1
Similarities and differences between actors and their actions in the conflicts in Serbia (1999) and Georgia (2008).
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies Faculty of Humanities University of Amsterdam July 2017
Supervisor: Professor Michael Kemper
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 2
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 3
Table of Contents
Abstract ...... 6 Research Question ...... 6 Chapter 1: Methodological considerations ...... 7 Principal methodological inspirations...... 7 Theoretical frameworks ...... 7 Interdisciplinary approach ...... 7 Discourse frameworks ...... 8 The methodological approaches used in the thesis ...... 9 The geopolitical approach of the thesis ...... 9 The comparative method used in this thesis ...... 9 The comparative method: a further example ...... 10 Answering the research question: a guide to the chapters ...... 11 Chapter 2: The role of local history between Serbia and Kosovo ...... 13 Purpose of this section ...... 13 Kosovo facts ...... 13 Contested narratives ...... 13 Political and economic inequality: a cause of violence in Yugoslavia? ...... 18 Kosovo: nationalist sentiment ...... 20 The Serbian “Awakening” and Milošević’s rise to power ...... 23 The end of Yugoslavia 1987-91 ...... 24 Conclusion ...... 26 Chapter 3: The role of local history between South Ossetia and Georgia ...... 27 Purpose of this section ...... 27 Abkhazia facts ...... 27 South Ossetia facts ...... 28 Georgia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia: a shared history ...... 29 Contested narratives ...... 29 Shared history: Georgian ‘inclusiveness’? ...... 31 Shared history: USSR ...... 34 Shared history: political and economic turmoil in 1990s ...... 37
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 4
Politics and governance ...... 38 Calls for independence end in violence ...... 39 The Ethnic Dimension ...... 40 Lack of effective government structures ...... 41 Continued lack of government control ...... 42 Economy ...... 43 The Rose Revolution in the context of local history ...... 43 Saakashvili’s anti-corruption drive ...... 44 Chapter 4: NATO’s evolution before and during the operations against Serbia ...... 46 A short history of NATO as an organisation ...... 46 The moral and institutional context of the conflict ...... 47 The growth of human rights in discourse and institutions ...... 48 Stated and unstated reasons for NATO intervention in Serbia ...... 51 NATO’s stated aims and their execution ...... 51 NATO’s stated aims: an assessment ...... 52 NATO’s unstated aims: a constructivist view...... 55 A constructivist precursor? The military intervention in Bosnia ...... 55 A constructivist precursor? Historic alternatives in NATO’s decision-making ...... 59 A constructivist precursor? The expansion of Western hegemony in Europe ...... 61 Chapter 5: Russian military evolution before and during the operations against Georgia ..... 63 A short history of Russian foreign policy ...... 63 The moral and institutional context of the conflict ...... 68 The growing use of appeals to humanitarian ends to justify belligerent actions ...... 68 New uses of sovereignty ...... 71 Stated and unstated reasons for Russian intervention in Georgia ...... 74 Russia’s stated aims and their execution ...... 74 Russia’s stated aims: an assessment ...... 75 Russia’s unstated aims: a constructivist view ...... 77 A constructivist precursor? Russian military involvement in Chechnya, Abkhazia and South Ossetia and the colour revolutions in the post-Soviet space ...... 78 A constructivist precursor? Historic alternatives in Russian decision-making ...... 81 A constructivist precursor? The expansion of Russian hegemony in the Caucasus ...... 81
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 5
Chapter 6: Findings ...... 83 Historical case studies in Chapters 2 and 3...... 83 The comparative method in Chapters 4 and 5 ...... 84 Strict application of the comparative method: successes and failures ...... 85 The problem of demonstrating the method ...... 86 The problem of moral equivalence ...... 87 Suggestions for further development of the method ...... 87 Bibliography ...... 88 Appendix ...... 101
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 6
Abstract
The thesis aims to fulfil three objectives. Firstly, it is a case study of the histories between different nationalities (firstly, Serbian and Kosovar, secondly, Georgian, South Ossetian and Abkhazian) that attempts to find similarities between the relationships that preceded the war in Serbia in 1999 and the war in Georgia in 2008. Secondly, it is a case study of the moral and institutional context in which major geopolitical actors (firstly, NATO and secondly, Russia) went to war in Serbia and Georgia, respectively. Thirdly, through the method applied to the case studies, the thesis attempts to expose common themes in local histories that may indicate a potential future conflict, and, through methodological innovation, suggests a new way of conducting research that exposes researcher bias and offers a method to correct this bias.
Research Question
Can direct comparisons between similar actors across different conflict zones give insight into the sources of conflict? The cases of Serbia in 1999 and Georgia in 2008.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 7
Chapter 1: Methodological considerations
Principal methodological inspirations
The paper, in seeking new insights on the conflicts in Serbia in 1999 and Georgia in 2008, is open to new theoretical approaches and ways of thinking that will provide insight into the conflicts and into the foreign policies of Russia and NATO. Accordingly, theoretical inspiration is taken from various sources and new methods of analysis are used that are influenced by diverse schools of thought. The project is designed as an exercise in critical thinking that seeks to give insight into the subject matter at hand by building a new theoretical perspective around case studies. In the following subsections, the main fields of knowledge that inspire the project and their relevance to the project will be explored, followed by a description of the method used in the paper.
Theoretical frameworks
This section details the theoretical underpinnings and inspirations for the paper.
Interdisciplinary approach
The research aims at an interdisciplinary approach, using methods inspired by historical and social scientific frameworks to assess historical information. Both historical analysis and methods of a more deductive nature (i.e. that seek to develop testable hypotheses) are used. Another major focus of the research is the development of a framework used to
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 8 analyse foreign policy actions of NATO and the Russian state. However, in this area, rather than presenting an exhaustive review of previous studies, the research paper suggests its own framework and executes it.
Discourse frameworks
The paper takes note of the many articles on foreign policy discourse analysis that seek, among other things, to understand how and why public discourses propounded by leaders do not match foreign policy practice1, how journalistic practices and other mechanisms work to legitimise sovereignty2, and how discursive practices maintain the social world and its cultural structures3 (Critical Discourse Analysis). Given that one function of the thesis is to present different narratives of the events that took place in each conflict, it might be thought that a discourse analysis approach would follow. However, though the project draws inspiration from this field, other studies have adequately explored this approach4. Further, it is already known which biases are broadly present in the descriptions of the two conflicts. The thesis attempts to use inspiration from previous research on discourse analysis in tandem with historical research methods to rewrite an account of the conflict in a targeted fashion that puts the onus on the researcher to find comparable instances in each conflict. This lends an almost quantitative nature to the research conducted - indeed, it is not unthinkable that a further piece of research would involve ‘quantities of importance’ being allocated to each factor in order to produce visual correlations. At the same time, there is a distinctly qualitative output, as the tone of the writing will be of the utmost importance, particularly in the sections assessing the ‘unstated aims’ of the main geopolitical actors.
1 Wayne McLean, “Understanding Divergence between Public Discourse and Turkish Foreign Policy Practice: A Neoclassical Realist Analysis,” Turkish Studies, 16:4, 2015, 450, DOI: 10.1080/14683849.2015.1096205 2 Jason Dittmer and David A. Parr, “Mediating sovereignty: a comparative latent semantic analysis of US newspapers and conflicts in Kosovo and South Ossetia,”Media, War and Conflict, Vol. 4, No. 2, 2011, 124-141. 3 Senem Aydin-Düzgit, “Unravelling European Union Foreign Policy through Critical Discourse Analysis: Prospects and Challenges,” Cooperation and Conflict, 2014, 49:3, 135. 4 See, for example, James Dittmer and David A. Parr, “Mediating sovereignty: a comparative latent analysis of US newspapers and conflicts in Kosovo and South Ossetia,” Media, War and Conflict, Vol. 4, No. 2, 124-141.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 9
The methodological approaches used in the thesis
The geopolitical approach of the thesis
The thesis attempts to ‘map out’ the geopolitical aspects of two wars in Serbia and Georgia in such a way that, firstly, the actors in the two conflicts can be compared at a glance at different ‘levels of analysis’, before specific aspects and actors are chosen for in-depth analysis. The objective is to start with the assumption that a comparative analysis of two conflicts that appear to be similar in some way will yield advances in the way that we conceive of the actors and their actions, in addition to producing case studies that build knowledge of the conflicts in themselves. The appendix contains a visual guide to the different levels of analysis of the conflicts, as considered in the thesis.
The comparative method used in this thesis
The comparative method used in this paper seeks to identify similar traits among actors, and ask the same questions of these actors. For the most part, the comparative method used is straightforward, seeking to describe the history of relations between local actors (Chapter 2: Serbia and Kosovo, and Chapter 3: Georgia and South Ossetia and Abkhazia). However, whilst the same questions are asked of the evolution of relations between the state in question and their ‘breakaway’ provinces, the narratives built up in describing one territory (e.g. Serbia, including Kosovo) are explicitly excluded from the discussion in of the evolution of relations in the other territory under discussion (Georgia, including South Ossetia and Abkhazia). This is because the method applied in the paper relies on asking the same questions of the same aspect of different conflicts, in an attempt to ‘get past’ or overcome the prejudices of the researcher, who will have been influenced by background, education, nationality, and media, and, it is further surmised, is likely unaware of his prejudice. The comparative method is used in a slightly different manner in Chapters 4 and 5, concerning the major geopolitical actors in the two conflicts (NATO and Russia, respectively). Firstly, the
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 10 evolution of the moral and institutional context of international politics in the years before the respective conflicts is outlined, giving essential background information for the subsequent application of the method. At the end of Chapters 4 and 5, the comparative method is used in its most ‘pure’ version, taking the arguments used to build up a picture of the ‘unstated aims’ of NATO in 1999 (as formulated in the paper) and applying them directly to Russia in 2008. The objective is, again, to ascertain whether the historical facts that are known about the second conflict can bear interpretation through the lens of the arguments in the first conflict. If the experiment is successful, then new ways of comprehending the conflicts under consideration and the motives of the geopolitical actors should come to light, at the same time as reinforcing the need for strong factual arguments to be made if moral superiority can be claimed for either side.
It is hoped that the comparative method, especially in its purest version, will give the researcher space to explore the impact of attempting to use equivalent linguistic devices in a different context (occasionally whole words, phrases and sentences will be adapted to the conflict in comparison). The ultimate aim of this linguistic experiment - that is also inherently analytical and factual, and seeks to describe events in a fair and impartial manner - is to root out the bias of the researcher by carefully considering the impact of the language used in each case. For example, is ‘intervention’ favoured more often in relation to one geopolitical actor, whereas another actor is said to have committed an ‘invasion’? Having separate, yet comparable texts that describe similar conflicts with different actors will, it is hoped, force the researcher to consider and reconsider his bias in each case.
The comparative method: a further example
The thesis is, in addition to being a case study of two conflicts (the NATO operations in Serbia in 1999 and the Russian operations in Georgia in 2008), an attempt to find a method of working that exposes the researcher’s own bias and provides an opportunity to correct it. This is accomplished by resisting the combination of two apparently similar situations in the same chapter, and instead exposing the different situations to the same questions. By isolating the narratives and, afterwards, comparing them, bias in the use of words and of
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 11 ideas are exposed. To demonstrate the method (for example only; this argument does not appear in the paper), if the question of sovereignty in Abkhazia were to be compared to the question of sovereignty in Kosovo, instead of discussing the differences of legality between the full sovereignty of Kosovo and the full sovereignty of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in the same chapter, great effort is made to avoid this approach in favour of discussing the two cases separately. The idea is that the ‘pure principles’ extracted from the first situation can be put into contact with the second situation. The second situation - here, the legality of the full sovereignty of Abkhazia and South Ossetia - may result in illogical or untrue arguments, in which case either a) the situation is different or, b) the principles are misguided, and should be revised. If the principles of the argument must be revised, this will have an effect on the first text (i.e. bias is corrected). If the situation is different, the method offers an opportunity to show the exact differences outside of a narrative that must cast judgement on both cases at the same time (as would be the case if the two cases were addressed in the same chapter). The desired end result is that statements that are overly reliant on accepted wisdom are ‘flushed out’ from the first text and held to a higher standard. This satisfies one objective of the thesis, which is to reach a higher level of analysis that holds two similar situations to the same standard by innovative means. The advantage of the method is that two situations are forced into contact with the same ideas and arguments - and with the accompanying language - without being overburdened by constant reference to the situation held in comparison. It is hoped that this will lead to clarity of language and of argument.
Answering the research question: a guide to the chapters
The paper approaches the research question in two ways. Firstly, case studies examine the role of history between ‘local actors’ in Chapters 2 and 3, before building case studies of the history of ‘major geopolitical actors’ in Chapters 4 and 5. Chapters 2 and 3 build up the historical differences between the local actors, inviting the reader to note the similarities between the various histories and narratives. Chapters 4 and 5 are more explicitly comparative, focusing first on the history of the organisation under discussion (NATO, Russia considered as a foreign policy actor) before describing the moral and institutional context on
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 12 the international scene under which the respective wars began. Finally, three questions are posed at the end of Chapters 4 and 5 that attempt to hold the narrative that is evident from answers to these questions in Chapter 4 (NATO) to account by applying the same questions and searching for an equivalent narrative in Chapter 5 (Russia). Chapter 6 assesses the findings of the paper.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 13
Chapter 2: The role of local history between Serbia and Kosovo
Purpose of this section
This section of the thesis traces the reasons for which history in Kosovo is contested and asks why violence broke out in the 1990s. Within the analysis of escalating violence, the section details the changing demographic and economic situation of the region in the latter half of the 20th century, providing a basis for comparison with the situation in South Ossetia that will feature later in the thesis.
Kosovo facts
Kosovo and Metohija cover 10’887 km sq., when considered as part of Serbia constituting 12.3% of the total area of the country. The population in 2012 was almost two million, or around 20% of the population of Serbia5. Islam and Christianity are the major religions, and Albanian is spoken, in addition to Serbian6.
Contested narratives
This section will argue that the highly contested historical narratives and inability of the Serb and Kosovar Albanian factions to agree on historical facts or the significance of those facts increased the likelihood of conflict throughout history. Further, in Yugoslav times, the lack of agreement on historical narratives both drove and was driven by economic and political inequality, adding to the potential for violence.
5 BBC, “Serbia Country Profile,” 8 June 2017, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-17907947 6 BBC, “Kosovo profile,” 14 May 2017, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-18328859
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 14
The history of Kosovo is much disputed, both in terms of whether particular events happened and the significance of those events to the historical narrative and thus to the present day. For example, a difference of emphasis can be discerned between arguments relating to sovereignty. The common Serb view that the population of Kosovo was Serbian until a few generations ago, for instance, does not necessarily conflict with the claim of Albanian historians that their ancestors - ancient Illyrians and Dardanians - were present in the region before the Serb invasions of the sixth and seventh centuries7. However, both narratives are used to legitimise claims of sovereignty in Kosovo through different emphases, namely the right of ‘first possession’8 on the Albanian side and the right of longevity of occupation on the Serbian side. As regards factual arguments, conflict remains, for example with reference to the above argument, Serb historians claim that there is no continuation between Illyrians and modern day Kosovars9, whereas Albanian Kosovars reject the argument of Serb historians who point to the Serb Orthodox churches built in this period and documentation of Serbian families as proof that only Serbs resided in Kosovo under the rule of Serbian kings10, instead asserting that Serbs used the church as an administrative resource to forcibly Slavicize Albanian families11. The contestations of historical narrative resulting from the inability of the Serb and Kosovar Albanian sides to agree on historical facts and the significance of those facts arguably increases the likelihood of conflict by aiding the polarisation of views in Serbian and Kosovar society.
The mobilisation of historical facts and the significance of these facts for the legitimisation of sovereignty are arguably boosted by the profound nature of the historical connection felt by the Serbs and Kosovars towards the Kosovo territory and the internal unity of the two polarised narratives12.
7 Tim Judah, Kosovo: War and Revenge. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002, 2. 8 Judah, Kosovo, 2. Cf. Bataković, Dušan T. Serbia’s Kosovo Drama, a historical perspective. Belgrade: igoja, 2012, 19. Ramet mentions how Kosovars see the Serbs as ‘guests’. Sabrina P. Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, The Three Yugoslavias: state-building and legitimation, 1918-2005, Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2006, 299. 9 Dušan T. Bataković, Serbia’s Kosovo Drama: a historical perspective. Belgrade: igoja, 2012, 20. 10 In the 400 years before the Serbian defeats in the 14th century. 11 The 1455 Ottoman census shows only 80 of 600 villages had household heads with typical Albanian names. See Bataković, Serbia’s Kosovo Drama, 33, and Judah, Kosovo, 3-4. 12 Heather Rae, State identities and the homogenisation of peoples, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002, 188.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 15
The depth of the connection felt to a historical land of Kosovar and Serb ancestors, coupled with a propensity to interpret events through long-standing myths and narratives, arguably increases the potential for violence.
For many centuries before the advent of Yugoslavia, deep historical relationships existed between Serbs and Kosovo, and, separately, Kosovar Albanians and Kosovo. In the Serb case, one reason for the depth of historical feeling towards Kosovo is that the granting of autocephalous status to the Serbian Orthodox Church (in 1219) and the subsequent failure of the Ottoman invasion to end the operation of the church resulted in the commingling of the ideas of resurrection and the Serb administration of Kosovo13: the province took on a mythical significance as a an ancient Serbian land where Serbs were systemically oppressed for their religious beliefs14. In this narrative, the Serbs see themselves as victims, longing to free themselves from the ‘Turkish yoke’15. The second class reaya citizenship that the Christian population was subject to after the Ottoman conquering of Serbia and Kosovo in 1459 exacerbated this feeling of communal suffering16. The Kosovar Albanians also process historical facts through a victim narrative17, which holds that Kosovo is Albanian through the right of first possession, and through the continuing presence of Albanians in the province throughout history18. The amount of suffering on both sides provides much material to evidence the respective victim narratives. For example, both Serbs and Albanians have been forced to flee the province at various times in history, for instance many Albanians emigrated after the emergence of Serbia as a autonomous entity in 180419, and a million Albanians and a million Serbs are thought to have fled the lands of their respective oppressors in the Serbian-Turkish wars of 1876-78. At the same time, it is worth noting that
13 Judah, Kosovo, 3. 14 Bataković, Serbia’s Kosovo Drama, 17. 15 Judah, Kosovo, 8. 16 As reaya, Orthodox Christian Serbs were, according to Serb historians, reduced to landless peasants, obliged to dress differently and had no rights to bear arms or ride horses, in addition to seeing their children converted to Islam and trained to serve in the Turkish army. See Dusan T. Bataković “Kosovo and Metohija - A Historical Survey (1),” available at http://www.spc.rs/sr/kosovo_and_metohija_a_historical_survey1_prof_dr_dusan_t_batakovic 17 “The common self-percep on of Kosovo Albanians is that of the greatest vic ms of Balkan history.” Bataković, Serbia’s Kosovo Drama, 19. 18 Judah, Kosovo, 9. 19 Some evidence, such as the testimony of the English traveller Sir Paul Rycaut on the wars fought between 1679-1700, suggests that the Albanian population was larger than Serbian historians believe. Judah, 11.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 16 the same fact can be used to increase the claims of both sides. For example, a Serb exodus from Kosovo can be used by Albanians to claim their rightful possession of Kosovo, on the grounds that Kosovar Albanians outnumber other ethnic groups. Mehmet Hoxha20 made this argument when he forwarded that, if 370’000 Montenegrins were permitted republic status, then 1.2 million Kosovar Albanians should also enjoy this right21. The Serb narrative would, however, likely emphasise the oppression that led to the exodus in terms of a victim narrative. Arguably these two opposing narratives, both equally strong in terms of depth of feeling, result in the potential for violence, if not the outbreak of violence itself. For example, it may be that proponents of the Serb ‘victim narrative’ interpret what a disinterested observer may regard as Serb oppression as resistance to Albanian dominance in Kosovo. In this way, the Kosovar brand of ‘diaspora nationalism’ is alleged by Serbs to claim that Albanians desire complete ethnic control over Kosovo22. Facts such as the high birth rate of Kosovar Albanians23, which is typical of poverty-stricken societies24, are then interpreted in the Serbian narrative as a means of boosting Albanian claims through the ‘diaspora nationalism’ narrative. Such interpretation of facts is likely to increase the number of areas in which the two groups cannot come to agreement, and, therefore, given their geographical proximity, increase the potential for violence. The unification of Serb and Albanian societies around singular historical narratives may also play a role in increasing the potential for violence. For example, the supposed Illyrian origin
20 A Kosovar Albanian politician, and first leader of the province in 1944-45. See World Statesmen, Kosovo, retrieved 15 June 2017, http://www.worldstatesmen.org/Kosovo.html 21 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 295. Ethnic Albanians have constituted a majority of the population of Kosovo since the late 19th century. See Robert Elsie, Historical Dictionary of Kosovo, Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2011, 26. 22 Bataković, Serbia’s Kosovo Drama, 19. 23 The high birthrate in Kosovo, combined with the emigration of 30’000 Serbs and others between 1971 and 1981, almost doubled the Kosovar population in the province between 1961 and 1984. See Hugh Poulton, “Macedonians and Albanians as Yugoslavs,” in Yugoslavism: Histories of a Failed Idea 1918-1992, ed. Dejan Djokić, London, Hurst and Co., 2003, 130 and Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 275. 24 The correlation between poverty and high birth rates is often strong, however other factors, such as education and culture should also be considered. See Mikra Krasniqi, “The Origins of Poverty in Kosovo,” Kosovo 2.0, March 19, 2014, available at http://archive.kosovotwopointzero.com/en/article/1101/the-origins- of-poverty-in-kosovo. For further discussion see e.g. Steven W. Sinding, “Population, Poverty and Economic Development,” Bixby Forum Paper, The World in 2050, delivered at Berkeley, California, January 23-24, 2008, available at https://www.cgdev.org/doc/events/04.07.09/Population_Poverty_and_Econ_Dev_Sinding.pdf. In the 1980s, Kosovo Serbs alleged that Albanian nationalists supported “as high a birthrate as possible”. CIA, “Yugoslavia: A Growing Albanian Minority,” Directorate of Intelligence, 9 August 1985, available at https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP85T01058R000303230001-5.pdf
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 17 of modern Albanians connected diverse clans and religious groups in the late 19th and early 20th centuries25. The advent of Serb nationalism in the same time period can be seen as a corollary of Albanian nationalism26. Regardless of how the two narratives initially came into operation, there is evidence that the growth of one narrative encourages the growth of the other, opposing narrative. For example, in 1966 the LCY found that ‘Greater Serb’ nationalism was present within its ranks and acted as a stimulus to Albanian nationalism27. Again, the rise of nationalism does not necessarily entail violence yet arguably serves as a possible justification for violence and thus makes the outbreak of violence more likely than if a singular narrative or a plurality of narratives were accepted in Kosovo and Serbia28.
