We watched with fascination when, after Saakashvili assumed the trappings of
power, he was not only able to (so far) consolidate control and rein in the
pro-Russian (near) separatist region of Ajara, but he also began intensive
talks with the Ukrainian opposition. The Orange Revolution was born.
Imagine our interest -- if lack of surprise -- when Yushchenko's and
Saakashvili's "Carpathian Declaration" became publicized. We do not expect
the West as a whole, much less the United States, to let up the pressure or
give the Russians any breathing room, but the trend of anti-government
protests and regime changes has now taken on a life of its own.
And it will spread.
The first location to see a repeat of the revolution model will be Moldova,
where legislative elections will be held in February. Here, anti-Russian
feelings run strong due to Moscow's tacit backing of the separatist republic
of Transdniestria, a sliver of land between the east bank of the Dnieper
River and Ukraine. Supplying the Russian military force in Transdniestria
will become impossible when -- not if -- Ukraine begins to deny Russia
transit rights.
The current Moldovan president, Vladimir Voronin, after being elected in 2002
originally sought closer relations with Russia in the hopes of prodding
Moscow into removing its troops from Transdniestria -- a step most Moldavians
consider the first to reasserting sovereignty. When the expected payoff did
not materialize, Voronin changed from Russophilic to Russophobic, and the
legislative campaign now seems almost to be a contest as to who can make the
most anti-Russian statements.
But mere anti-Russian feelings do not make one immune to regime change.
Former Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze was famous for his antipathy
for Russia, yet that did not save him from the Rose Revolution; and Ukrainian
President Leonid Kuchma, by most measures, attempts to balance the East and
West, yet he is now about to be gone. The point is to sever links to the
past, and that means very soon Voronin will fall away as well.
So will Armenian President Robert Kocharian. Unlike the relative newcomer
Voronin, Kocharian has ruled his tiny Caucasian state either as prime
minister or president since 1997 and has seen his state through the thick and
thin of a cold war with neighboring Azerbaijan and Turkey. While Georgia may
be more important to the Russian psyche since it is quite literally the last
line of territory between Russia and historical rival Turkey, it is Armenia
that has long been a loyal ally. Armenia almost is completely surrounded by
traditional Russian foes. Orthodox Christians both, Russia and Armenia also
enjoy close cultural ties.
But more to the point, as in Moldova, Russia maintains a troop presence in
Armenia. Kocharian may be considered a moderate in the Russia-West tussle,
but he, too, will be targeted for replacement. Unlike many of the former
Soviet states, Armenia has a lively political opposition. Complicating
matters for Russia is that the most pro-Russian opposition faction was
slaughtered in a paramilitary raid on the Parliament in 1999; the faction
never recovered, and the perpetrators of the plot were never uncovered.
Simultaneous to all this are developments in Georgia. Saakashvili might have
won the presidency, but he has yet to win the country. Two separatist regions
-- Abkhazia and South Ossetia -- maintain de facto independence largely due
to Russian largess. Two Russian military bases -- in Batumi and Akhalkalaki
-- also grace Georgia's territory. Within the next year Stratfor fully
expects Saakashvili to force the Russians out of both bases -- he already is
denying Russia the ability to resupply and rotate troops through of
Akhalkalaki -- and regain control of South Ossetia, perhaps by military
means. Stratfor fully expects a "popular movement" to be used to encourage
Russian base evacuations, and perhaps even as a means of forcing the South
Ossetians to stand down and be reincorporated into Georgia proper.
These three countries almost will assuredly shift beyond Russia's grasp
before the end of 2005. However, they will not be the only places where
pro-Western forces moves -- just the only places where the moves are
successful.
Many in the Ukrainian, Georgian and Western press have opined about how the
Orange Revolution could be repeated in Russia. They clearly have not been
paying attention to Russian President Vladimir Putin's CV. This is a former
KGB agent who, as one of his first acts as prime minister, launched the
Chechnya war. Then, four years later while enjoying rock solid public
support, made sure that the country's feeble opposition was trounced in an
election campaign that could not be called exactly open. No, Putin is safe.
Not forever, but certainly for now.
So is Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenka. Lukashenka is widely
despised throughout Europe for his erratic and authoritarian tendencies. He
also has rubbed Putin the wrong way. At issue is the Russian-Belarus Union
which Lukashenka was instrumental in forming during Boris Yeltsin's
administration. Lukashenka's thinking was that he would be the union's vice
president, and when Yeltsin's penchant for alcohol outstripped Russia's heart
surgeons' ability to resuscitate him, Lukashenka would become leader of the
Russian sphere of influence.
The sober and black-belt possessing Putin, to put it bluntly, thinks
Lukashenka is less than intellectually capable and has put the
Russian-Belarus Union idea on ice. During the past two years, he has even
gone so far as to edge Moscow away from the embarrassingly ambitious
Belarusian leader. But the recent onslaught of anti-Russian movements --
particularly in Ukraine -- has forced a reconsideration. Russia has very few
allies, and none are as reflexively pro-Russian as Lukashenka. At the first
of the year the Kremlin swallowed hard and extended agreements to provide
Belarus with natural gas at less than half the European rate. Belarus
maintains a relatively high standard of living on the back of Russian energy
subsides. So long as the subsidies continue, Lukashenka will continue ruling
and being Russia's best (paid) friend.
This makes him a prime target for another Western-aided revolution.
But Stratfor expects Lukashenka to stay. The Belarusian opposition is
fragmented and under extremely close observation by Belarusian security
forces. Lukashenka's popularity also is relatively high because Russia has
chosen to purchase support for him with ongoing subsidies. There also are no
elections -- such as they are in Belarus -- scheduled in 2005, so Lukashenka
is almost certain to rule for another year.
So, too, is the case in the Central Asian republics. All five Central Asian
presidents have ruled since the Soviet breakup, and most probably will
continue to do so until the day they -- or their selected offspring or
cronies -- die. There is an opposition of sorts in the region -- a
transnational movement by the name of Hizb al Tahrir -- but the movement is
Islamist in character and seeks the reformation of the Caliphate. It
certainly is not the type of organization that most Western governments are
going to funnel money to.
Opposition movements are only marginal in Kyrgyzstan, making it the only
place in the region where an Orange Revolution might occur, and even there
the political environment has darkened considerably during the past two
years. President Askar Akayev also publicly mused Dec. 6 about how supporters
of such "velvet revolutions" should not count upon the state tolerating their
activities. He was not kidding.
Meanwhile, the Kazakh and Uzbek governments are family affairs. Given time,
Uzbekistan's Karimov regime likely will collapse under its own weight as a
decade of mismanagement gives way to chaos. Revolution will come to
Uzbekistan, but it will be one triggered by the state's collapse -- and it
certainly will not be colored orange. For now, Kazakhstan's oil wealth will
keep President Nursultan Nazarbayev and family in riches for years. In either
case, popular uprisings would not work anytime soon. These are regimes with
few qualms about visiting creative solutions upon who would elevate their
opposition past rhetoric.
In the meantime, Turkmenistan's citizens are too busy extolling the
Turkmenbashi and memorizing the Rukhnama -- their leader's sequel to Quran --
to consider forming political parties. And as all of the states in this
region -- and dare we say, Russia -- have discovered, a vibrant state
security network does not hurt either.
(c) 2005 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. All rights reserved. |