The above paragraph has attempted to demonstrate that the depth of historical feeling has had the potential to facilitate the escalation of conflicts in Kosovo throughout history. However, this potential cannot by itself explain the increasing violence in Kosovo from the 1950s until the 1980s that foreshadowed the conflicts in the 1990s. The next paragraph will consider to what extent intensifying violence in the decades after the 1950s can be attributed to inequality within political and economic structures in Yugoslavia and, later, in Serbia and Kosovo.
25 Bataković, Serbia’s Kosovo Drama, 19. 26 Anderson finds that print languages were important in the growth of “nationally imagined communities” Perry Anderson in Richard Lachmann, States and Power, Cambridge: Policy, 2012, 83, whilst Lachmann argues that “conscription, more than any other governmental action, turned subjects into citizens” ibid., 81. The first Serbian newspaper, printed in Vienna, dates from 1791, and from 1834, the first Serbian newspaper was published inside the country, whilst military conscription was prsent from the attempts by the Habsburg Empire to establish a Serbian standing army. See Katrin Boveza-Abazi, The Shaping of Bulgarian and Serbian National Identities, 1800s-1900s, February 2003 PhD Thesis, Department of History, McGill University, Montreal, 172. 27 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 295. 28 Several scholars have argued that the prevalence of nationalism can increase the probability of conflict , through producing interest groups that favour aggressive policies and creating the conditions for “nationalist bidding wars,” much like the behaviour present in Serbia and Kosovo in the 1970s and 1980s. Gretchen Schrock-Jacobson, “The Violent Consequences of the Nation: Nationalism and the Initiation of interstate War,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, 56:5, 2012, 826. For an account of the connections between nationalism and violence using Charles Tilly’s and Michael Mann’s work on collective violence and ethnic cleansing, respectively, see Andreas Pickel, “Nationalism and Violence: A Mechanismic Explanation,” Centre for the Critical Study of Global Power and Politics, Working Paper CSGP 07/1, available at https://trentu.ca/globalpolitics/documents/Pickel071.pdf
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 18
Political and economic inequality: a cause of violence in Yugoslavia?
It is difficult to analytically separate cause and effect between the (mis)governance of Kosovo between the 1950s and the 1980s from the regular outbreaks of violence in the province. However, this section will argue that there is a strong case that deficiencies of the day-to-day and long-term governance of the province increased grievances and led to continuing violence in Kosovo.
That violence was prevalent in Kosovo throughout Tito’s rule is uncontroversial29. Continuing Kosovar Albanian agitation, which was anti-Serb at the same time as demanding the right of self-determination for Kosovo, may be partially attributed to Serb oppression. For example, from the 1950s to the late 1960s, Ranković, the head of the secret police, made extensive use of surveillance in the province, using police and security forces that were dominated by Serbs to terrorise the Albanian population30. In contrast to Belgrade, in Kosovo verbal ‘offences’ against the regime were often prosecuted and resulted in long prison terms - illustrative of unequal treatment31. As part of the oppression, an alleged espionage ring was uncovered, resulting in prison terms for several Albanian leaders32. Ramet suggests that the fact that Albanians in general were not supporters of the Albanian leader Enver Hoxha suggests this was an attempt by Ranković to stymie Albanian political power33. The overturning of the convictions in February 1968, after Ranković was found to have fabricated evidence and otherwise rigged the trials34, indicates that federal authorities were not completed biased towards the Serbs. However, this episode likely strengthened anti-Serb feeling amongst Kosovars, already strong due to the continuing Serb dominance of security apparatus35. The next section will consider whether methods of the Serb-dominated security
29 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 294. 30 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 294. In 1956, the police and security forces in Kosovo were composed of 60.8% and 58.3% Serbs respectively, despite a Serb presence of only 23.5% of the province. 31 David Matas and Dennis Mills, No More: The Battle Against Human Rights Violations, Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2008, 34. 32 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 294. 33 As evidence, Ramet points out that the Albanian regime was a source of out-migration to Yugoslavia, rather than vice versa. Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 294. 34 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 295. 35 In general, the dominance of the security apparatus was, especially at the mid- and higher levels, due to complex political factors, and driven principally by informal policies which privileged the larger ethnic groups in
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 19 forces and police in oppressing the Kosovar population were reinforced through discriminatory economic policies. The feelings of injustice caused by the politically motivated actions of the police were exacerbated by the failure of the Yugoslav regime to find a solution to economic underdevelopment in Kosovo, heightening the prospects for conflict. Kosovo’s few developed industries had been destroyed in the war and the province was the poorest region of Yugoslavia with least developed infrastructure and lowest educational attainment of the federation36, yet was not included in programs for underdeveloped regions from 1947-5537. That there was a large developmental gap between the Yugoslav regions which was not seriously addressed is evidenced by several measures. For example, between 1947 and 1962, per capita investment and economic growth rates in Kosovo were well below the Yugoslav average38. In all-important comparative terms39, Kosovo’s per capita income shrank from 42% of that of the developed republics to 28% from 1953 to 197140. The province also had amongst the highest rates of unemployment41: whilst there were 97 Serbs seeking work out of 1000 employed, the equivalent figure for Kosovo was 310, whilst the Yugoslav average was 83 during the period 1965-198042. In the government apparatus, as in the security forces, Kosovars were also at a disadvantage. For example, in 1967, the Tenth Session of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY) found that Serbs had much a greater chance of obtaining employment in party and government apparatus in Kosovo than Albanians43. Again, the federal authorities were not completely insensitive to Kosovar demands. For example, after requests from Kosovar leaders, Federal Fund for the Accelerated Development of the Underdeveloped Republics and Kosovo (FADURK) credits from 1966-
Yugoslavia., Thomas S. Szayna, Identifying potential ethnic conflict: application of a process model, Santa Monica: Rand, 2000, 87-88. 36 In reference to the period between the end of WWII and the 1970s. Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 273. 37 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 274. 38 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 266, 274. 39 Ramet states that “Even small differences [in income] can spark resentment, nationalism and violence”. Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 263. Studies of relative deprivation suggest that felt and actual deprivation may strengthen or weaken in-group identity in diverse ways. For example, Goeke-Morey Et Al., found that relative deprivation was linked to stronger in-group identity in Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, a similar zero-sum political environment. Marcie C. Goeke-Morey, Ed Cairns, Laura K. Taylor, Christine E. Merrilees, Peter Shirlow, E. Mark Cummings, “Predictors Of Strength Of In-Group Identity In Northern Ireland: Impact Of Past Sectarian Conflict, Relative Deprivation, And Church Attendance,” Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology, Vol. 25, 2015, 290. 40 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 267, 274. 41 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 269. 42 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 270. 43 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 295.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 20
1970 were written off as grants and Kosovo gained direct representation on the FADURK board44. However, problems remained. In 1990, for example, young people counted for 70% of the unemployed45. To sum up, despite federal intervention, ongoing inequalities in the economic sphere likely fed resentment and contributed to potential for violence at the same time as hardening nationalist narratives46.
This section has argued that political and economic inequalities between Kosovo and the Yugoslav republics and discrimination against Kosovars, together with a deeply held connection to the territory of Kosovo resulted in increased conflict. The next section will argue that not only did these concessions did not go far enough to placate the Kosovar population, but that there is strong evidence to suggest that Kosovar nationalist feeling was strong enough by the 1970s that it would be very difficult to stop.
Kosovo: nationalist sentiment
This section will forward several arguments to demonstrate that nationalist sentiment in Kosovo (and Serbia) was self-perpetuating by the mid-1970s. The central argument used to justify this thesis is that newly empowered Kosovar society and institutions did not regard nationalistic claims as satisfied and continued to contest the remaining Serb - and Yugoslav - influence in the province.
Against the backdrop of increasing anti-Serb demonstrations and inter-ethnic violence throughout 1968, culminating in riots across Kosovo on the day before Kosovar Liberation Day and the anniversary of the Yugoslav state on 29 November, measures to remedy Albanian concerns were taken at the federal level. As would be expected in a police state, the demonstrations of 1968 were suppressed. However, in 1969, important constitutional concessions were made that included the discontinuation of the Serbian name “Metohija” from “Kosovo-Metohija”, the enactment of a “Constitutional Law” which enabled the
44 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 276. 45 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 275. 46 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 263.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 21 provincial assembly to pass laws without reference to Serbian legislation, and the creation of a Supreme Court47. Although some of these measures appeared to be merely cosmetic, for example the changing of the name of the autonomous province to “Kosovo”, they were highly symbolic. The creation of a Supreme Court brought the region into line with Vojvodina, which had made use of one since 194648. Taken together these symbolic and concrete concessions arguably only added to the formation of a national consciousness and strengthened the legitimacy of calls for full republic status. However, ongoing violence continued to aim at coherent political goals, such as the ever-present demand for republic status within the Yugoslav Federation and the creation of an independent university in Pristina49. In this context, the granting of constitutional concessions and a free university arguably contributed to the creation of self-generating mechanisms that would over time increase nationalist sentiment.
In addition to increasing the formal powers of Albanians Kosovars over the province, arguably the misuse - understood in terms of the Yugoslav system in operation at the time - of some newly gained institutional powers also increased long-term divisions between Serbs and Kosovars. For example, the failure of the provincial government to share information on subversive activities with Belgrade, a problem compounded by a similar neglect of duty at the district level50, meant that unrest was not suppressed at an early stage, likely a factor in the outbreak of large-scale violence in the province in March and April 198151. Here, autonomous powers that were granted to Kosovo took the region away from the oversight of Belgrade and arguably increased the likelihood of violence by letting resent continue unchecked by repression52. This inaction likely increasing division by leaving Kosovar
47 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 296-297. 48 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 297. 49 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 296. 50 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 300. 51 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 300-301. 52 Researchers are divided on where the line between when repression reduces political participation and when repression will have the effect of increasing political participation. Siegel, using a mixed methods approach, finds that the structure of the social network in question is critically important to outcomes. Factors to be taken into account include the behaviour in networks in repressive societies and psychological responses to repression. See Pamela E. Oliver, “Rational Action,” The Oxford Handbook of Social Movements, eds. Donatella Della Porta and Mario Diani, 2015, 257-258 and David A. Siegel, When Does Repression Work? Collective Action in Social Networks, The Journal of Politics, 73:4, August, 2011, 993-995.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 22 nationalist agitators free to preach, intensifying anti-Serb sentiment53. This in turn may have contributed to the atmosphere that led to the exodus of Serbs from the province, an important factor in the fall of Serbs in the province from 20.9% in 1971 to 10% in 198754. Migrants from Kosovo arrived in Belgrade with stories of mistreatment, increasing Serb hostility towards the government and people of the province that was expressed through the media55 and, later, by politicians such as Milošević, who in 1989 would speak with a banner reading ‘Only Unity Saves The Serb’ as a backdrop56. The issue was not just a lack of repression, but the inconsistent application of repression, for when suppression was tried, it also inflamed tensions57. The inauguration of the independent University of Pristina58 also demonstrates how newly won institutions were the catalyst for ever-greater nationalist demands. The ethnic lines drawn in the university likely led to the desertion of Serbs and Montenegrins, who started to leave Kosovo59. The fleeing of many highly educated professionals likely ensured the debate in Kosovo was further polarised, as alternative bases of argument would not be present, arguably an especially important aspect of future peaceful relations in a university where political opinions are formed. At the same time, books with subversive overtones, flooded in from Albania, and close relations were kept with the university in Tirana60. Pristina University, with its abundance of graduates overqualified for available positions61, also acted as a focal point for separatist organisation. The violent demonstrations of 1981 started there, supposedly because of poor conditions in the canteen, but quickly turned political62, with speakers insisting that undesirable Serb influence was continuing in the autonomous administration, and again calling for full republican status63. The protests, which cost up to
53 See Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 305. 54 The other central factor being the high birth rate of Kosovar Albanians. Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 306. 55 (in 1987) Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias,, 305. 56 Heather Rae, State identities and the homogenisation of peoples, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002, 188. 57 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 303. 58 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 297. 59 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 297. Figures see 306 Ramet. Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 303. 60 Judah, Kosovo, 38. 61 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 302. 62 Judah, Kosovo, 39. Cf. Ramet 301. 63 Judah, Kosovo, 39.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 23
1000 lives64, were suppressed by special police units and long prison sentences for up to 1200 persons65.
In constitutional terms it is also possible to make a strong argument that hard-won ‘privileges’ were made the most of by an ever-advancing tide of nationalism. Judah notes that by 1974 Kosovo possessed almost every prerogative of a republic apart from the name. From this point on, Kosovo could be said to be what Roeder calls a “segment-state”, providing the conditions for increasing hegemony of political identity within Kosovo and a favourable situation for politicians who wished to press the nationalist case66. Ramet notes that the demand for full republic status for Kosovo deeply affected inter-republican relations in Yugoslavia. In Kosovo itself, this was partly the consequence of ever-expanding cohesion in national consciousness on a territory with defined borders, in addition to more concrete arguments67.
This section has attempted to demonstrate that the strong nationalist feeling in Kosovo was only increased in the decades after the 1950s. Hard-won concessions to Kosovar nationalism that did not quell nationalist sentiment but were instead used to further the nationalist cause. The next section will examine how Serb nationalism also increased after 1980.
The Serbian “Awakening” and Milošević’s rise to power
Tito’s death, in May 198068, marked the end of the relatively prosperous period of the 1970s69 and of a system that was to a large extent held together by a man elected “without limitation of mandate”70. In his place, Yugoslav society, such as it was, increasingly
64 The actual figure is likely in the several hundreds. See Judah Kosovo, 40, and Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 301. 65 Judah, Kosovo, 40. 66 Philip G. Roeder, Where Nation States Come From: Institutional Change in The Age of Nationalism, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007, 16-18. For detail on the measures of the, 1974 constitution, see Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 326-7. 67 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 293. 68 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 328. 69 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 325. 70 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 329.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 24 questioned the federal system. Perhaps especially for Serbs, this questioning often drove national issues to the fore.
Serb nationalism was as prevalent as Kosovar nationalism in the 1980s, and in some ways similar. In the first instance, Kosovar discontent that rested on the lack of republic status was mirrored by Serb anger at the concessions of the 1974 constitution, which were, first in within the Central Committee of the Serbian party71, and later in a 1985 Memorandum portrayed as a tragedy for Serbian sovereignty72. The inevitable revision of the Titoist system started with the revision of his personal history73 and, through the 1980s, gradually turned towards accusations and actions along ethnic lines being taken in the political sphere.
For several years, party officials fielded an unyielding defence of the constitutional order laid out in 197474, yet the criticism continued and was well-publicised. For example, a 1984 book by Jovan Mirić arguing that the Constitution provided only for the sovereignty of the republics - and not for that of the Yugoslav federation - was serialised in a magazine75. Repression of nationalist sentiment continued, for example of the poet Gojko Djogo for penning a verse about Tito as “the rat from Dedinje” in 198176, and of Vojislav Šešelj, who was later to become the leader of the Serbian Radical Party, for producing a map of an enlarged Serbian republic77. However, in time the undercurrents of anger and bitterness, above all galvanised by the perceived depletion of Serbian power in Kosovo78 found their expression in political life.
The end of Yugoslavia 1987-91
Throughout the 1980s there was a concerted attempt by regime politicians to hold back nationalist sentiment. So-called ‘recentrists’ and ‘decentrists’ attempted to tackle the
71 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 331. 72 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 320. 73 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 322, 330. 74 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 334. 75 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 334. 76 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 330. 77 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 321. 78 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 321.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 25 political and economic crises whilst claiming to represent Tito’s legacy and fight off their opponents79. Pressure for reform could not hide the breakdown in federal power - the federal party structure became powerless to carry out policy, passing 322 acts between June 1986 and June 1988, yet those without a security element were never enacted in practice80. From 1987, expressions of nationalism increased markedly in Serbia. Milošević, president from May 1989, recast the recentralist approach as promoting Serbian nationalist interests in the place of supranationalist, and the battles over constitutional questions continued81 along national lines82. Milošević’s rise in Serbian and Yugoslav politics has been well documented83, and shall not be explored in detail here. Milošević mobilised Serbian society around the “reconquest” of Kosovo and Vojvodina84, the province to the north of Belgrade that, equal to Kosovo, also enjoyed quasi-republic status. The Serbian Orthodox church was embraced, and the press curtailed85, and the supposedly anti-Serb nature of federal decisions - such as the removal of industry to Croatia in the middle of the century86 - exposed. The bitterness of Serbs at the loss of Serb control in Kosovo, which was previously exposed at events such as the 1983 funeral of Ranković, attended by 100’000 Serbs87, was systematised in the form of the Committee for the Protection of Kosovo Serbs and Montenegrins. This organisation, powered by Milošević’s populist appeal88, organised almost 100 demonstrations between its beginnings in 1988 and spring 1989, attaining an average turnout of 50’000 per demonstration89. The depth of feeling could be seen in these popular mobs that were encouraged by Milošević in his infamous comments that ‘no one should beat you’90. The annexation of Kosovo (together with Vojvodina) lost its autonomous status on 24 March 198991, after local representatives
79 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 334. 80 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 335. 81 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 337. 82 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 338-339. 83 See for example Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 341-362. 84 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 350. 85 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 345, 357, 359. 86 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 346. 87 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 343. 88 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 342. 89 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 350. 90 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 343. 91 Preceding the Collapse of Yugoslav party in December 1989. Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 371-2.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 26 were twice forced to resign, only made the problem more acute92. Direct control of the province was enacted in July 199093.
Conclusion
This section of the thesis has argued that a clash of historical narratives, bolstered by economic and political inequalities that were themselves in part driven by zero-sum narratives, led to demands of autonomy for Kosovo. The partial satisfaction of these demands, for example through allowing more representation in the political apparatus in Kosovo, and through the 1974 Constitution, only increased the hegemony of discourse in Kosovo, partly through the exodus of Serbs who found living conditions in the province to be newly hostile. Once these conditions were established, attempts by Belgrade to reassert control were manifestly more difficult, as each action to re-establish control - even without the divisive rhetoric of Milošević - would be subject to a particular manner of interpretation.
92 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 363. 93 Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, 353, 359.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 27
Chapter 3: The role of local history between South Ossetia and Georgia
Purpose of this section
This section of the thesis traces the reasons for which history in Georgia is contested and asks why violence broke out in the 2008. Within the analysis of escalating violence, the section details the changing political, demographic, and economic situation of the region in the latter half of the 20th century until 2008.
Abkhazia facts
Population: 550’000 (1991), 178’600 (2004 est.), circa 250’000 (2011)94. 4-5% of Georgia’s population.
Area: 8’600 sq. km95. When considered as part of Georgia, constitutes 12.3% of the Georgian territory96.
The ethnic make-up of Abkhazia has changed greatly over time. Thousands of Georgians were expelled in the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict (1992-1993)97. It should also be noted that
94 Barry Turner, The Statesman’s Yearbook 2015, The Politics, Cultures and Economies of the World, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, 506. BBC, “Abkhazia profile,” 7 December 2015, available at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-18175030. In 2003, an Abkhaz government survey declared a population total of as 216’000, of which Abkhazians (43.8%), Mingrelians (21.3%) and Armenians (20.8%) were the main groups. However, the actual ethnic make-up is likely roughly equally split between the three groups. See Kimitaka Matsuzato “Transnational minorities challenging the interstate system: Mingrelians, Armenians, and Muslims in and around Abkhazia,” Nationalities Papers, 39:5, 2011, 816, DOI:10.1080/00905992.2011.599376 95 Turner, The Statesman’s Yearbook, 506. 96 BBC, “Georgia profile,” 18 May 2017, available at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-17301647 97 States that there was ‘no significant’ Georgian population in Georgia after the war, although by 1998 30’000- 40’000 had returned. Carter Johnson (2015) Keeping the Peace After Partition: Ethnic Minorities, Civil Wars, and the Third Generation Ethnic Security Dilemma, Civil Wars, 17:1, 32. DOI:10.1080/13698249.2015.1059566
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 28
Abkhazia is multi-ethnic, and includes important Mingrelian, Armenian and Russian populations98.
South Ossetia facts
Population: 98,527 (1989)99, 49,200 (2004 est.), circa 52’000 (2013)100. 1.1% of Georgia’s population.
Area: 3’900 sq. km101. When considered as part of Georgia, constitutes 5.6% of the Georgian territory102.
South Ossetia is today largely mono-ethnic103. However, before the war in 2008, about 30’000 of the estimated 98’000 population in South Ossetia were Georgian104.
98 Matsuzato, “Transnational minorities,” 811. 99 Of which, 66.2% were Ossetian, 29.0% Georgian and 2.7% ‘Slavs’. 1989 Soviet census figures. Felix Corley “South Ossetia between Gamsakhurdia and Gorbachev: Three documents,” Central Asian Survey, 16:2, 1997, 269, DOI:10.1080/02634939708400987 100 Turner, The Statesman’s Yearbook, 507.BBC, “South Ossetia profile - Facts,” 7 December 2015, available at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-18269214 101 Turner, The Statesman’s Yearbook, 507. 102 BBC, “Georgia profile.” 103 Matsuzato, “Transnational minorities,” 813. 104 Stephen Jones, Georgia: A Political History Since Independence, New York: I.B. Tauris, 2013, 239. Monica Dufy Toft, “Multinationality, Regional Institutions, State-Building: the Failed Transition in Georgia,” Regional and Federal Studies, 11:3, 131.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 29
Georgia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia: a shared history
This part of the thesis will examine how the clash of historical narratives in Georgia, had often resulted in violence, particularly when the country and its various peoples were not integrated into a larger state. The actions of Georgian leaders in particular will also be considered as sources of violent potential, particularly from the late 1980s.
Contested narratives
This section will argue that the competing mythologies of the Georgians, South Ossetians and the Abkhazians has been a source of conflict throughout history.
Georgian mythology centres on claims of Georgian dominance of the region, which is said to date from 2000 B.C. when the Western Caucasus was dominated by a “Colchian” culture, which was linguistically - and therefore ethnically - Kartvelian (Georgian)105. Other Georgian myths exalt the Golden Age of unity under David the Builder (1089-1125), who is said to have made the Ossetians into vassals (referring to North Ossetia)106. Often, Georgians emphasise the sovereignty of these ancient kingdoms, discounting the frequent subjugation of Georgian lands to empires based in Persia and Rome107, and disregarding popular myths among other nationalities by reversing them. For example Georgians claim that the Abkhazian kingdom that ruled Georgia in the 11th century was Georgian108. In relation to Abkhazia, Georgians claim it was merely part of Georgia109, and was previously part of the Colchis, whilst in the 20th century, the legitimisation of the rule of Georgia over Abkhazia in the years of independence (1918-21) by representatives of the Abkhaz people is seen to
105 Stuart J. Kaufman, Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War, Cornell: Cornell University Press, 2001, 91. 106 Kaufman, Modern Hatreds, 91. 107 Kaufman, Modern Hatreds, 91. 108 Kaufman, Modern Hatreds, 92. 109 Kaufman, Modern Hatreds, 91.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 30 legitimise Georgian rule today110. One Georgian narrative is that both the Ossetians and Abkhazians are ‘guests’, and not indigenous to their respective territories111. Georgians reportedly see Ossetian uprisings as linked to foreign interventions (from Russia) and hence as oppressive112.
The (South) Ossetians descend from Alan or Sarmatian tribes who settled in the Caucasus in the beginning of the Christian era113. The linguistically Iranian roots of Ossetian differ from many of those of the surrounding tribes, such as Cherkes and Turkic languages114. Ossetian mythology frequently emphasises the oppression experienced at Georgian hands. For example, some Ossetian historians say South Ossetians have lived in the region for 400 years115, since Georgian landowners brought Ossetians from the Northern Caucasus as serfs in the 16th century, whilst others emphasise Ossetians’ intermittent autonomy and frequent fighting with Georgian kings in the 18th century116. The South Ossetian narratives do not seem to be able to claim as strong a connection to the land as compared to the two other nationalities. Even the name “South Ossetia” is disputed, with Ossetian myth claiming it came from the 18th century, while the Georgians say it was a Bolshevik invention117. The narrative of oppression continued when the 1920 rebellion - claimed as Ossetian, not Bolshevik - was bloodily suppressed118. Interestingly, South Ossetians argue that Georgia’s border had been drawn ‘arbitrarily’ by Russia, and should therefore not be respected119. Finally, both South Ossetians and Georgians are Orthodox Christians120.
110 Kaufman, Modern Hatreds, 92. 111 Kaufman, Modern Hatreds, 94. For Abkhazian claims, see Toft, “Multinationality, Regional Institutions, State- Building,” 129. 112 Kaufman, Modern Hatreds, 93. 113 Kaufman, Modern Hatreds, 97. 114 Fridrik Thordarson, “Ossetic Language i. History and Description,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, July 2009, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ossetic. Toft places Ossetians in the Caucasus from the 13th century. Toft, “Multinationality, Regional Institutions, State-Building,” 130. 115 Raymond Bonner, “Separatists in Georgia Look to Russia for Protection: Ethnic Conflict and Russia’s Southern Flank,” New York Times, 12 June 1994. 116 Kaufman, Modern Hatreds, 97. 117 Kaufman, Modern Hatreds, 97. 118 South Ossetians remember the suppression as “genocide”. See Raymond Bonner, “Separatists in Georgia Look to Russia for Protection: Ethnic Conflict and Russia’s Southern Flank,” New York Times, 12 June 1994. See also Kaufman, Modern Hatreds, 97. 119 Raymond Bonner, “Separatists in Georgia Look to Russia for Protection: Ethnic Conflict and Russia’s Southern Flank,” New York Times, 12 June 1994. 120 Raymond Bonner, “Separatists in Georgia Look to Russia for Protection: Ethnic Conflict and Russia’s Southern Flank,” New York Times, 12 June 1994.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 31
The Abkhaz mythology emphasises the indigenous nature of their ancestors, whom they trace to Hurrians and Hattians of the Middle Eastern second and third millenniums B.C. 121. Abkhaz narratives could be summed up as a combination of the pride felt by Georgians and the oppression of a ‘smaller’ nationality, as felt by South Ossetians. For example, Abkhazians claim that the Abkhaz dynasty was, for a period around the eighth century, rulers of all Georgia - taking the Georgian unity myth for their own122. Abkhaz scholars also allege, reversing the Georgian argument, that Georgians are the ‘recent arrivals’123. The Abkhaz stress that they gained their independence in the 17th century under the Shervashidze dynasty, until an 1810 union with Russia124, after which the Abkhaz continued to resist in mountain territories125. After some Abkhaz converted to Islam the 17th and 18th century, half of the Abkhazians - and all Muslims - were expelled from the region in response to Russian suppression of a rebellion in 1866, and in 1877 at the time of the Russo-Turkish War126. The expulsions of Muslims by Russia are also remembered for the foreign settlers who took the best land127.
The strongly felt connections between the three nationalities and their lands are apparent from their respective mythologies, and arguably increase the likelihood of conflict when competing claims for the same areas are added, which is precisely the case in Georgia.
Shared history: Georgian ‘inclusiveness’?
The history of Georgia and the Caucasus in general is known for its complex national, religious and tribal loyalties and related wars, kept current by the need for decentralised
121 Kaufman, Modern Hatreds, 95. 122 Kaufman, Modern Hatreds, 95. 123 Toft, “Multinationality, Regional Institutions, State-Building,” 129. 124 Kaufman, Modern Hatreds, 95. 125 Edward Mihalkanin, “The Abkhazians,” in De Facto States: The Quest for Sovereignty eds. Tozun Bahcheli, Barry Bartmann, Henry Srebrnik, London: Taylor & Francis, 2016, 144. 126 Toft, “Multinationality, Regional Institutions, State-Building,” 129. 127 Kaufman, Modern Hatreds, 95.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 32 policies due to the mountainous territory128. Despite the evidence available, some researchers argue that, over the long term, Georgian-Abkhazian and Georgian-South Ossetian relations have been largely peaceful129. If this was the case, it is perhaps because these territories have been governed by empires for long periods, most recently the Russian (throughout most of the 19th century) and the Soviet (1922-1991). Degoev has argued that the Russian empire personified an ideology of “arbiter, peacemaker and unifier” in the Caucasus130. Whether imposed or not, long periods of relative peace occurred, and the many nationalities and national minorities of the region, among which Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Greeks, South Ossetians, Adjarians, and Abkhazians feature131, intermingled in an environment that often encouraged tolerance, a quality of which the Georgians are proud132.
Georgian inclusiveness can perhaps be demonstrated through the lack of evidence of jingoistic Georgian nationalism in this period, though this could equally be due to the presence of the Russian state. Under the surface, Georgians did bemoan the strongly multi- ethnic make-up of Tbilisi and actively attempted to defend their ‘cultural rights’, yet further evidence of ‘inclusiveness’ can be seen in the fact that by the end of the 19th century many Georgians saw their future in socialism, not nationalism, and none of the Georgian political parties supported independence from Russia before 1917133. In addition, there were no major wars recorded between Georgia and other Caucasian peoples at least from 1800 until 1900, if one discounts the wars fought to protect Russia’s interests134. De Waal adds a different view of nationalism that could lead to a contrasting view of inter-ethnic relations. By arguing that stable national identities in Georgia and surrounding countries only materialised in the Soviet era, when Tbilisi became overwhelmingly Georgian for the first time135, De Waal seems to suggest that loyalties along nationalist lines were not as strong as
128 Thomas De Waal, The Caucasus: An Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010, 14. 129 Jones, Georgia, 219. However, the literature is sparse on any mentions of belligerent qualities of Georgians, Ossetians or Abkhazians, should they exist. Perhaps Rival clans as pre-national? See King, History of the Caucasus, 5. 130 See Vladimir Degoev, “The Diplomacy of the Caucasus War as a History Lesson,” Russian Social Science Review, 31. 131 See, for example, De Waal, The Caucasus, 14-16. 132 Jones, Georgia, 219. 133 Jones, Georgia, 220. 134 In parts of the Caucasian War, the Crimean War, and the Russo-Turkish War, Georgian principalities fought on Russia’s side, excepting the switching of Abkhazia to the Ottoman side in the Crimean War. 135 De Waal, The Caucasus, 16.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 33 they later became136. To be sure, this has been the case in general as nationality requirements became increasing rigid, often against the backdrop of exclusionary cultures and policies. In the Caucasus, for example, one can contrast the multi-ethnic cities of Tbilisi and Baku to their later, more homogenous iterations that were subject not only to tax collection and other feudal means of controlling the population by a far-away imperial power centre, but to more intimate means of control by the dominant local nationality with the full capacities of modernised bureaucracy at their disposal. In the beginning of the 20th century, the signs of Georgian nationalism were increasingly evident, driven by intellectual Georgians who continued to perpetuate the national culture through the promotion of Georgian language and literature, and who often pursued a moderate degree of independence from Russia137. Despite the longevity and strong historical narratives of the Abkhazian and (South) Ossetian peoples, however, the strength of the signs and symbols of their respective national cultures and imagined communities were relatively less developed. Where national feeling was evident was through conflict, for example in South Ossetia in the 1918 peasant uprising, the Ossetian rebellion of October 1918, and the short-lived Soviet republic declared in South Ossetia in May 1920, to which Georgia responded by razing villages138. In Abkhazia there was a similar story, and the region spent the years between 1918 and 1921 under different rulers after a pro-Bolshevik administration was replaced by Mensheviks in May 1918. After the fall of Menshevik Georgia to the Bolsheviks in 1921, Abkhazia was briefly a de facto independent republic before being absorbed into the Transcaucasus Federation as a “Treaty Republic”139.
The next section will argue that Soviet institutions and structures were an important factor in increasing the viability of all three nationalities in Georgia.
136 This argument rests on the state-building prevalent in Georgia from the mid-19th century, and makes no claim on the progress or otherwise of other loyalties, such as monarchistic or religious loyalties. For an overview of the growth of Georgian nationalism, see Natalie Sabanadze, “Globalization and Georgian Nationalism,” in Globalization and Nationalism: The Cases of Georgia and the Basque Country, ed. Natalie Sabanadze Budapest: Central European University Press, 2010, 67. 137 Sabanadze, “Globalization and Georgian Nationalism,” 67. 138 Tuathail, “Russia’s Kosovo,” 674. 139 De Waal, The Caucasus, 150.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 34
Shared history: USSR
After a brief period of independence from imperial Russia, declared in April 1918140 under a Menshevik government, the Soviet Union annexed Georgia in 1922141. However, under Soviet rule the extant strength of Georgian and other nationalisms were, paradoxically, given the means to continue developing.
In the beginning years of the USSR, nationalism gained prominence as a serious threat to the emerging Soviet federation, due to its capacity to unite peoples along national lines rather than those of class142. To tackle this threat to the Soviet project, federal leaders came up with an ingenious doctrinal solution to encourage the multiplication and strength of nationalities whilst simultaneously attacking the bourgeois class within each nationality. Thus, an increase in the status of nations (which may have before been recognised only as ‘peoples’) was, after being interpreted through Marxist doctrine, encouraged as an indispensable stage in history that would result in the overcoming of the bourgeoisie on the national level, and further human advancement on the path to communism143. By furnishing various nations with official institutions, the policy was directed at giving nations an institutional structure to further promote their language and culture. These ideologically driven decisions had practical consequences in that the national consciousnesses of multifarious ‘nations’ throughout the USSR were systematically built up through the establishment or adjustment of institutions to their benefit. An example might be of schooling in the (new) national language, or the granting of political posts on a quota basis according to nationality144. At the same time, nations were not seen as equal. Ossetians and Abkhazians, in contrast to Georgians, were two of 97 nationalities of the USSR designated as “culturally backward”145, signifying a low level of literacy, underdeveloped literary language
140 Aleksandar Pavković, “Recursive Secession of Trapped Minorities: A Comparative Study of the Serb Krajina and Abkhazia,” Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 17:3, 2011, 301, DOI:10.1080/13537113.2011.600111 141 Felix Corley, “South Ossetia between Gamsakhurdia and Gorbachev,” 269. 142 Terry Martin, “The Affirmative Action Empire: nations and nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923-1939,” Cornell: Cornell University Press, 2001, 4. 143 Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire, 5. 144 Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire, 1. 145 Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire, 167. See also George, 31.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 35 and continuing undesirable traits such as the oppression of women and clan vengeance146. However, this designation should be interpreted in a positive sense, understood as signifying that measures were actively being taken to address these ills in parallel to the measures taken to address the lack of national institutions, both through government structures such as Autonomous Oblasts and Autonomous Republics and through the content of these institutions, for example the languages used in them. The two policies, of building national institutions and attempting to boost (Soviet-style) development, were collectively known as Korenizatsiia, and formed the nucleus of Soviet nationalities policy147.
The policy of Korenizatsiia had important consequences for South Ossetia and Abkhazia, of which two can be considered as especially pertinent to developments in Georgia after the fall of the USSR: growth of national consciousness of the titular nationalities, and the presence of national institutions through which national groupings exerted control and expressed political sentiment.
Firstly, there is strong evidence that Korenizatsiia strengthened national consciousness in the different regions of Georgia. For example, by 1939 Ossetians were strongly represented in leadership positions148. In language policy, too, there were signs of relatively strong national feeling. For example, in 1929, (North) Ossetia shifted its rural bureaucracy to Ossetian, in contrast to many other Caucasian peoples149, showing that Ossetians were keen to take advantage of the Soviet promotion of nationality, and were either more motivated or more organised - probably both - to do so, relative to other ascriptive nationalities. In terms of territorial boundaries, institutional Korenizatsiia also proceeded apace. In South Ossetia, the National Soviet of South Ossetia, proscribed by the Tbilisi regime in 1919150, was reinstated in the designation of South Ossetia as an Autonomous Oblast (AO) in 1922151.
146 Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire, 166. 147 Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire, 10. 148 Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire, 383. 149 Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire, 171. The question of whether the South Ossetian apparat also changed to the Ossetian language is not addressed by Martin. However, given the close cultural links between the North and South Ossetians the strength of national sentiment and ability to act on this sentiment through organisational changes likely contributed to the further growth of nationalist tendencies in both regions. In addition, the policy may have been one of co-optation. 150 David Lang, A Modern History of Soviet Georgia, New York: Grove Press, 1962, 228. 151 Stephen Jones, “The Establishment of Soviet Power in Transcaucasia: The Case of Georgia 1921-1928,” Soviet Studies, Vol. 40, No. 4 (Oct., 1988), 617.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 36
However, plans for uniting North and South Ossetia AOs into an ASSR were in 1925 considered but later rejected as undesirous by Stalin due to the foreseen likelihood of a chain reaction that would occasion a heightened risk of Russian nationalism152. That this was considered at length at such a high level is further evidence that Ossetian national sentiment ran high in the early Soviet period. However, on another view, the two ‘lesser’ nationalities lost out, as, on one count, under Stalin the 1936 Soviet Constitution downgraded Abkhazia from a Union Republic to an AR that was subordinate to Georgia, and in both Abkhazia and Ossetia schooling and language instruction underwent Georgianisation153.
In later Soviet Georgia as a whole, then, the nationalities policy of the USSR resulted in three ‘national’ enclaves in Georgia - the Abkhazian and Adjarian autonomous republics and the autonomous oblast of South Ossetia154, whilst Georgia itself continued to benefit from being chosen as a ‘first-ranking’ nationality that could to a large extent run its own affairs and had a large say over resources and power, and thus over the ‘lesser’ national lands and peoples in its territory. ‘Orthodox nationalism’155 of later Soviet times was largely successful in Georgia, in the sense that the country did not experience an armed movement with nationalist aims in WWII, in contrast to the Baltic states and Ukraine. Georgian nationalism, then, though as proud as any, was as a rule benign in relation to Soviet rule, and coping mechanisms such as personal connections with Moscow156 were used to gain influence and resources rather than outright hostility to what was seen as Soviet imperialism in South Ossetia157.
Pride in Georgian history, especially evident from the second half of the 19th century, was tested by the economic circumstances of Soviet rule, a situation that led to continued
152 Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire, 398. The breakaway of other ‘lesser’ nations from the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) and the subsequent formation of an ethnically homogenous Russian republic was seen as giving succour to ‘Great Power chauvinism’ and thus constituting a threat to the Soviet project. See also Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire, 401. 153 Julie A. George, The Politics of Ethnic Separatism in Russia and Georgia, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, 32 and 104. 154 For South Ossetia, as mentioned above in Jones, Georgia, 232. For Abkhazia, see Pavković (2011) Recursive Secession of Trapped Minorities, 303. 155 Orthodox nationalism focused on the cultural sphere, promoting language, education, film, literature and sport. Teresa Rakowska-Harmstone in Jones, Georgia, 221. 156 George, The Politics of Ethnic Separatism, 32. 157 George, The Politics of Ethnic Separatism, 104.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 37 loyalties being held to ‘kin/ethnic groups’ rather than the Georgian ‘nation’158. By the 1970s and 1980s, however, Georgians’ vision of their national history was being given especial prominence by the Soviet Georgian media, reinforcing appreciation of the medieval Georgian past and literary revival of the 1860s159. As a Union Republic, Georgians were used to a great deal of autonomy. Towards the national minorities, Soviet Georgians were sometimes hostile, and Georgian denials of the Abkhazians’ ethno-genesis and of South Ossetians’ claim of historic settlement in the southern slopes of the Caucasus continued to be rejected by the Georgians160. In 1979, only 19.5% of Georgia’s national minorities claimed to speak Georgian fluently. In this context, the legal declaration of Georgian as the sole official language in August 1989 would not be well received in the autonomous regions161. The prominence of Georgian culture and education was also mirrored by differentiated development in economic infrastructure and lower employment for non-Georgians, which were viewed by minorities as signs of the indifference of the political centre (Tbilisi)162.
Shared history: political and economic turmoil in 1990s
This section will argue that underlying nationalist tendencies were exacerbated in the 1990s by economic factors and the actions of politicians.
At the demise of the USSR, many of the peoples given national status, land and resources to develop their languages and culture during Soviet times went on to demand full sovereignty or a degree of autonomy that the newly independent countries - within which these autonomous entities were located - found intolerable. From the point of view of the autonomous entities in Georgia, however, Georgianisation in Soviet times was unacceptable, and continuing under Georgia’s tutelage was equally intolerable. From a more objective viewpoint, Roeder argues that, for the most part, successful attempts to become fully
158 Another Soviet ‘coping mechanism’?. Cf. Jones, Georgia, 16. 159 For example, schools used primers first published in the 1800s. Jones, Georgia, 11, 15. 160 Jones, Georgia, 232. See also Jonathan Wheatley, “Managing ethnic diversity in Georgia: one step forward, two steps back,” in War and Revolution in the Caucasus, ed. Stephen F. Jones, Georgia, Oxford: Routledge, 2011, 29. 161 Stefan Wolff, http://pesd.princeton.edu/?q=node/274 162 Jones, Georgia, 232.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 38 independent could be predicted by the level of autonomy granted within the USSR163. At the highest level of autonomy, all 15 Union Republics became fully sovereign countries with de jure independence by the end of 1991, whilst at the bottom of the scale, (threatened) proclamations of independence where the national institutions were either non-existent, for example in the case of Russophones in Estonia and Latvia and in the case of Gagauzia in Moldova, or where Oblast status was held (Transcarpathia, Ukraine) were universally unsuccessful. At the Autonomous Republic (AR) and Autonomous Oblast (AO) levels the story is more complicated. Simply put, regions having AR or AO status at the end of the Soviet period feature heavily in the list of notable post-Soviet conflicts164. Abkhazia (AR) and South Ossetia (AO) are among those that held de facto independence from the former Republican centre - in this case, Tbilisi - since 1991 (December 22, South Ossetia) and 1992 (July 23, Abkhazia).
Politics and governance
The end of the Soviet era was in some states marked by the collapse of existing state institutions and the social contracts that had for 70 years underpinned the legitimacy of the state structures. Although this was not the case in Georgia, the breakdown of Soviet rule changed the rules of what was politically possible. It was in this context that former dissidents and marginal groups came to the fore, nefarious practices proliferated, and three wars took place after independence - two of secession (South Ossetia and Abkhazia) and a civil war165.
163 Following Roeder’s segmentation thesis, Philip G. Roeder, Where Nation-States Come From: Institutional Change in the Age of Nationalism, Woodstock, UK: Princeton University Press, 2011, 301-303. 164 Nagorno-Karabakh (AO) and Chechnya (AR) were amongst those that proclaimed independence. 165 Jones, Georgia, 239.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 39
Calls for independence end in violence
Part of the turmoil was due to mutually reinforcing calls for independence. For example, in March 1989, a ‘People’s Forum’ in Abkhazia gathered 30’000 people to call for independence from Georgia and to be governed directly from Moscow166. The Georgians, seeing Moscow’s hand in the uprisings, adopted an anti-Russian line that was soon hardened by events such as the 1989 rallies that were suppressed by Soviet troops and after which loyalty to Moscow became morally objectionable167. In July 1992, the Abkhaz declaration of independence was followed by a Georgian invasion that claimed eight thousand lives168, and during which serious abuses - including arbitrary killings and rape - were committed. Georgian civilians fled in their thousands from the lawless province, greatly changing the ethnic make-up of the region. Fighting in Abkhazia continued later in the decade. For example, in 1998 Abkhaz militias forced 20’000 Georgians to migrate after Georgian paramilitary groups, with covert support from Georgian security forces, killed many Abkhaz169. After these events, the Abkhaz leadership stopped negotiations over autonomy with Tbilisi and called an independence referendum, winning 97% of the vote170. Meanwhile, in November 1989, South Ossetian representatives declared the region an autonomous republic, an announcement rejected by Tbilisi and one that was followed by a convoy of 20000 Georgians to the regional capital Tskhinvali that resulted in three days of violence and six deaths171. The new Georgian leader, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, did little to alleviate the situation when he referred to minorities as ‘guests’ of Georgia172, opposed mixed marriages that had been prevalent between Mingrelians and Abkhazians, and played on Georgians historic denial of the existence of South Ossetia as a territory outside of Georgia shortly after
166 De Waal, The Caucasus, 131. 167 De Waal, The Caucasus, 132. On 9 April 1989, 20 demonstrators in Tbilisi - mostly female - were killed by Soviet troops, turning many Georgians against the Soviet regime. See Wheatley, “Managing ethnic diversity in Georgia,” 30. 168 Pavković, “Recursive Secession of Trapped Minorities,” 307. De Waal, The Caucasus, 164. 169 De Waal, The Caucasus, 166. 170 De Waal, The Caucasus, 166. 171 De Waal, The Caucasus, 139. 172 De Waal, The Caucasus, 138. See also King, History of the Caucasus, 216.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 40
Gamsakhurdia was elected on a platform of ending minority rights173. Tensions continued to rise and in November 1990 South Ossetians proclaimed a South Ossetian Soviet Democratic Republic, effectively seceding from Georgia, to which Gamsakhurdia replied in December that year, abrogating all autonomous status and declaring a state of emergency in the newly named ‘Tskhinvali and Java Regions’174. At this point, the resentment between Georgians and the South Ossetians erupted in a war (1991-1992) that claimed a thousand lives175.
The Ethnic Dimension
Driven by ethnic concerns and loyalties, Tbilisi politicians’ behaviour was diverted from the democratic goals of caring for the people as a whole. Ethnic discrimination by Georgian institutions, denounced by Armenians and Azeris in addition to the Abkhaz and Ossetians176, was evident through political schemes such as that which prevented political parties without countrywide representation from standing for office177, just one indication of the “extreme” nationalism which afflicted Georgia from 1989-91178. Elsewhere in the 1990s, ex-communist elites in Abkhazia used extreme nationalism to protect their privileges, backed by Russian nationalists179 and Russian politicians encouraged Abkhazians especially to defy Georgian supremacy180. However, agreements on ethnic grounds also provided a means to try to maintain peace. Thus, before war broke out, Abkhazians were given a large number of seats in the regional parliament relative to their population share in a consociationalist181 agreement with Gamsakhurdia in 1991. In South Ossetia, however, the 1991-1992 war was
173 Roeder, Where Nation-States Come From, 222. De Waal states that many Georgians resist the concept of South Ossetia. De Waal, The Caucasus, 136. 174 De Waal, The Caucasus, 139. See also Jones, Georgia, 223 and Roeder, Where Nation-States Come From, 51. 175 De Waal, The Caucasus, 139. 176 De Waal, The Caucasus, 135. 177 De Waal, The Caucasus, 133. 178 De Waal, The Caucasus, 135. 179 Jones, Georgia, 218-19. 180 Jones, Georgia, 234. 181 I.e. a power-sharing agreement between elites, in this case ethnic elites. See Sabine Saurugger, “Consociationalism,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, April 2013, available at https://www.britannica.com/topic/consociationalism
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 41 preceded by expulsions by the Georgian government of South Ossetians from Gori, Borjomi and other districts in 1990-1182.
Lack of effective government structures
The lack of effective governmental institutions caused problems for control of the separatist areas. Abkhazia and South Ossetia came to be characterised by lawlessness that was ripe for drug trafficking and other criminal activities183. The absence of effective government structures - before Georgian independence in 1991 there was no Georgian police force, no sovereign institutions, no national army, and no horizontal civil structures that could foster democracy and trust outside of the kinship ties that people in Georgia had fallen back on in the Soviet period184 - led to a reliance on what remained: a hotchpotch of loyalties to ethnic and territorial leaders. However, Gamsakhurdia was ousted in a coup and replaced by former USSR foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze185, who sought to restore central control over the country, and in particular over the autonomous provinces. Under Shevardnadze’s governance (1995-2003), government control and legitimacy remained weak, especially in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, where the future options in territorial terms were seen as limited to obtaining full independence and becoming part of the Russian Federation186. For the time being, the conflicts in the two enclaves would remain ‘frozen’, denoting a situation where combatants are not actively engaged in conflict, whilst there has been no official resolution of the conflict187.
182 Jones, Georgia, 240. 183 Jones, Georgia, 259. 184 Jones, Georgia, 16, 263. 185 Wheatley “Managing ethnic diversity in Georgia,” 32. 186 Wheatley, “Managing ethnic diversity in Georgia,” 32. 187 Wheatley, “Managing ethnic diversity in Georgia,” 33.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 42
Continued lack of government control
The lack of control in independent Georgia was evident in the organisation of the military during the war with Abkhazia in 1992-93, when the Georgian army was reliant on personal loyalties to military leaders and opportunities of pillage rather than nationalist ideas, and was finally discredited by their performance188. Given the lawlessness prevalent in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, one could hardly expect the ‘armies’ there to behave much differently. Part of this lawlessness spilt over into armed groups with competing political aims that were not helped by the volatility of Georgian forces in South Ossetia189, who undertook military operations without the knowledge of President Shevardnadze190. In Abkhazia, similar actions were the catalyst for the outbreak of war in August 1992. The war with Abkhazia eventually ended in September 1993 after 10’000 deaths and the expulsion of 200’000 ethnic Georgians by Abkhazian and irregular Russian forces, thereafter leaving Abkhazia under a separatist government which was outside of Georgian control191. From 1994, the central government started to reassert control over the chaos and crime that had overtaken the country. The initiative, whilst successful in neutralising breakaway paramilitary and mafia- style groups, a process that was largely complete in Georgia proper by August 1995192, was manifestly unsuccessful in terms of the Georgian government’s ambition to assert control over the separatist regions. Thus, Georgia’s first constitution of the post-independence era recognised Abkhazia and Adjaria delaying a pronouncement on territorial divisions in South Ossetia, until a future date when the full control of the Georgian territory was established193.
188 Jones, Georgia, 11. 189 Besik Urigashvili, “Georgia and South Ossetia: The Peoples are Paying in Blood for the Politicians’ Mistakes,” in Countdown to War in Georgia: Russia’s Foreign Policy and Media Coverage of the Conflict in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Minneapolis: East View Press, 2008, 38. 190 Urigashvili, “Georgia and South Ossetia,” 39. 191 Wheatley “Managing ethnic diversity in Georgia,” 31. On the fleeing of Georgians, see also Roeder, Where Nation-States Come From, 304. 192 Wheatley “Managing ethnic diversity in Georgia,” 32. 193 Roeder, Where Nation-States Come From, 51-53.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 43
Economy
Some historians allege that the roots of Georgia’s internal conflicts do not lie in ethnic conflict but in economic deprivation. Undoubtedly, the economic turmoil of the 1990s made conciliation more difficult. The end of the Soviet system in the 1990s was catastrophic for Georgia’s economy, and real GDP shrank to less than a third of its 1990 level by the year 2000, while production went down 78%194. Jones also argues that violence in South Ossetia was ‘not necessarily ethnic’195, but also had economic roots. In truth, the factors mixed to produce undesirable outcomes. For example, in an environment of belief in ethnic belonging as determined by descent, amplified by the ‘state glorification’ of Georgian ethnicity in the Gamsakhurdia era196, rural South Ossetians were likely shut out of some jobs due to the importance of (Georgian) family ties in deciding employment opportunities197. Claims of ethnic discrimination continued throughout the post-Soviet period. For example, in 1992, the leader of the (unrecognised) South Ossetian republic declared that South Ossetians still felt treated as second-class citizens by Georgia’s government, and that this, and the bloodshed in the ongoing war, was pushing South Ossetian citizens to consider uniting with Russia198.
The Rose Revolution in the context of local history
This section will argue that the political approach to the problem of territorial jurisdiction after the Rose Revolution was in many ways driven by the continuation of previous post-
194 European Initiative, Liberal Academy Tbilisi, “The Economic Transformation of Georgia in its 20 years of Independence,” 2012, 3. Available at http://www.ei- lat.ge/images/doc/the%20economic%20transformation%20of%20georgia%20- %2020%20years%20of%20independence%20eng.pdf 195 Jones, Georgia, 219. 196 Jones, Georgia, 21. 197 Jones, Georgia, 21. 198 Liana Minasyan, “South Ossetia: ‘NO COMPROMISES WITH GEORGIA’ - This is the Desire of Alan Chochiyev,’ in Countdown to War in Georgia: Russia’s Foreign Policy and Media Coverage of the Conflict in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Minneapolis: East View Press, 2008, 34.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 44 independence policies. Whether policies were made more stringent or not, it usually played into the hands of separatists.
After the Rose Revolution of 2003, Saakashvili sought to greatly strengthen the state, in territorial, economic and cultural terms, and in so doing further antagonised the Abkhazian and South Ossetian populations, whilst Adjaria was brought back under the full control of the state in May 2004199. However, by increasing control, some government problems, such as corruption, were overcome, at the expense of sensitive political problems.
Saakashvili’s anti-corruption drive
However, by closing down the important Ergneti market in 2004 - which made sense in terms of his anti-corruption drive200 - Saakashvili also gravely affected the livelihoods of ordinary South Ossetians. Inter-ethnic violence broke out, at the cost of 22 lives, and the migration of villagers from the conflict zone201. Contact between Georgians and South Ossetians - previously common in the everyday functioning of the marketplace - was broken and both nationalities developed a siege mentality in South Ossetia. The secondary effect of these anti-corruption and integration attempts was to unite the South Ossetians around the goal of unification with the Russian Federation202. Saakashvili’s other explicit determined efforts to ensure Georgia’s territorial integrity in the context of Georgia’s increased military spending203, and suggestions by Saakashvili’s advisors that military force was an option in the project to restore sovereignty. In Abkhazia in 2006 a different story occurred, yet emerging from similar aims and leading to a not dissimilar outcome. In the Upper Kodori Gorge in the east of Abkhazia, the head of the local militia, Emzar Kvitsiani, was forced to leave the region after threatening to rearm his fighters. As part of the action, the Georgian government
199 Wheatley, “Managing ethnic diversity in Georgia,” 35. 200 At the time, the market was a major trading point for black market goods between Russia and Georgia, and the place of cultural exhange between South Ossetians and Georgians. See Wheatley, “Managing ethnic diversity in Georgia,” 36. 201 Wheatley, “Managing ethnic diversity in Georgia,” 36. 202 Wheatley, “Managing ethnic diversity in Georgia,” 36. 203 Military spending went from 0.7% of GDP in 2003 to 8.8% in 2007. Wheatley, “Managing ethnic diversity in Georgia,” 35.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 45 installed the Abkhazian government in exile (i.e. that had approval of Tbilisi) in the gorge, angering the Abkhazians. This story is part of a longer history of the ethnically mixed nature of both South Ossetia and Abkhazia. In South Ossetia,
In Abkhazia, the titular nationality drove out thousands of Georgians at the end of the 1992- 1993 war, which was triggered by Abkhazia’s attempt to split from Georgia after the fall of the USSR204.
These actions in South Ossetia and Abkhazia both had negative consequences, heightening tensions in both regions.
One of the major problems hindering relations between Tbilisi and the two enclaves was the problem of citizenship in the broad sense, the contours of which can be demonstrated through the related question of language. In terms of language, Georgian had taken the place of Russian to become the most important language of the state, and full participation in the state increasingly required that one speak Georgian, contributing to the social and cultural isolation of minorities205. Shevardnadze’s lack of ability or will to push an integration agenda made the situation worse as there was no support for integration in the remote rural areas where minorities often lived206. Before Saakashvili, the laissez-faire approach under Shevardnadze allowed the local custom of not strictly enforcing Georgian language requirements for state officials to continue, boosting integrationist tendencies207.
204 Tom Parfitt, “Years of ‘Frozen Conflict’ Leave Abkhazia Isolated and Poor,” The Lancet, Vol. 367, 1 April 2006. 205 Wheatley, “Managing ethnic diversity in Georgia,” 33. 206 Wheatley, “Managing ethnic diversity in Georgia,” 34. 207 Wheatley, “Managing ethnic diversity in Georgia,” 39.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 46
Chapter 4: NATO’s evolution before and during the operations against Serbia
The purpose of this chapter is to detail the reasons that NATO launched a military attack on Serbia, focusing on the context in which the principal geopolitical actor (NATO) took action. The chapter will be organised into three sections: the history of NATO; the moral and institutional context of the conflict; stated and concealed goals.
A short history of NATO as an organisation
NATO was founded by the ‘Washington Treaty’ of 4 April 1949. The organisation retains the text adopted on that day and continues to focus on the right of states to ‘collective defence’, as interpreted by member states. This defence was initially aimed at preventing the further spread of Soviet influence after the 1948 coup in Czechoslovakia and Berlin blockade of 1948-49208. The organisation attracted four new members during the Cold War: Greece and Turkey (joined 1952), West Germany (1955209), and Spain (1982)210. At the end of the Cold War, the London Declaration of July 1990 declared that NATO should further stability by being an “agent of change”211. In this spirit, a New Strategic Concept (NSC) was announced in November 1991. Together with a more ‘innovative’ approach to crisis prevention and conflict management tasks and a focus on dialogue and cooperation to protect peace in the ‘new Europe’212, the NSC aimed to secure a ‘European Security and Defence Identity’, at the
208 NATO, “Founding Treaty,” last updated 30 January 2017, http://www.nato.int/cps/iw/natohq/topics_67656.htm 209 East Germany joined NATO in 1990 after Gorbachev agreed that a reunified Germany could be part of the alliance. The German unification treaty was ratified on 3 October 1990. Encyclopedia Brittanica, “The reunification of Germany,” available at https://www.britannica.com/place/Germany/The-reunification-of- Germany 210 NATO, “Member Countries,” last updated 19 April 2017, http://www.nato.int/cps/is/natohq/topics_52044.htm 211 Mark Webber, James Sperling and Martin A. Smith, NATO’s Post-Cold War Trajectory: Decline or Regeneration?, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, 48. 212 Webber et al., NATO’s Post-Cold War Trajectory, 48.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 47 same time as ensuring the continuance of the transatlantic link and military effectiveness213. In structural terms, headquarters were reduced from 78 to 20, with implementation beginning in 1999214. In the 1990s, NATO reached out to Eastern Europe through the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC; est. December 1991), which evolved into the Euro- Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC) in 1997215. The EAPC provided the political framework for the bilateral relationships promoted under the Partnership for Peace programme (PfP; from 1994)216. Membership of PfP has often proved to be a precursor to full membership, and three PfP participants became full NATO members in March 1999: the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland217.
The moral and institutional context of the conflict
In line with the ambitions of the paper to compare two conflicts that involve different principal actors, it is pertinent to consider here the moral and institutional context in which NATO action against Serbia took place. This section will therefore outline the dynamic moral context in international affairs in the 1990s, with particular reference to the effect of human rights discourse on international organisations.
It is surmised that ideas, when supported by powerful organisations and accepted by different populations, affect the scope of actions available to democratic governments218,
213 NATO, “NATO’s Command Structure: The Old and the New,” last updated 1 June 2004, http://www.nato.int/ims/docu/command-structure.htm 214 NATO, “NATO’s Command Structure”. 215 NATO, “Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council,” last updated 7 April 2016, http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_49276.htm 216 Deighton, A. “The European Union and NATO’s War over Kosovo” in Alliance Politics, Kosovo and NATO’s War: Allied Force or Forced Allies, eds. Pierre Martin and Mark R. Brawley (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2000), 63. NATO, “Partnership for Peace programme,” last updated 7 April 2016, http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_50349.htm 217 Klaiber, K-P, “The Membership Action Plan: Keeping NATO’s Door Open,” NATO Review: Web Edition, 47:2, Summer 1999, 23-25. Retrieved 11 May 2017, http://www.nato.int/docu/review/1999/9902-05.htm 218 Following Liberalism, whose proponents argue that state preferences - here, extrapolated to foreign policy choices - are unstable because they are based on competition between domestic groups, and therefore liable to change in through democratic processes. Liberals, however, focus on the economic interests of domestic groups. It is here suggested that interest groups can be driven by moral and political purposes. A historical example of this could how the opposition to the Vietnam War affected voting patterns. For example, Burstein and Freudenburg detail how public opinion might have affected legislators’ voting patterns in the United
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 48 and therefore the scope of actions available to NATO, as all decisions on NATO policy are agreed by consensus among member countries219. It is reasonable to deduce that a widespread conception - factual or otherwise - of NATO’s policies as contravening modern democracy and moral standards would be harmful to the alliance’s image, which would affect the alliance’s power to act in short order as NATO leaders came under domestic pressure220. Following this reasoning and the relative stability in NATO states in the 1990s, as compared to the countries subject to intervention, it is perhaps unremarkable to state that NATO policy was susceptible to moral and philosophical developments that obtained broad consensus in the domestic constituencies of its member states. The question, as will be examined later in this chapter, is whether these sentiments were exploited for other means.
The growth of human rights in discourse and institutions
One major adjustment to moral compasses in the West in the 1970s was the notion that human rights concerns should guide the conduct of international affairs. Moyn notes that human rights, despite having been present in supranational mechanisms in the decades before221, gained unprecedented cultural prestige for the first time in the 1970s222. In the UN, the institutional effects of the growth of discourses expounding the virtue of human rights can be seen in the creation of the UN Centre of Human Rights in the 1980s and its subsequent upgrading to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in
States. Paul Burstein and William Freudenburg, “Changing Public Policy: The Impact of Public Opinion, Antiwar Demonstrations, and War Costs on Senate Voting on Vietnam War Motions,” American Journal of Sociology, 84:1, July 1978, 104-105. 219 NATO, “Consensus decision-making at NATO,” last updated 14 March 2016, http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_49178.htm 220 The reticence with which NATO leaders, above all the United States, approached the question of the deployment of ground troops in Kosovo can be seen as partly affected by previous public opinion of US intervention that had cost American lives, for example after the ‘Black Hawk Down’ incident in Somalia in 1993, in which 18 US soldier lost their lives, President Clinton withdrew all troops from the country. Paul Alexander, “Fallout from Somalia still haunts US policy 20 years later,” Stars and Stripes, October 3, 2013, available at https://www.stripes.com/news/fallout-from-somalia-still-haunts-us-policy-20-years-later- 1.244957#.WVABNlFLfIW 221 For example, the UN adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. United Nations, “History of the Document,” retrieved 10 May 2017, http://www.un.org/en/sections/universal-declaration/history- document/ 222 Samuel Moyn, The Last Utopia: Human Rights In History, Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012, 122.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 49
1993223. The EU arguably gained some of the legitimacy of the UN in the newly important context of protection of human rights through actions that sought to complement these developments. For example, the Maastricht Treaty224, signed in 1992, aimed at conformity with the UN Charter225 and gave human rights Treaty status in the newly founded European Union. The treaty provisions built on the protection for fundamental rights that had been advanced by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) since the 1960s226 and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR) which entered into force in 1953227. By the end of the 1990s, the ECHR had “effective supranational adjudication” in Europe, and democratic governments habitually complied with ECHR rulings, often incorporating its judgments into domestic legislation228.
The advances in international mechanisms for the protection of human rights had a direct impact on domestic institutions in the West. Put simply, Western states found the pull of human rights principles so strong that domestic institutions began to cede power and prerogatives to various international institutions. However, other factors caused nation- states to cede sovereignty in exchange for different expected gains, often economic gains229. Thus, in addition to surrendering aspects of sovereignty by acceding to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR)230, European democracies also agreed to other permanent losses of sovereign control throughout the EU accession process231. In this context, the invitation
223 United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, “Who we are,” http://www.ohchr.org/EN/AboutUs/Pages/BriefHistory.aspx 224 Treaty of the European Union 225 European Parliament, “The Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties,” http://www.europarl.europa.eu/atyourservice/en/displayFtu.html?ftuId=FTU_1.1.3.html 226 Philip Alston and James Weiler, “An ‘Ever Closer Union’ in Need of a Human Rights Policy: the EU Union and Human Rights” The EU Union and Human Rights, ed. Philip Alston, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999, 665. 227 Andrew Moravcsik, “The Origins of Human Rights Regimes: Democratic Delegation in Postwar Europe”, International Organization, 54:2, Spring 2000, 218. 228 Moravcsik, “The Origins of Human Rights Regimes,” 218-219. 229 One gain could, for example, be the protection from perceived vulnerabilities to national economies, and a share in the fruits of increased efficiences, that were thought to come from interdependent economic policies. Sentiments like these drove integration in the form of the promulgation of the Single European Market in the 1980s and subsequent integrationist policies. See Neill Nugent, The Government and Politics of the European Union, Seventh Edition, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. 230 European Commission, “Agenda 2000: For a Stronger and Wider Union,” Bulletin of the European Union, 15 July 1997, 41. 231 See the requirement for candidate countries to adopt the acquis European Commission, “Agenda 2000,” 88. Adopting the acquis required making important structural changes to a wide range of areas such as competition, social and environmental policy, to name just three. See Stephen Wilks, “Competition Policy: Defending the Economic Constitution,” Stephan Leibfried, “Social Policy: Left to the Judges and the Markets?”
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 50 extended to Eastern Europe states to join the EU (10 states applied for membership between 1994 and 1996232) can be seen as the manifestation of a desire to place the fragile new democracies of Eastern Europe on more durable foundations that were based on Western economic principles and the codification of democracy and human rights discourse, specifically through the Copenhagen Criteria on which basis countries applied for membership233, in a modified extension of the post-WWII legislation that brought together the original members of the EU on the Western side of the Iron Curtain. NATO was conceived of as the military arm of a broader security agenda that was being taken on in the EU, for example through the Petersberg Tasks that formed part of the of the (EU) Amsterdam Treaty that was signed in 1997234, and thus NATO enlargement was to many a natural outgrowth of EU enlargement that together aimed to make Europe “whole, free, and at peace”235. Somewhat paradoxically, this negotiated loss of sovereignty was welcomed by Central and East European states as a restoration of democracy and its accompanying value system236, despite the immediate loss (and potential future loss) of direct control over several important aspects of domestic policy.
This section has outlined the evolving moral and institutional context that existed in Europe in the 1990s, giving essential context for the next section. The main Western organisations were imbued with belief in the principles of liberal democracy and human rights, and were impatient in spreading these values in Eastern Europe, principally through EU and NATO enlargement. These arguments drove action in South-Eastern Europe, but were also capable of being used as a foil for other interests, perhaps unknowingly. The next section will attempt to describe the principles of the interventionists in more detail before assessing whether the intervention in Serbia could be said to be based on them. and Andrea Lenschow, “Environmental Policy: Contending Dynamics of Policy Change,”in Policy-Making in the European Union, eds. Helen Wallace, Mark. A. Pollack and Alasdair R. Young, Seventh Edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. 232 Nugent, The Government and Politics of the European Union, 43. 233 Atlantic Council, “Why Europe Whole and Free,” 28 April 2014, available at http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/resources/why-europe-whole-and-free. See also Nugent, The Government and Politics of the European Union, 43. 234 NATO expansion was linked to EU expansion. See Agenda 2000, 103. 235 Ronald D. Asmus, “Europe’s Eastern Promise: Rethinking NATO and EU Enlargement,” Foreign Affairs, No. 87, 2008, 95. 236 Tija Memisevic, “EU conditionality in Bosnia and Herzegovina: police reform and the legacy of war crimes,” War Crimes, Conditionality and EU Integration in the Western Balkans, eds. Judy Batt and Jelena Obradovic- Wochnik, Chaillot Paper 116, June 2009, 54.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 51
Stated and unstated reasons for NATO intervention in Serbia
NATO’s stated aims and their execution
There are strong arguments that strategic and image-related concerns played an important part in NATO war aims in Serbia237, and that these aims went beyond humanitarian reasons for going to war. This section will attempt to formulate and assess the stated and unstated aims and objectives of NATO within the following structure. Firstly, NATO’s stated aims will be drawn from official documents, before these aims are assessed against the actual course of action that was chosen. Then, possible reasons and theories that seek to explain actions that were seemingly not in line with the stated aims will be examined as ‘unstated aims’.
NATO’s stated aims can be classified as broad or what will be here referred to as ‘expansive’, on the one hand, and specific, on the other. Expansive aims are understood as those that encapsulate general NATO principles in the Washington Treaty of 1949 and the New Strategic Concept (NSC) of 1991. Given the absence of any direct threat to NATO members’ territorial integrity emanating from the Balkans - and thus discounting the use of Article 5 on Collective Defence - NATO’s expansive aims are here understood to be the “promotion of stability and well-being in the North Atlantic area”. The principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law which NATO wishes to safeguard in respect to its own members can be understood as important principles guiding these aims238. The NSC of 1991 adds an emphasis on the importance of human rights, and explicitly states NATO’s aims as “the establishment of a just and peaceful order in Europe”239. In addition, there is a willingness to promulgate stability and security, understood in broad terms, and referring in explicit terms
237 See Michael MccGuire, “Why did we bomb Belgrade,” International Affairs, 76:1, January 2000, 22. 238 NATO, “The North Atlantic Treaty (1949),” available at http://www.nato.int/nato_static/assets/pdf/stock_publications/20120822_nato_treaty_en_light_2009.pdf 239 See point 15 in NATO, “The Alliance’s New Strategic Concept,” 7-8 November 1991, available at http://www.nato.int/cps/sl/natohq/official_texts_23847.htm
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 52 to the potential for instability to issue from Central and Eastern Europe240. Finally, the Strategic Concept of April 1999 emphasises the alliance’s readiness to contribute to conflict prevention and to “engage actively in crisis management” in conformity with Article 7 of the Washington Treaty, which emphasises the “primary responsibility of the Security Council for the maintenance of international peace and security”241. In terms of specific aims, this paper will consider that the objectives of the Rambouillet agreement constitute NATO’s concrete aims in service of the principles and objectives outlined above. In particular, the aims of establishing a peaceful environment in Kosovo, the reaffirmation of the commitment to OSCE and UN principles, and the protection of human rights in Kosovo will be considered242.
NATO’s stated aims: an assessment
NATO claimed that Operation Allied Force, the military campaign waged on Serbia from the air between 24 March and 10 June 1999, had been a success243. It was judged as such through the claim that the “impending humanitarian catastrophe” decried in Security Council Resolution 1199 of September 1998 had been averted by reversing Belgrade’s policy of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. However, it is not clear whether the actions taken by NATO - specifically the bombing campaign and the prior removal of OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM) monitors that the failure of the Rambouillet talks and subsequent build-up of Serbian forces in Kosovo necessitated244 - stopped Serbian ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. Firstly,
240 See especially points 9, 14 in NATO, “The Alliance’s New Strategic Concept.” 241 Point 10 in “The Alliance’s Strategic Concept,” 24 April, 1999, available at http://www.nato.int/cps/on/natohq/official_texts_27433.htm, and Article 7, NATO, “The North Atlantic Treaty,” 4 April 1949, retrieved from http://www.nato.int/nato_static/assets/pdf/stock_publications/20120822_nato_treaty_en_light_2009.pdf 242 Preamble, “Rambouillet Accords: Interim Agreement for Peace and Self-Government in Kosovo,” United Nations Security Council, S/1999/648. http://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/990123_RambouilletAccord.pdf 243 Javier Solana, “NATO’s Success in Kosovo,” Foreign Affairs, November/December 1999, retrieved 15 June 2017, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/europe/1999-11-01/natos-success-kosovo. Javier Solana was NATO Secretary General at the time of the NATO intervention in Kosovo. See NATO, “Former Secretary General Dr. Javir Solana,” updated October 4 2002, http://www.nato.int/cv/secgen/solana.htm. NATO, “The Kosovo Air Campaign,” last updated 7 April 2016, http://www.nato.int/cps/bu/natohq/topics_49602.htm 244 2000 OSCE-KVM monitors had been placed in the region following agreement between Special Envoy Holbrooke and Slobodan Milošević that was confirmed in UN Resolution 1203, 24 October 1998. They were removed on 20 March, one day after the failure of the Rambouillet negotiations. See MccGuire, “Why did we bomb Belgrade,” 8, and Independent International Commission on Kosovo,” Kosovo Report, Oxford University
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 53 although grave abuses were being committed by the Serbian security forces before the withdrawal of OSCE-KVM monitors and the NATO campaign245, this was in the context of an armed insurgency by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) that also committed summary executions of Serbs and suspected informers246. The evidence of greatly increased human rights abuses that took place after the start of the NATO campaign and that led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanian Kosovars to neighbouring countries247 here takes on a different light: although carried out by Serb forces, did NATO’s actions at Rambouillet and in the bombing campaign contribute to the necessary conditions for an increase in Serb atrocities? If the air campaign did not lead to the Serb operations, then it certainly did not prevent them, and the withdrawal of the KVM monitors, that had at least provided a modicum of protection for the Kosovo population, contributed to the conditions in which ethnic cleansing took place.
If one considers that the alliance was not responsible for the actions of the Serb government, the organisation must at least bear responsibility for the military campaign conducted under NATO auspices. Mistakes, such as the bombing of Korishe, which resulted in the death of 80 Kosovars248, were replicated in the bombing of refugee convoys and in one instance a passenger train. In total, approximately 500 civilians were killed, a significant amount of deaths in light of the total of 10’000 killed by Serb forces between March and June 1999. Considered together, the failure to prevent Serb operations and the humanitarian damage inflicted by the NATO campaign cannot be said to have averted a humanitarian catastrophe, even if it would be disingenuous to say that alliance actions had
Press, 2001. Available at http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/The%20Kosovo%20Report.pdf. Executive Summary, http://www.osce.org/odihr/17772?download=true 245 Including the killings at Raçak on 15 January 1999. New York Times, “Charting a Massacre - The Monitors’ Report,” 22 January 1999. 246 Michael L. Gross, The Ethics of Insurgency: A Critical Guide to Just Guerilla Warfare, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. BBC News, “World: Europe Serbs highlight ‘KLA atrocity,’” August 29, 1998, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/160978.stm 247 863’000 refugees exited Kosovo and 590’000 were internally displaced. In addition, 10’000 Kosovar Albanians were killed by Yugoslav forces (though it is not clear if this figure includes KLA members), and abuses, such as rape and other forms of sexual violence, were widespread. OSCE “Forced expulsion,” Kosovo/Kosova, 5 May 2003, 2, available at http://www.osce.org/odihr/17772?download=true. See also Frédéric Bozo, “De la « bataille » des euromissiles à la « guerre » du Kosovo : l’Alliance atlantique face à ses défis (1979-1999),” Politique Étrangère, 3/99, 598 and Independent International Commission on Kosovo,” Kosovo Report, 30. 248 One source quotes Kosovar citizens as saying that the bombing was ‘set up’ by Serbian forces who locked refugees in a supply depot next to a military installation that was likely to become a NATO target. Will Englund, “Refugees call Korisa a setup,” The Baltimore Sun, 20 June 1999, available at http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1999-06-20/news/9906220504_1_refugees-yugoslavia-korisa
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 54 caused such devastation. NATO’s argument rested on the contention that the Rambouillet agreement was fair and nothing less than essential for the prevention of a humanitarian disaster, and that by taking military action against the Serbs they were pressuring Milošević to accept the terms set out in the ‘take it or else’249 Rambouillet agreement. However, the logic of this argument falls down when it is considered that the eventual agreement signed by the Serbs obtained precisely the concession that caused the Serbs not to sign at Rambouillet, that of allowing NATO forces free run of the entirety of FRY territory250. Thus, the eventual peace agreement that was endorsed in UNSCR 1244 did not provide for NATO to have access to FRY territory251. However, another central concern of the Serbs was to avoid having an explicitly NATO (as opposed to national or UN-led) force in Kosovo, and here the Serbs did not achieve their aim. The international force that entered Kosovo following the adoption of UNSCR 1244, KFOR, was in fact a NATO-led force, despite drawing troops from many non-NATO nations252. The point, however, is not whether the Serbs achieved all concessions, but the fact that NATO went to war to defend points in an agreement that were not necessary to a peaceful outcome, and that made the Serbs unlikely to sign.
To conclude the analysis of NATO’s stated aims - both expansive and specific - it can be said that the difficulty of claiming that NATO was successful in terms of its expansive aims lies in the tension between the successful conclusion of hostilities due to the NATO bombing - it is uncontentious that Milošević was obliged to make an agreement because of the continuing air campaign against FRY253 - and the knowledge that ethnic cleansing in Kosovo was ramped up precisely at the moment, or within 48 hours, of when NATO forces attacked. The alliance can perhaps be said to have been largely successful if the achievement of the stated aims is considered to rest within longer term processes. By locating the conflict in the longer term, the fact that principles such as individual liberty and the rule of law are manifestly not present in the moment of a military operation can be reconciled with the concurrent aim of the military campaign to establish the political conditions necessary for these principles to
249 MccGuire, “Why did we bomb Belgrade,” 18. 250 MccGuire, “Why did we bomb Belgrade,” 7, 13. 251 United States Institute of Peace, “United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244,” adopted 10 June 1999, available at https://www.usip.org/publications/1999/06/peace-agreements-kosovo 252 NATO, “NATO’s role in Kosovo,” last updated 9 March 2017, available at http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_48818.htm# 253 For detail of the events surrounding the June 1999 agreement, see Joyce P. Kaufman, NATO and the Former Yugoslavia: Crisis, Conflict and the Atlantic Alliance, Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002, 199-201.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 55 be followed. More crudely, the ends justify the means. In the longer term, Milošević was forced to sign an agreement, and a stable peace was brought to Kosovo, and ensured by the continuing involvement of the international community. Tension remains however, when one considers if the actions taken had been different, for example if KVM monitors had remained in the province254.
NATO’s unstated aims: a constructivist view
By their nature, unstated aims and the possible principles and reasons behind them are difficult to evidence, however, several analysts have identified such aims255, and this paper will argue that unstated aims can be uncovered by considering the strategic environment from the point of view of NATO countries both in the Balkans and more widely, in addition to considering possible explanations for discrepancies between NATO’s stated aims and the actions of the alliance. Within this framework, and maintaining the focus on NATO, the paper will first consider the following types of processes and behaviours in terms of whether they can be said to have contributed to the later decision to enact Operation Allied Force: the act of military intervention in Bosnia and the frustration of NATO air power by the UN, historic alternatives in NATO decision-making and the will to punish Milošević, the expansion of Western hegemony in Europe and NATO as the ‘new boss’.
A constructivist precursor? The military intervention in Bosnia
In terms of the strategic environment in the Balkans, one way to formulate NATO’s unstated aims in Kosovo is in terms of the experience and ‘lessons learned’ from the previous Yugoslav wars in the 1990s. Drawing on constructivist approaches to international relations that focus on the social construction of interests, the proponents of which maintain that actions in the arena of international affairs are responses to the social relationship between
254 MccGuire, “Why did we bomb Belgrade,” 13. 255 See for example Kaufman, NATO and the Former Yugoslavia, 187-192, Bozo, “De la « bataille » des euromissiles à la « guerre » du Kosovo,” 596, MccGuire, “Why did we bomb Belgrade,” 13-14.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 56 states or leaders, rather than to military hardware itself256, a hypothesis can be built that emphasises the influence of repeated (thought) processes on actors’ future decision-making. Specifically, the constructivist insight can be fruitfully adjusted and applied to the Balkan context to argue that certain attitudes and behaviours, established between the various players in the Bosnian conflict, affected the approach towards later negotiations and ultimately also impacted on the decision to bomb Serbia. Thus, the experience of the international community in the 1990s Yugoslav wars, particularly in Bosnia, “conditioned everyone’s attitudes,”257 and many behaviours, ideas and practices that were evident in NATO’s later operations in Serbia can be seen as having precursors in the earlier involvement in Bosnia. These precursors will here be classified as ‘positive’ and ‘negative’, in the first (positive) case implying that a certain behaviour was experienced by NATO personnel as effective, and therefore desirable of repetition, and in the second (negative) case, implying that behaviour - that may include a lack of action - was pinpointed as an error that would need correction in the future. To illustrate this mechanism, NATO’s support of UN Security Council Resolutions258 in Bosnia, in concrete terms the provision of air support to UNPROFOR (the UN peacekeeping mission in the former Yugoslavia) in its mission to execute UN Security Council Resolutions259, could be said to have provided ‘positive’ reinforcement for the idea that bombing was effective, worked, and was necessary to establish peace in Europe. For example, in 1995 as part of Operation Deliberate Force260, an ammunition depot at Pale was destroyed by NATO after Serbs failed to return heavy weapons taken from a depot monitored by the UN261, degrading Serbian offensive capabilities. Later, a joint operation by a UNPROFOR Rapid Reaction Force and NATO aircraft was instrumental in breaking the siege of Sarajevo after an attack on a marketplace in 1995262. This type of targeting was seen to have worked by weakening Serb resolve in
256 NB. The constructivist framework acts as an inspiration rather than a guide for the paper at hand. For the basic tenets of constructivist thought, see Ian Hurd, “Constructivism,” The Oxford Handbook of International Relations, eds. Christian Reus-Smit and Duncan Snidal, September 2009. 257 Independent International Commission on Kosovo, Kosovo Report, 134. 258 Webber et al., NATO’s Post-Cold War Trajectory, 49. 259 Until the signing of the Dayton Accords in November 1995. Webber et al., NATO’s Post-Cold War Trajectory, 49. 260 Adam Roberts, “NATO’s ‘Humanitarian War’ over Kosovo,” Survival, vol. 41, no. 3, Autumn 1999, 110. 261 Responsibility of command : how UN and NATO commanders influenced ... Bucknam, Mark A., 214. 262 Jan Willem Honig, “Avoiding War, Inviting Defeat: the Srebrenica Crisis, July 1995,” Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 9:4, December 2001, 207.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 57
Bosnia263, in the case of the latter operation, and some analysts see the operation as essential to the breaking of the long siege and thus decisive in bringing about the end of the war264.
However, another aspect of NATO’s air support role, relating to limitations on NATO’s capability due to the need for air strikes to have UN approval, was experienced as ‘negative’. This was because the complex situation on the ground in Bosnia, with UN troops in amongst the warring Croats, Muslims, and Serbs, and UN Commanders responsible for calling in air support in line with UN resolutions265, led to frustrations among military staff with different command structures. Firstly, United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) Commanders were themselves dissatisfied with their command structure, and believed NATO actions frustrated their goals. Hence, not only was the UN system of authorising (NATO-supplied) close air support considered ineffective by UNPROFOR Commanders as any action had to be approved by the Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, a process that took several hours266, but, in an environment where hostage-taking was the Bosnian Serbs’ primary means of leverage267, UN Generals found that air strikes increased the risk to their troops268. Conversely, NATO Commanders alleged that the passing of information on the exact time and place of air strikes to the Serbs - in order to prevent retaliation, for example through hostage-taking - increased the risk to NATO troops and had a negative effect on NATO operations against the Serbs269. in addition, the hostage threat from Serb forces complicated NATO operations. For example, when an F16 was shot down, the threat prevented retaliation from NATO270. One way of confronting the situation - as used in Operation Deliberate Force - was to withdraw peacekeepers prior to air strikes to prevent hostage- taking271. However, these workarounds could not disguise that there was a clash of cultures
263 Roberts, “NATO’s ‘Humanitarian War’,” 110. Airstrikes seen as effective, Bucknam, 90. 264 Honig, “Avoiding War,” 207. 265 Such as UN Security Council Resolution 819, April 16, 1993, available at http://www.nato.int/ifor/un/u930416a.htm. The UNSCR condemns violence and “ethnic cleansing”in Bosnia- Herzegovina, reaffirms the territorial integrity of the country and expresses concerns over the actions of Serb paramilitary units in particular. 266 Bucknam, Responsibility of Command, 94-95. 267 Bucknam, Responsibility of Command, 217. 268 Bucknam, Responsibility of Command, 91. 269 Bucknam, Responsibility of Command, 164. 270 Bucknam, Responsibility of Command, 219. 271 Bucknam, Responsibility of Command, 275.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 58 between the UN and NATO forces, which greatly complicated the military and peacekeeping operations underway in the Bosnian War272. NATO commanders, not having to make a similar “trade-off between mission and men”273, disposed of their duties with more ease, whilst UN Generals, unable to satisfy the competing demands of their missions, resigned on a regular basis274. Hence, working with peacekeepers on the ground was experienced by NATO as an ineffective means of reaching their goals that could frustrate NATO aims and put alliance personnel in danger. In this context, there came to be a belief within the alliance that “only NATO could meet the requirement [of confronting the Serbs and providing security]”275.
Arguably, the two interpretations of the Bosnian War, firstly the ‘positive’ interpretation of air war as effective, and secondly the ‘negative’ interpretation of the UN-imposed limitations on air power, combined in the decisions made about Serbia that ultimately favoured air power without UN oversight. Hence, when the conflict in Kosovo worsened in 1998, the action of bombing Serb forces was arguably seen as a more viable option because of NATO’s previous experience attempting to “[break] the Serbs”276. However, the difference in Operation Allied Force was that the frustrations of having to work under UN command would be absent. With this impediment to force removed, NATO was able to demonstrate the full military capability of the alliance, and to claim success for its show of power. Operation Allied Force was in some sense, then, a correction or, if sceptically viewed, an ‘overcorrection’ of the policies of the international community in Kosovo that was now driven by NATO alone.
272 Bucknam, Responsibility of Command, 104. See also 93, 163. 273 Bucknam, Responsibility of Command, 104. 274 Bucknam, Responsibility of Command, 105. 275 MccGuire, “Why did we bomb Belgrade,” 15. 276 UNPROFOR General Cot, describing the attitude of American airmen - in all probability of senior rank - towards the situation in Yugoslavia, said that they dreamt of “breaking the Serbs”. Bucknam, Responsibility of Command, 90.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 59
A constructivist precursor? Historic alternatives in NATO’s decision-making
The argument that previous behaviour and interpretations affected decision-making outside of an more ‘objective’ reading of the situation in Serbia in 1999 can be made stronger by considering whether NATO have carried out the similar actions if a conflict had occurred with similar characteristics as Kosovo, yet without the previous support of the head of state for military aggression and abuses in a neighbouring country277. It is of course impossible to know for sure, yet one examples may indicate that the answer is negative, and that NATO was in fact influenced - in myriad ways - by its previous perceptions of Serb actions and of Milošević: the ethnic cleansing of the Krajina by Croat forces.
The case of the (now Croatian) Krajina, Serbs were in 1995 forcibly removed by Croat forces from a large swathe of land using methods that the Serbs are said to have imitated in Kosovo in 1999278. The background to the ethnic cleansing of Serbs from the Krajina during Operation Storm in 1995 is that during the Croatian War of independence of (1991-1992)279, Serbs ethnically cleansed the Krajina of Croatians and set up the Republic of Serb Krajina (RSK)280. The 1992 ceasefire left the RSK intact until Croatian regular and irregular forces ethnically cleansed the Krajina of Serbs in Operation Storm in 1995281. This scenario is qualitatively similar to that in Kosovo in 1999 as two sides, one with internationally accepted sovereignty over the disputed area, fought over territory (Croatia had sovereignty over the RSK before Operation Storm and Serbia had sovereignty over Kosovo before the alleged Operation Horseshoe282). Yet the ‘facts on the ground’ established by Croatia in retaking the RSK went unchallenged, whereas in Kosovo exceptions were made by the international
277 i.e. as Milošević had done in Bosnia. See Judith Armatta, “Historical Revelations from the Milošević Trial,” Southeastern Europe, 36, 2012, 10–38. 278 MccGuire, “Why did we bomb Belgrade,” 3. 279 Aimed at establishing Croatia sovereignty within the borders recognised after WWII. 280 Central Intelligence Agency, “Croatia’s Ethnic Serb-Controlled Areas: A Geographic Perspective,”Intelligence Report C05960768, May 1995, retrieved from https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/1995-05-01A.pdf 281 The operation is seen by Croats as preventing systematic ethnic cleansing. See Hrvoje Kačić, “Affirmation of Statehood and Territorial Integrity of Croatia,” Croatian International Relations Review, January- March 1999, 31. 282 i.e. Milošević’s ‘ethnic cleansing’ plan. Balkan Insight, “Bulgaria Leaked Milošević Ethnic Cleansing Plan,” 10 January 2012, available at http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/bulgaria-leaked-milosevic-ethnic- cleansing-plan
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 60 community283, despite the methods of ethnic cleansing carried out by the dominant nationalities (Croats and Serbs, respectively) following similar patterns284. How can the different reactions of NATO to these ostensibly similar events be explained? One major difference between the two ‘clearances’ was that the RSK had in the first place been established through the methods of ethnic cleansing, and was therefore likely to be perceived as less legitimate than Kosovo four years later, in which ethnic cleansing by the KLA was, if not totally absent, far less successful and resulted in strong and ongoing Serb repression285. A second possible reason for the different treatment could be that is that the RSK was part of Milošević ’s plan for a “greater Serbia,”286. Presented with these facts, it seems that the suffering of Serb civilians in the Krajina was not at the forefront of NATO leader’s minds in a strategic environment that demanded Serb power and strategic advantage be weakened. Thus, soon after Operation Storm took place, NATO initiated air strikes against Serb installations that were besieging Sarajevo287. A third difference, of particular relevance to the argument that previous interpretations affected decision making in 1999, is that a strong stigma - for want of a better word - had become attached to Serb military groupings and especially Milošević, who was in effective control of Serb forces across the FRY. The Serbs, and particularly Milošević, were seen by the NATO leaders (and the international community) as the ‘worst offenders’ in the Bosnian War, which resulted in a desire to ‘punish’ Milošević. The disapprobation for Milošević was due to heinous crimes committed by Serb forces across the Balkans288. However, Croatian premier Franco Tudjman also took some decisions that were extremely questionable in terms of human rights, the rule of law and other NATO
283 Notably the eventual recognition of Kosovo’s statehood by many Western countries. See “Who Recognised Kosovo as an independent State? The Kosovar People Thank You!” (website), available at http://www.kosovothanksyou.com/ 284 Human suffering was extensive, and included extra-judicial killings of civilians, mass executions and forced displacement. See, for example on Croat actions, Croatian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, Military Operation Storm and Its Aftermath, Zagreb 2001, 34-35. For Serb actions see U.S. Department of State Dispatch, “Fact Sheet: Human Rights Issues in the Balkans,” December 1995, Supplement Bosnia, 6:48. 285 The time of the operation may also be a factor. Operation Storm was complete in 4 days, whereas Serb repression and expulsions went on for many months. 286 Kaufman, NATO and the Former Yugoslavia, 120. 287 Kaufman, NATO and the Former Yugoslavia, 120. 288 See Armatta, “Historical Revelations from the Milošević Trial,” 10–38.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 61 principles, and for which Croatian leaders were prosecuted289. So again, it seems that the will to ‘punish’ Milošević for past wrongs could have in part driven the decision to go to war with Serbia. The point is that the will to punish Milošević seems to have come at the expense of the equal promotion of human rights in the former Yugoslavia. Neglect of the situation on the ground and the will to impose solutions obscured the most effective way to peace. In ‘punishing Milošević’ through a brutal air war, countless civilians were killed and displaced, many of whom may have had a better chance of living in peace if alternative methods had been further pursued.
A constructivist precursor? The expansion of Western hegemony in Europe
In the power vacuum of post-Cold War Europe, the actions of NATO in Serbia outlined that NATO was the ‘new boss’, and would provide protection for those who wanted it, in exchange for following the rules of Western liberalism and opening its markets to Western nations290. The alliance, by ‘laying down the law’ in the Balkans and through its participation in the Bosnian War and Operation Allied Force in Kosovo, expressed its right to act in service of its stated objectives of the establishment of peace in Europe. From the perspective of today, where NATO includes most EU states, among which Croatia, Albania and Montenegro, it is interesting to consider how the strategic environment in the 1990s gave rise to what are here referred to as ‘unstated aims’ (of ‘laying down the law’ or asserting its geopolitical dominance), but may, from a NATO point of view, be considered as the promulgation of justice. Evidence that there were important reasons for NATO intervention other than the stated (humanitarian) objectives can be gleaned from the behaviour of Western states and the
289 Tudjman reportedly only escaped prosecution through death. See Radio Free Europe, “Newsline - November 10, 2000,” retrieved 25 June 2017, https://www.rferl.org/a/1142280.html. On arrests of Croat politicians, see for example, ICTY, “’Operation Storm (IT-03-73) ermak & Markač” Case Information Sheet, available at http://www.icty.org/x/cases/cermak/cis/en/cis-cermak.pdf. Both were later acquitted. iPress Hrvatska, “ ermak slobodan, tužiteljstvo se neće žaliti,”17 May 2011, available at http://ipress.rtl.hr/hrvatska/cermak- slobodan-tuziteljstvo-se-nije-zalilo-15178.html. BBC News, “Hague war court acquits Croat Generals Gotovina and Markac,” 17 November 2012, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-20352187. 290 Enlargement criteria include having “a functioning democratic political system based on a market economy”. NATO, “NATO Enlargement and Open Door - Factsheet,” July 2016, retreived from http://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2016_07/20160627_1607-factsheet-enlargement- eng.pdf
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 62 actions of Western organisations and NATO in the Balkans and in Eastern Europe more generally. For example, the everyday normality of applying EU accession criteria - both within and without legislation related to human rights and the wider democratic framework - could have primed Western governments, in the personages of their leaders and foreign ministers, to be more deposed to infringe on Serbia’s sovereignty than would otherwise be the case. Thus, in a climate of legitimised interference in sovereign affairs and ‘negotiable sovereignty’ in which state control over some aspects of domestic policy could be traded off against perceived benefits, be they ideational - such as the protection of democracy - or economic, NATO was arguably more likely to infringe on Serbian sovereignty without full consideration of the likelihood of success of its stated objectives.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 63
Chapter 5: Russian military evolution before and during the operations against Georgia
The purpose of this chapter is to detail both explicitly justified and concealed reasons that Russia launched a (retaliatory) military attack on Georgia, focusing on the context in which Russia took action. This will be achieved in three sections: the history of Russian foreign policy; the moral and institutional context of the conflict; stated and concealed goals.
A short history of Russian foreign policy
In this section, a brief history of the institutional organisation of Russian Foreign Policy will be given before Tsygankov’s concepts are used to analyse the evolution of Russian Foreign Policy in the post-Soviet period.
Before the end of the Cold War, Russia - or, more precisely, Russia’s military organisations - held a place at the heart of an inter-state military organisation, the Warsaw Treaty Organisation (WTO291, from here on referred to as ‘the Warsaw Pact’). The Warsaw Pact connected six communist states beyond the USSR (Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria) around the goal of common defence292. USSR officers predominated in the organisation, and the standard of military equipment was set by the Soviets293. After the Warsaw Pact was dissolved in July 1991294, the structure lived on in the apparatus of the Russian military295. The Russian and Soviet foreign ministries were,
291 The Warsaw Treaty Organisation. 292 See for example “The Theory and Concept of National Security in the Warsaw Pact Countries,” International Affairs, 58:4, Autumn 1982, 648. 293 Stephan Tiedtke, “Military Détente and Differences on Military Policy within the Warsaw Pact,” International Journal of Politics, Germany Defence Debates, 13:1/2, Spring-Summer 1983, 45. 294 Andrei P. Tsygankov, Russia’s Foreign Policy: Change and Continuity in National Identity, 4th edition (London: Rowman and Littlefield, 2016), xv. 295 “Russia simply renamed the Soviet Army the Russian Army” Richard Sakwa, Russian Politics and Society, 4th edition, Oxford: Routledge, 393. The Warsaw Pact had “no command structure, logistics network, air defence system or operations directorate separate from the Soviet Ministry of Defence,” and the Soviet Ministry of
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 64 however, separate until merged in 1991 at the same time as the ‘deideologisation’ of the new ministry296. In addition, the Russian state was the legal successor to the USSR, and signed treaties such as that of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (the CFE Treaty) and the treaty on the Reduction and Liquidation of Strategic Offensive Arms (START I297 and START II298), in this capacity299.
Russia’s approach to international affairs since the end of the Cold War until 2008 can be seen in two major strands. The first strand was an expressed desire to uphold universal standards, for example relating to human rights and a Western conception of economic freedom300. The second strand can be classified as an approach to foreign policy that sought to engage with the West whilst remaining assertive. These two strands can be seen running through the changes in Russian foreign policy between the end of the Cold War and 2008, yet had their beginning in the ideas propounded by Gorbachev in the 1980s.
The Gorbachev doctrine of New Thinking301 reflected the beliefs of the growing Soviet middle class and was driven by a vision of radical reform of Soviet and global systems. The proposed reforms were based on values that were ‘common’ to all humankind302, and the greatest threat to Russia - and the world - was no longer formulated as the continuation of
Defence was run by Moscow. See Czechoslovakia: A Country Study, ed. Glenn E. Curtis, Washington D.C.: Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress, 1992, 327. 296 Sakwa, Russian Politics and Society, 372. 297 START I was signed on 31 July 1991. In the implementation of the CFE Treaty, 49’000 tanks, helicopters, guns and other equipment was destroyed by the mid-1990s. See Vladimir Batyuk, “The End of the Cold War, A Russian View,” History Today, 49:4, April 1999, 29-30 and Tsygankov, Russia’s Foreign Policy, 44. 298 Terms for START II were agreed between Russia and the United States in June 1992. Tsygankov, Russia’s Foreign Policy, xv. 299 On January 29, 1992, Boris Yeltsin asserted that “Russia regards itself as the legal successor to the USSR in the field of responsibility for fulfilling international obligations”. See Andrew M. Beato, “Newly Independent and Separating States’ Succession to Treaties: Considerations on the Hybrid Dependency of the Republics of the Former Soviet Union”, American University International Law Review, 9:2, 1994, 530. 300 In this period of history, Western conceptions of economic freedom emphasised the ability of citizens to participate on the free market, and in practice the leading Western states - the United States, and EC states - encouraged the privatisation of state industries. These principles and behaviours were in stark contrast to ideas and practice in the USSR before glasnost and perestroika, which emphasised state ownership and nominal ‘ownership’ of state industries by the workers. 301 Or ‘New Political Thinking (NPT)’, Sakwa, Russian Politics and Society, 377. 302 Tsygankov, Russia’s Foreign Policy, 37.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 65 class divisions, but instead understood as coming from moral, ecological and nuclear devastation303.
In the logic of this new philosophy for the future of the USSR and the world, the West was no longer an imperial actor that must be contained in order for the Soviet system to survive, and as a consequence, arguments for attaining military parity with Western nations were now seen as not being in the national interest, which would be better served through diplomatic compromises that would forward global demilitarisation304. Thus, the proponents of New Thinking sought to establish extensive disarmament programs in the late 1980s and early 1990s305, and in November 1990, the USSR/Russia signed the Charter of Paris for a New Europe at the CSCE summit306, committing the country to the principles and practices of human rights, democracy and the rule of law. However, as Tsygankov argues, the West remained mistrustful and did not always reciprocate as Russia hoped. For example, Western states did not support Gorbachev in his efforts to establish a common doctrine of non- intervention in other states307. Neither was the Russian desire for deeper integration with Western institutions308 reciprocated. For example, Russian aspirations for the OSCE309 as an inclusive security organisation and for the strengthening of the UN as a replacement for Soviet power in the Third World were largely disappointed due to Western indifference310. In addition, Russia’s attempts at NATO membership were not welcomed by the West311. As part of the policies emerging from New Thinking and later additions and adjustments in the 1990s, some analysts argue that Russia took an isolationist stance on security matters312 in order to focus on internal affairs. For example, Tsygankov alleges that the signing of the
303 Tsygankov, Russia’s Foreign Policy, 36. David Holloway, “Gorbachev’s New Thinking”, Foreign Affairs, America and the World 1988 Issue, retrieved 18 May 2017, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russia- fsu/1989-02-01/gorbachevs-new-thinking. 304 Tsygankov, Russia’s Foreign Policy, 39, 47. 305 See the explanatory table in Tsygankov, Russia’s Foreign Policy, 52. 306 Tsygankov, xiv. 307 Tsygankov, Russia’s Foreign Policy, 43, 47. 308 Tsygankov, Russia’s Foreign Policy, 63. 309 See also Sakwa, Russian Politics and Society, 413. Inaugurated as the Conference on Security and Co- operation in Europe (CSCE) in the early 1970s and achieving milestones in the Helsinki Final Act, signed on 1 August 1975, and the Charter of Paris for a New Europe, agreed at the Paris Summit of November 1990, the CSCE became the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) at the Budapest Summit in December 1994. See OSCE, History, accessed 15 June 2017, http://www.osce.org/who/87 310 Tsygankov, Russia’s Foreign Policy, 47, 54, 71. 311 Tsygankov, Russia’s Foreign Policy, 71. 312 Tsygankov, Russia’s Foreign Policy, 83.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 66
Collective Security Treaty by the CIS states in 1992 was not taken seriously until Russia’s own territory was threatened313. Nonetheless, these disappointments were apparently not immediately obvious to Russian politicians314, and desires of deeper integration with Western institutions shaped the foreign policy concept that was signed into law in April 1993315.
Although the Foreign Policy Concept of 1993 expressed the hope of deeper integration with Western institutions, the new doctrine also marked a professed hardening of Russian foreign policy relative to the Gorbachev years, in response to increasing security risks that were seen to come from outside interference in Russia316. A later (2000) military doctrine emphasised that Russia’s vital interests did not involve other states’ security and stressing conflict prevention, the sovereignty of states and non-interference in other states affairs317. This more confident policy was most evident in its avowed will to defend ethnic Russians in the former Soviet Union and defend Russia through the development of enhanced non-nuclear technology, whilst at the same time making Russia’s final recourse to nuclear weapons explicit 318. However, the concept was hard on rhetoric but not militarily assertive in practice. For example, despite declarations to the contrary, Russia was demonstrably disinterested in ethnic Russians living outside of Russia at this time, until such conflicts threatened insecurity on, or nearby, Russian territory. For this reason, Russia intervened in the Transdniestr conflict in Moldova, deploying military forces in a peace-keeping role319. Where core Russian interests and security were not evidently at stake, Russia took a passive role. Thus, Yeltsin ordered the withdrawal of troops from Nagorno-Karabakh and initially gave tacit approval to Ukraine’s plans to take over Soviet troops stationed in the country320.
313 Tsygankov, Russia’s Foreign Policy, 156. 314 Yeltsin and Kozyrev imposition of FP, before population has a chance to react? 315 Tsygankov, Russia’s Foreign Policy, 62, 64. 316 Antonio Sánchez Andrés, “La nueva doctrina militar y la transformación en la industria de defensa rusa,” Revista CIDOB d'Afers Internacionals, No. 32, Cambio Político, Transiciones Y Política Exterior Y De Seguridad (1996), 120. 317 Sakwa, Russian Politics and Society, 400. 318 James H. Slagle, “New Russian Military Doctrine: Sign of the Times,” US Army War College, Spring 1994, 90. 319 Tsygankov, Russia’s Foreign Policy, 84. 320 Tsygankov, Russia’s Foreign Policy, 83.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 67
In relation to economically driven changes in the 1990s, concerns over Russia’s declining military power gave way to economic modernisation plans that aimed to recover from a catastrophic decline in GDP and to place Russia in the ranks of countries such as France, Germany and the United States321. This ambition was one reason that the relationship with the West was at this time judged to be more important than that with the ex-Soviet republics, which assumed the look of an imperial burden and lost subsidies and Russian military presence accordingly322. In time, however, the lack of financial support for Russia from the West led to pro-Western Muscovites being unable to substantiate the government’s pro-Western orientation with evidence that the orientation was benefitting Russia323. Indeed, economic ‘shock therapy’ was from its introduction in January 1992 a cause of suffering for many Russians.
In the late 1990s, Russia continued to focus on gaining recognition as an equal partner of the West324. For example, the Russia-NATO Founding Act May 1997 established a Permanent Joint Council, until its work was derailed by events in Serbia in 1999325. A similar partnership agreement was established in the 2002 founding of the NATO-Russia Council, in which Russia was placed on equal status with all other NATO states. However, NATO enlargement, continuous throughout the 1990s, continued to meet with Russian disapproval. For example, in reaction to the third wave of enlargement in 2006, Russia warned of grave problems should Ukraine be accepted into the alliance326, an act that would be seen as a ‘colossal geopolitical shift’.
The uneasy equilibrium within the Russian state and society of the 1990s, whose “conceptual shifts [and] changes in the relative weight of governmental agencies” caused “erratic jerks in foreign policy” 327, was thrown into turmoil by the war in Serbia, NATO
321 Cumulatively, Russian GDP fell 60% from 1985 to 1992. See Tsygankov, Russia’s Foreign Policy, 59, 63. 322 Tsygankov, Russia’s Foreign Policy, 63. 323 Tsygankov, Russia’s Foreign Policy, 71. 324 For example, Yeltsin emphasised the principle of equality in the 1999 OSCE Istanbul Summit speech. Security and Human Rights Monitor, https://www.shrmonitor.org/interview-sergey-markedonov-nato-not-greenpeace- defense-alliance-approaches-borders/ 325 Sakwa, Russian Politics and Society, 418. 326 Sakwa, Russian Politics and Society, 418. 327 Quote from Sakwa, Russian Politics and Society, 376. See also p.401 and Tsygankov, Russia’s Foreign Policy, 50.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 68 enlargement and increased Russian self-confidence in the foreign policy domain, the latter ironically influenced by the fears of the Russian public that Russia would find itself on the wrong side of a post-Cold War power imbalance328. The Foreign Policy Concept of 2003 sought to allay these fears by projecting Russian self-confidence, for example through referencing both Russia’s responsibility as a ‘great power’ in terms of maintaining security in addition to emphasising the threat of the economic and military dominance of the United States329. Later, the Military Doctrine of 2007 focused on NATO - rather than global terrorism - as the main threat to Russia’s security and searched for an effective response, after the repeated statements expressing concern had proved to be ineffective330.
The moral and institutional context of the conflict
The international environment between 1999 and 2008 was marked by a continuation of concern for human rights and arguments for humanitarian intervention that were prevalent in the 1990s. However, by the end of the period under consideration the climate was qualitatively different in two ways that are of particular relevance to the conflict in Georgia. Firstly, there were continuing appeals to humanitarian ends to justify belligerent actions by the West. Secondly, the endorsement of Kosovar sovereignty as an expression of humanitarian intervention complicated the interpretation of the formal and unwritten rules of engagement.
The growing use of appeals to humanitarian ends to justify belligerent actions
If the invasion of Iraq as a response to the aggression against Kuwait was broadly in line with the humanitarian principles espoused by the international community at the end of the Cold
328 Sakwa, Russian Politics and Society, 401. Russia for same treatment? Chechnya is similar. See Sakwa, Russian Politics and Society, 419. 329 Tsygankov, Russia’s Foreign Policy, 103. 330 There were suggestions of ‘guerrilla warfare’ approaches Sakwa, Russian Politics and Society, 401.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 69
War331, the bombing of Serbia in 1999 presented a challenge to the new age of ‘just war’332 the belief in which was seen in NATO’s actions in the earlier Yugoslav conflicts. Another era began after the 9-11 attacks on the American mainland which led to the US-led War on Terror333, with both the governing groups of Afghanistan (the Taliban) and Iraq (the Ba’ath Party under Saddam Hussein) coming under attack in response334.
Between 1999 and 2008, military actions conducted under the pretext of humanitarian intervention often seemed able to be explained through other factors. The NATO operation against Serbia in 1999, for example, came under question for seeming to generate, rather than prevent, forced migration in Kosovo perpetrated by Serb forces, and was suspected of acting in revenge and to prove its continuing relevance around its 50th birthday celebrations335. In addition, this thesis has suggested that a ‘will to war’336 developed out of frustration with the previous conflict situation in Bosnia, where NATO was prevented from carrying out airstrikes by UN commanders, especially where UN forces might have been at threat from retaliation, and that this frustration of the full deployment of military might in service of NATO aims can in part explain NATO’s later belligerence against Serbia337.
The use of humanitarian principles as a central feature of jus ad bellum338 decisions can be seen underlying the conflicts that began under the auspices of the ‘War on Terror’. For example, under the “new sovereignty” of the individual proclaimed by Kofi Annan in 2000, humans qua world citizens would be protected from nefarious state actors through the protection afforded by the principles of human rights, with the military powers of certain
331 Because Iraq broke with international law through the use of unilateral force. See Marc Weller, Iraq and the Use of Force in International Law, Oxford Scholarship Online, 2010, 12. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199595303.001.0001 332 For an overview of just war theory, including the principles of Jus Ad Bellum and Jus In Bello referred to in the paper, see the Alexander Moseley, “Just War Theory,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (no date given). 333 Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, concerning NATO’s right to self-defence, was triggered for the first time on 12 September 2001, a day after the 9-11 attacks. NATO, “Collective Defence - Article 5,” last updated 22 March 2017, http://www.nato.int/cps/cn/natohq/topics_110496.htm 334 BBC News, “Afghanistan Profile - Timeline,” 8 March 2017, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-south-asia- 12024253. Robert Jervis, “Understanding the Bush Doctrine: Preventative Wars and Regime Change,” Political Science Quarterly, 131:2, 2016, 285. 335 MccGuire, “Why did we bomb Belgrade,” 1, 20. 336 See MccGuire ‘NATO’s long-trailered urge to war’ in “Why did we bomb Belgrade,” 17. 337 Buckam, 190. 338 I.e. the justifications that sanction armed force. See for example International Committee of the Red Cross, “What are jus ad bellum and jus in bello,” 22 January 2015, available at https://www.icrc.org/en/document/what-are-jus-ad-bellum-and-jus-bello-0
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 70 states backing these rights339. Although humanitarian interventions are perhaps most often considered to be in service of those under attack by their own or nearby states340, the new classification of the sovereignty of the individual would also seem to allow a consideration of the triggering of NATO’s Article 5 concerning Collective Defence341 - that started the War on Terror - to be in service of the citizens of NATO member states qua world citizens. The distinction is subtle, yet it is apparent in the way in which ‘out of area’ operations such as Iraq were justified. Arguably, part of the reasoning behind the Iraq War (2003-2011) was based on the moral feelings of Western citizens - qua world citizens - that such a dictatorship did not have the right to exist. This strong moral support against Saddam Hussein could have bolstered the case for the belligerent Western actors to wage war without incurring moral condemnation that would otherwise become manifest and curtailed their operations.
Differently to the appeal to humanitarian principles to start wars, the conduct of wars once underway (jus in bello) was not subject to the same standards by belligerent parties regarding the lives of innocents342. The means - including foreseeable yet unintended actions such as ‘collateral damage’ - could be seen to justify the ends. For example, tens of thousands more civilians perished in Iraq than in the September 11 attacks343. Given the high casualty rates anticipated due to the urban nature of the conflict in Iraq, as acknowledged by the US at the start of the war344, arguably an assessment of the risk to life that valued world citizens equally would have taken the likelihood of high numbers of civilian deaths into account. Of course, the suspicions that Iraq was proliferating its WMD give a boost to arguments for prevention in order to prevent an even more catastrophic loss of life,
339 Margaret Denike, “The Human Rights of Others: Sovereignty, Legitimacy, and ‘Just Causes’ for the ‘War on Terror.’” Hypatia, 23:2, Spring 2008, 100-101. 340 As was the case in Kosovo. War against Iraq was justified by the West as both preventing an attack on the West (see footnote 325), and as preventing a dictatorial regime from persecuting its own people. See Neil MacFarquhar, “Saddam Hussein, Defiant Dictator Who Ruled Iraq With Violence and Fear, Dies,” 30 December 2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/30/world/middleeast/30saddam.html 341 Was triggered on September 12, 2001 for the first time since the establishment of the alliance in 1949. Andrew Phillips, “The wars on terror, duelling internationalisms and the clash of purposes in a post-unipolar world,” International Politics, 50:1, 2013, 83. 342 [indicating that those launching the wars distinguished between the value of the lives of world citizens who resided in Western nations and those who did not.] ? 343 Many tens of thousands of civilians were killed every year during the American operations in Iraq. See Physicians for Social Responsibility, Body Count: Casualty Figures after 10 Years of the ‘War on Terror’, First International Edition, March 2015, available at http://www.psr.org/assets/pdfs/body-count.pdf, in particular, the table “Estimates of Casualty Figures per Year and Inhabitants” on page 22. 344 Peter Ford, “Bid to Stem Civilian Deaths Tested,” The Christian Science Monitor, accessed 17 June 2017, http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0409/p06s01-woiq.html
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 71 however in the event the intelligence information used to justify the invasion was found to be incorrect, and strong evidence was presented that those engaged in the compilation of the intelligence that led to war aimed to deceive345. In addition to high casualty rates and questionable grounds for invasions, the treatment of prisoners was often inhumane. For example, abuse sometimes amounting to torture was committed at the Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo detention centres346. New language was used to protect Western governments from their ordinary legal obligations, such as ‘extraordinary rendition’, ‘collateral damage’ and ‘enhanced interrogation’347. In this situation, it seemed that neither jus ad bellum nor jus in bello were satisfied to the standards implied in the era of human rights protections described earlier in the paper.
Part of state actors’ continuing appeal to humanitarian ends attempted to use the legitimacy of the UN as an arbiter of the ‘justness’ of interventions outside of UN resolutions that explicitly endorsed interventions. Thus, wars that took place outside of UN Security Council mandates nonetheless used human rights discourse as a justification of these wars. In the words of Stanley Cohen, “Bad deeds required... justifications that other liberal democratic societies could accept. These justifications had to be crafted within the special dialects and rituals of liberal legality”348. Both the (US-led) invasions of Afghanistan (2001-2014) and Iraq can be viewed in this regard349.
New uses of sovereignty
Another development of the moral and institutional context was an increasing focus on new definitions of sovereignty. Firstly, in a continuation of the exalted importance of human
345 Charles Duelfer, “WMD elimination in Iraq, 2003,” The Nonproliferation Review, 23:1-2, 163, DOI:10.1080/10736700.2016.1179431. See also Eric Henning and Piers Robinson, “Report X Marks the Spot: The British Government’s Deceptive Dossier on Iraq and WMD,” Political Science Quarterly, 129:4, 2014-15, 552. 346 Jared Del Rosso, “Textuality and the Social Organization of Denial: Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo, and the Meanings of U.S. Interrogation Policies,” Sociological Forum, 29:1, March 2014, 53. 347 Anna M. Wittmann, Talking Conflict: The Loaded Language Of Genocide, Political Violence, Terrorism, And Warfare, Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2017, xviii. 348 Stanley Cohen, “Post-Moral Torture: From Guantánamo to Abu Ghraib,” Index on Censorship 1, 24. 349 Denike, “The Human Rights of Others ,”96-97.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 72 rights, sovereignty continued to be negotiable, often without the citizens of the country that was targeted in Western wars playing a large part in the debate350. In addition, states outside the orbit of Western institutions faced increasing burdens in order to protect their sovereignty. For example, all states now had ‘duties to prevent’ terrorism351. Although some analysts, such as Phillips352, see the promotion of these duties as reasserting the state’s monopoly over violence, arguably these obligations serve to undermine sovereignty as they presage a dereliction of duties - or the accusation of such - that would lead to the possibility of their sovereignty being delegitimised by other states. These powerful states, acting as ‘the international community’ or through near-synonyms such as ‘coalition of the willing’, possess a “super-sovereignty” or “world sovereignty” that purports to “[enforce the] sovereign will of mankind”353, without, however, using a sovereign institution above the level of the nation-state (i.e. operating using normal state structures for military and political decision-making, and not bestowing ‘sovereign’ (military) power or (political) legitimacy on supra-national institutions such as the UN).
There is a strong argument that the invocation of “super sovereignty” attempts to place the (future) actions of alliances acting under its auspices beyond question by its self-appointed Western practitioners, and has a unique power to convince both leaders and citizens of the just nature of these actions. How this power is obtained is unclear, though Walten, the German word translated by Derrida as denoting a non-violent or neutral force, whilst simultaneously expressing a violent prevailing354, could capture the peaceful, preventative
350 Denike, “The Human Rights of Others,” 100. 351 Phillips, “The wars on terror,” 83. 352 Phillips, “The wars on terror,” 83. 353 Luke Glanville, Sovereignty and the Responsibility to Protect: A New History, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014, 98. 354 See Ronald Mendoza-de Jesús, “Being, Sovereignty, Unconditionality: Heidegger’s Walten in Derrida’s La Bête et le souverain II,” Mosaic: a journal for the interdisciplinary study of literature, 44:3, no. 3, September 2011, 104. Again: “Le Walten est puissance dominante, gouvernante, en tant que souveraineté auto-formée, en tant que force autonome, autarcique, se commandant et se formant elle même de la totalité de l’étant, de l’étant en totalité, de tout ce qui est,” 105. Walten as “a force, a power, a dominance, even a sovereignty unlike any other - whence the difficulty that we have in thinking it, determining it, and, of course, translating it,” Ending in “[Walten is not] the sovereignty of God, [nor of] a king or a head of state, but a sovereignty more sovereign than all sovereignty” we can see that it is not unreasonable to assume that - through the e - that “pre-reason”, emotional or intuitive biases are being appealed to, and it takes a large dose of reason to flush these out (http://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3045&context=etd) . Quoted from Michael Naas, “The End of the World and Other Teachable Moments: Jacques Derrida’s Final Seminar”, Fordham University Press, October 2014, 156.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 73 and just aims of ‘humanitarian’ military action in juxtaposition to the violent disorder that is wrought on the chosen state and population during military campaigns such as those in the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Clues that betray this approach in Western policy circles can be found in the ideas of important US advisors such as Charles Krauthammer, who stated that after the fall of communism. “the focus of American foreign policy should be to strengthen and unify a ‘super-sovereign West,’” of which the United States was the centre, and not to bring democracy to Third World countries 355. The actions of the 2001-2009 Bush administration to increase American unipolarism, that caused disapprobation by some due to the apparent disregard for the strife caused by the US-led invasion of Iraq356, seem to be in line with this.
355 Gary J. Dorrien, Economy, Difference, Empire: Social Ethics for Social Justice, Columbia University Press, 2010, 235. 356 Gary J. Dorrien, Economy, Difference, Empire: Social Ethics for Social Justice, 235.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 74
Stated and unstated reasons for Russian intervention in Georgia
Russia’s stated aims and their execution
There are strong arguments that strategic concerns played an important part in Russian war aims in Georgia, and that these aims went beyond humanitarian reasons for going to war. This section will attempt to formulate and assess the stated and unstated aims and objectives of Russia within the following structure. Firstly, Russia’s stated aims will be drawn from official documents, before these aims are assessed against the actual course of action that was chosen. Then, possible reasons and theories that seek to explain actions that were seemingly not in line with the stated aims will be examined.
Russia’s stated aims will be classified as ‘expansive’ and specific. Expansive aims can be seen as including a deep concern with the external environment that focused on NATO enlargement and what were seen as attempts by the US and its allies to act outside of international law, two issues that were addressed in both the new Security Concept of January 2000 and in Putin’s speech at the Munich Conference on Security Policy in 2007357. The emphasis placed on the desired primacy of international law in guiding states’ actions emanates from an expressed desire of Russia to contribute to conflict prevention through respect for international mechanisms, namely the UN Charter. Indeed, the UN Charter is referred to as the only mechanism that can authorise military force. In terms of specific aims, President Medvedev’s speech of August 8, 2008 emphasised the supremacy of international law, multipolarity, ‘engagement’, protection of Russian citizens “wherever they are”, and the existence of “regions of privileged interest” to Russia358. In addition,
357 See Sakwa, Russian Politics and Society, 402, and Vladimir Putin, “Speech and the Following Discussion at the Munich Conference on Security Policy,” February 10, 2007, 4. 358 European Stability Initiative, “Medvedev and Putin on Red Lines in the Caucasus,” December 2009, available at http://www.esiweb.org/index.php?lang=en&id=281&story_ID=26&slide_ID=2
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 75
Medvedev’s speech of August 26, 2008 expressed a call for peace and, again, respect for the UN Charter in order to “save human lives”359.
Russia’s stated aims: an assessment
Russia claimed that the operations in Georgia in August 2008 were a success. It was judged as so in terms of protecting Russian lives and propagating peace360. The conflict, triggered by Georgian military action against South Ossetia on 7-8 August 2008361, lasted until the 12 August when French President Nicholas Sarkozy brokered a peace deal362. Russia claimed that its actions had prevented “the annihilation of a whole people” (the South Ossetians)363. It is impossible to know for sure what Saakashvili’s intentions were with respect to the treatment of South Ossetians. However, in view of the attacks on Tskhinvali (the capital of South Ossetia) using howitzers and Grad rocket launchers364 that marked the escalation of several days of skirmishes365 into a full-blown war, causing 1’000 deaths366 and extensive damage across the region367, it is likely that the Georgian army would have soon overwhelmed South Ossetian forces, with further loss of life on both sides, had the Russian
359 Dmitry Medvedev, “Statement by the President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev,” August 26, 2008, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/page/219 360 Referring to both Russian peacekeepers and Russian citizens The Kremlin, “Beginning of the Meeting with President of France Nicolas Sarkozy,” August 12 2008, available at http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/1071 361 Lira Tskhovrebova, “Georgia’s Shameful Attack on South Ossetia,” Los Angeles Times, November 17 2008, available at http://www.latimes.com/opinion/la-oew-tskhovrebova17-2008nov17-story.html 362 Ian Traynor and Luke Harding, “Surrender or else, Russia tells Georgia,” The Guardian, 12 August 2008, available at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/aug/12/russia.georgia1 363 Dmitry Medvedev, “Statement by President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev,” retrieved 30 June 2017, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/1222 364 The intensity of the bombardment has been called into question due to mobile phone footage of Tshkinvali on the morning of August 8, apparently showing little damage. Maksim Makarychev, “Minutes Before Midnight - Georgian President Issues Order to Start Aggression a Couple of Hours After Talking About a Truce,” Rossiiskaya Gazeta, in Countdown to War in Georgia: Russia’s Foreign Policy and Media Coverage of the Conflict in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, August 9 2008, 399. Ariel Cohen and Robert E. Hamilton, “The Russian Military and the Georgia War: Lessons and Implications,” Strategic Studies Institute, June 2011, 56, available at http://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pdffiles/pub1069.pdf 365 Bomb attacks in South Ossetia prefigured serious fighting between August 2-4. For a detailed view of the armed clashes in the weeks before the war, see Jim Nichol, “Russia-Georgia Conflict in August 2008: Context and Implications for U.S. Interests,” March 3, 2009, 3-7, available at https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34618.pdf 366 Stefan Wolff, “Georgia: Abkhazia and South Ossetia,” Encyclopedia Princetoniensis, http://pesd.princeton.edu/?q=node/274 367 Not least humanitarian. See for example John Wendle, “In South Ossetia, Families Remain Torn Apart,” Time, August 13 2009, available at http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1915854,00.html
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 76 army not intervened368. However, in preventing the aggression against South Ossetia, Russia caused high levels of collateral damage, partly due to civilian targets369, for example by bombing Gori, where 60 deaths were reported370. In South Ossetia, the declared peaceful aims of Russia - seen for example in the provision of humanitarian assistance to South Ossetia371 - were not enough to prevent the looting and destruction of Georgian villages by South Ossetian militias372.
If one considers that Russia was not responsible for the actions of the Georgian government, Russia must still bear responsibility for its military campaign which itself broke with the principle of non-aggression that Russia was seeking to uphold373. Turning to the outbreak of hostilities in Abkhazia, there is strong evidence that Russian aggression and support for Abkhaz forces began and increased the intensity of fighting in the region and in nearby Georgian regions. For example, UN observers reported that Russia carried out aerial bombardments on Georgian positions in the Upper Kodori Valley on August 10, whilst Abkhaz forces moved heavy weapons and “substantial numbers... of personnel” to the same area, whilst Russian peacekeepers did not attempt to stop the deployments374. Abkhaz forces also deployed in other areas, including in Georgian territory (the Zugdidi district)375. Zugdidi town was bombed and occupied by Russian troops. The towns of Kutaisy, Senaki and Gori, deep inside Georgia, were also occupied376. The Russians considered that Saakashvili had to be pressured through military action to accept peace on Russian terms.
368 Approximately half of Georgia’s 26’000-strong army was mobilised in August 2008, facing 3000 South Ossetian militias and 500 Russian peacekeepers. Vicken Cheterian, “The August 2008 war in Georgia: From Ethnic Conflict to Border Wars,” in War and Revolution in the Caucasus: Georgia Ablaze, New York: Routledge, 2011, 70. 369 Cohen and Hamilton, “The Russian Military and the Georgia War,” 38-39. 370 Human Rights Watch, “Russia/Georgia: Investigate Civilian Deaths - High Toll from Attacks on Populated Areas,” August 12 2008, available at https://www.hrw.org/news/2008/08/12/russia/georgia-investigate- civilian-deaths BBC News, “Russian Jets Attack Georgia Town,” 9 August 2008, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7550804.stm See also, Blomfield, “Russians Shell Gori.” 371 The Kremlin, “Beginning of the Meeting on Providing Humanitarian Assistance to the Population of South Ossetia,” August 9, 2008, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/1048 372 Human Rights Watch, “Georgian Villages in South Ossetia Burnt, Looted,” August 12, 2008, https://www.hrw.org/news/2008/08/12/georgian-villages-south-ossetia-burnt-looted 373 Christopher Hitchens, “South Ossetia Isn’t Kosovo,” Slate, August 16 2008, retrieved from http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2008/08/south_ossetia_isnt_kosovo.html 374 Nichol, “Russia-Georgia Conflict in August 2008,” 6. 375 Nichol, “Russia-Georgia Conflict in August 2008,” 6. 376 Nichol, “Russia-Georgia Conflict in August 2008,” 7. Luke Harding and Lee Glendinning, “Russia Has Taken Over Half The Country, Georgia Claims,” The Guardian, 11 August 2008, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/aug/11/georgia.russia8. Gori takeover disputed Adrian Blomfield,
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 77
To conclude the analysis of Russia’s stated aims, it can be said that the difficulty of claiming Russia was successful in terms of its expansive aims lies in the tension between the successful conclusion of hostilities due to Russian military action against Georgia - it is uncontentious that Saakashvili was obliged to make an agreement because of the overwhelming military force deployed against Georgia - and the knowledge that Russian intervention likely saved the lives of Russians and South Ossetians in South Ossetia. The alliance can perhaps be said to have been largely successful if the achievement of the stated aims is considered to rest within longer term processes. By locating the conflict in the longer term, the fact that principles such as individual liberty and the rule of law are manifestly not present in the moment of a military operation can be reconciled with the concurrent aim of the military campaign to establish the political conditions necessary for these principles to be followed. More crudely, the ends justify the means. In the longer term, Saakashvili was forced to step back from his “increasingly radical ethnocratic policies”377 in South Ossetia and sign an agreement, and a stable peace was brought to South Ossetia ensured by the Russia’s continuing involvement. Tension remains however, when one considers if the actions taken had been different, for example if Russia had not responded to Georgian aggression with such overwhelming force, and instead focused on deploying more peacekeepers.
Russia’s unstated aims: a constructivist view
This section will, instead of addressing the unstated aims of Russian foreign policy as might be supplied by current research, attempt to find out to what extent the aims of the major geopolitical actor in the Kosovo conflict (NATO - see Chapter 4) make sense in the context of the Georgian War. Thus, this section will focus on the strategic environment that has been described above, and discrepancies between Russia’s stated aims and Russia’s actions. Within this framework, and maintaining a focus on Russia, the following types of institutional
“Russians Shell Gori Despite Claims Georgia Conflict is Over,” The Telegraph, 12 August 2008, available at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/georgia/2546100/Russians-shells-Gori-despite-claims- Georgia-conflict-is-over.html 377 Tuathail, “Russia’s Kosovo,” 676.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 78 processes and behaviours will be considered in terms of whether they can be said to have contributed to the later decision to go to war with Georgia: the military intervention in Chechnya and involvement in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, historic alternatives in Russian decision-making and the colour revolutions, the expansion of Russian hegemony in the post- Soviet space and Russia as the ‘new boss’.
A constructivist precursor? Russian military involvement in Chechnya, Abkhazia and South Ossetia and the colour revolutions in the post-Soviet space
In terms of strategic involvement in the Caucasus, one way to formulate Russia’s unstated aims in Georgia is in terms of previous Russian involvement in the Caucasus since the end of the Cold War. Drawing on constructivist insights (see Chapter 4), it can be argued that certain attitudes and behaviours, apparent through earlier actions, affected the Russians’ approach towards Georgia and impacted on the decision to go to war in 2008.
The experience of fighting two wars in Chechnya, at the cost of thousands of lives and 300’000 - 400’000 refugees, out of a population of a million378 could have affected Russian attitudes towards not just Chechnya379 but the whole of the Caucasus. In the parlance of this paper, the eventual subduing of Chechnya in 2009380 could be described as ‘positive’ - that is, Russians felt vindicated in undertaking the military engagement. Although the second Chechnya War was still ongoing in 2008381, arguably Russia’s success in putting down the rebellion - Putin-backed Ramadan Kadyrov was elected in 2007 - influenced the Russian’s view of what was possible in terms of assertive military policies. In addition, the ruinous nature of the Chechen wars382 may have been a ‘negative’ experience, with the ‘lesson
378 The Economist, “The Lost Cause of the Caucasus,” 31 October 2002, available at http://www.economist.com/node/1416319 379 Gregory Feifer, “Russia: Putin’s Statements on Chechnya May Reflect Public Opinion,” 13 Novermber 2002, https://www.rferl.org/a/1101362.html 380 Michael Schwirtz, “Russia Ends Operations in Chechnya,” 16 April 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/17/world/europe/17chechnya.html 381 The counter-terrorism operation in Chechnya was declared complete in April 2009. See BBC News, “Russia ‘ends Chechnya operation,” 16 April 2009, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8001495.stm 382 Rajan Menon and Graham E. Fuller, “Russia’s Ruinous Chechen War,” Foreign Affairs, March/April 2000, available at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russia-fsu/2000-03-01/russias-ruinous-chechen-war
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 79 learned’ being that Russia’s periphery must be engaged with, and ultimately controlled. In one way, this argument seems to state the obvious: that Russia has an area of special interests and will engage in favour of these interests, as asserted by Medvedev in 2008 (see above). However, a crucial difference is that the argument is not based on a realist view of international affairs, whereby Russia is compelled to act by virtue of its power, but instead looks to explain behaviour through the ongoing thought processes that cause the Russian state to speak of these ‘regions of privileged interest’ and to involve itself militarily in order to influence outcomes. Another ‘positive’ experience could be seen in Russian involvement in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. In South Ossetia, for example, Russia was instrumental in establishing Joint Peacekeeping Forces involving Russian, Ossetian and Georgian troops in the 1990s, and in setting up a ‘security corridor’ outside of South Ossetia where peacekeepers could set up checkpoints383. In addition, Russia gave military support to South Ossetia from 1989384. This involvement was rewarded after the 2008 war with a 49-year lease on a Russian military base, though the price in aid was likely heavy385. Similarly, in Abkhazia, Russia brokered the peace deal that ended the 1992-1993 war with Georgia, which had cost eight thousand lives386, and were active in peace-keeping operations there from 1993387. In Abkhazia a similar lease to that in South Ossetia was obtained after the 2008 war, but for a 99-year period388.
If winning in Chechnya was a reason for a ‘positive’ assessment of the capabilities of Russia in defending its interests in the Caucasus, leading it to positively evaluate the possibilities of defending its interests with military force, and the experience of conflict in the Caucasus as a whole led to an attitude that it was better to be engaged, another ‘negative’ instance of previous Russian behaviour - in this case a lack of action - can be found in Russia’s experience of the ‘colour revolutions’ that occurred in the post-Soviet space and beyond from the year 2000, as will now be discussed.
383 Tuathail, “Russia’s Kosovo,” 677. 384 Raymond Bonner, “Separatists in Georgia Look to Russia for Protection: Ethnic Conflict and Russia’s Southern Flank,” New York Times, 12 June 1994. 385 Jones, Georgia, 258-259. 386 De Waal, The Causcasus, 164. 387 De Waal, The Causcasus, 164. 388 Paula Garb, “The view from Abkhazia of South Ossetia Ablaze,” in War and Revolution in the Caucasus, 148.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 80
The Russian ‘negative’ experience of the ‘colour revolutions’ in the post-Soviet space gives further evidence that Russia was primed to act in service of its interests inside its declared sphere of influence.
Beginning with the ‘Bulldozer revolution’389 in Serbia in 2000, the colour revolutions of the 2000s removed several authoritarian leaders in Eastern Europe. In 2003, the Rose Revolution, featured earlier in the thesis, led to the downfall of Eduard Shevardnadze in Georgia, and in 2004 Viktor Yanukovich was defeated in Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, followed by the flight of President Akayev from Kyrgyzstan in 2005. The existence of Western funding for the revolutions390 - for example, one American organisation gained a federal grant of $11 million to bring about a ‘thriving democracy’ in Ukraine391 - was a sign of unwelcome Western interference to the Kremlin, which could not compete with the attractiveness of Western democratic ideals and success in mobilising activists. In post- Soviet societies where the desire for democratic progress was strong, Russian political gestures were wont to backfire, as was demonstrated when Putin provided support for the Kuchma regime by swiftly congratulating Yanukovich on his fleeting victory in 2004392. The colour revolutions arguably led to ‘negative’ conditioning of the Russian state by showing Russia to be powerless to halt the progress of Western-facing revolutions in its declared sphere of interest. Hence, it is arguable that, as with the ongoing conflicts in the Caucasus, Russian politicians came to believe that engagement was the best option available, even if it carried risks.
Arguably, the ‘negative’ experience of the lack of Russian power to influence the states where colour revolutions took place added to the ‘positive’ experience of military engagement in the Caucasus, making Russia more likely to act in service of its interests.
389 See, for example, Nebojša Vladisavljević, “Competitive Authoritarianism and popular protest: Evidence from Serbia under Milošević,” International Political Science Review, 2014. 390 F.J. Companjen, “Georgia,” in The Colour Revolutions in the Former Soviet Republics: Successes and Failures, eds. Donnacha Ó Beacháin and Abel Polese, 22. 391 The Institute for Sustainable Communities. It is not clear to which time period the money was allocated. See Wilson, “Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, NGOs and the Role of the West,” Cambridge Review of International Affairs, March 2006, 19:1, 28.
392 On November 12 2004, Putin warned Kuchma that he would ‘not accept’ an opposition victory. von Zon, Hans, “Why the Orange Revolution succeeded,” Perspectives on European Politics and Society, September 2005, 6:3, 382.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 81
A constructivist precursor? Historic alternatives in Russian decision-making
(The researcher has been unable to find an argument that is similar enough to that presented in Chapter 4 for this question. See Chapter 6 for further explanation.)
A constructivist precursor? The expansion of Russian hegemony in the Caucasus
In an environment where NATO threatened to welcome two important post-Soviet states - Georgia and Russia393 - to the Atlantic alliance, the actions of Russia in Georgia (including South Ossetia and Abkhazia) underlined that Russia was the ‘new boss’, and would provide protection for those territories who wanted it, against countries who wished to follow a Western interpretation of development, principally through the integration of Western defence organisations but also with reference to the development of democracy on a Western model. Russia, by ‘laying down the law’ in the Caucasus, expressed its right to act in service of its stated objectives of the establishment of peace on its terms in its “region of privileged interest”. From the perspective of today, it is interesting to consider how the strategic environment gave rise to what is here considered an ‘unstated aim’ - that of ‘laying down the law’ or asserting its geopolitical dominance - but may, from a Russian point of view, be considered as the promulgation of justice against a belligerent oppressor (Saakashvili). Evidence that there were important reasons for Russian intervention other than the stated (humanitarian) objectives can be gleaned from Russia’s behaviour in the Caucasus and in Eastern Europe more generally, as well as from what might be considered the frustration of this behaviour. For example, Russia has been a central member of the Commonwealth of Independent States since its creation in December 1991394, an organisation that aimed to coordinate foreign policy, cultivate a common economic space, and guarantee freedom of movement for citizens of its 10 states (9 from August 2008, when
393 Existing NATO members agreed in April 2008 that Georgia and Ukraine would ‘one day’ become part of the alliance. See NATO, “Enlargement,” last updated 16 June 2017, http://www.nato.int/cps/da/natohq/topics_49212.htm# 394 Sakwa, Russian Politics and Society, 421.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 82
Georgia left), in addition to creating supra-national institutions. However, more than 20 years later, these goals have not been fully realised, although basic legal norms have been established through a considerable body of CIS law that has been passed by the member states395. Instead, the biggest achievement of the union has been to prevent a “total collapse” of the infrastructure of the USSR, for example through preservation of the previous economic area. After decades of asserting control from Moscow on what were now independent states, arguably Russian involvement in its near-abroad was now seen to be a priori illegitimate and unwelcome, despite events in Russia itself - through processes such as perestroika and glasnost - driving the downfall of the USSR. Thus, in a climate of delegitimised interference in sovereign affairs where the sovereignty of the post-Soviet countries was increasingly non-negotiable - as demonstrated to Russia through the colour revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine especially - Russia found itself increasingly isolated as its previous partners turned toward the West for their development needs. The failure of Russia to maintain organisations that were attractive to countries in its near abroad and thus influence their policies in any significant way arguably made Russia more likely to seek other ways to influence states such as Georgia - and, later, Ukraine - and thus provide stability in the post-Soviet space.
395 Sakwa, Russian Politics and Society, 421.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 83
Chapter 6: Findings
Historical case studies in Chapters 2 and 3
In Chapters 2 and 3, case studies of the relationships between the state in question (Serbia and Georgia, respectively) and the regions in these countries that desired statehood or substantial independence at the time of the outbreak of hostilities have revealed several common themes. Perhaps the most noticeable traits that are shared in these local relationships are the mythologies and contested histories that tie different ethnic groups to the same land. Once this dynamic is established, any war or demographic movement, for example in the case of the high birth rate in Kosovo that resulted in a higher Kosovar proportion of the population, is seized upon by both sides and interpreted, often through the lens of an already-established narrative, to claim that the ‘Other’ has wronged their nationality in some way.
These simmering ethnic rivalries, following the evidence presented, appear to be at least in part linked to economic developments, especially concerning the fairness of the distribution of economic opportunities between different nationalities. However, the paper has given many more examples of how nationalist political leadership has greatly exacerbated the problems between nationalities. The case was most extreme in Serbia, where repression of Kosovars was ever-increasing, and eventually answered with the rise of the Kosovo Liberation Army, which only invited more oppression of the civilian population until the settling of the conflict after NATO intervention. However, the policies of Gamsakhurdia in Georgia also undoubtedly caused nationalist sentiment to rise and the South Ossetians and Abkhazians to feel threatened by violence and cultural assimilation, and much human suffering was caused by the wars that swiftly followed.
Another similarity between the case studies is the rescinding of measures of autonomy from the rebel regions. As the formal manifestation of nationalistic policies, the removal of
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 84
Kosovar autonomy only worsened the disorder in the province, and the same dynamic was evident in Georgia.
The comparative method in Chapters 4 and 5
The comparative method outlined in Chapter 1 has in the chapters concerning the history of the local actors been only loosely followed, before being more closely applied in Chapters 4 and 5, concerning the major actors in the conflicts, and especially in the final three questions therein, which attempt to address the possible unstated aims of NATO and Russia in the respective conflicts. In the first instance, outlining a history of the organisations under discussion (NATO and Russia) has been followed by an exploration of the moral and institutional context in international politics at the time of each conflict, revealing that the moral framework and political circumstances in which the conflicts took place were very different. In the 1990s, the situation was extremely fluid, and it is not unrealistic to speak of a ‘power vacuum’ in Europe. With the UN and the EU newly ascendant and NATO enlargement not yet at its full extent, it appears that there was - in the late 1990s - a real question over which organisations would provide Europe’s security capabilities. By 2008, not only had NATO unambiguously placed itself as the guarantor of European security - at least of the states that had obtained membership - but the alliance had also shown that it could act as an autonomous entity that pursued peace around the world with military force. Another important marker of the 1999-2008 period is that the stated peaceful and democratic aims of the alliance were not always evident in practice, and that, despite acting outside of the confines of explicit UN Resolutions, NATO states attempted in some way to usurp the legitimacy of the UN and other institutions such as the OSCE and the EU, in consolidating its position as the provider of worldwide peace and security.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 85
Strict application of the comparative method: successes and failures
The application of the comparative method in the consideration of three possible ‘unstated aims’ of NATO and Russia at the end of Chapters 4 and 5 has the objective, as described in Chapter 1, of revealing the bias of the researcher and generating new insights into both the conflicts under discussion. The application of the method has had mixed results.
A constructivist precursor? Previous military involvement In the first instance, the proposal to consider previous military interventions as ‘constructivist precursors’ that led to war made sense in relation to NATO, where ‘positive’ reinforcement through bombing was seen to have contributed to the ‘[breaking of] the Serbs’ and the ‘negative’ experience of working with peacekeepers on the ground can be seen to influence later actions against Serbia. In relation to Russia, attempting to map Russia’s wars in Chechnya and Russian involvement - for example through various types of military support - in Abkhazia and South Ossetia was not quite as convincing, as the analyst is aware of ‘standard’ arguments for Russian intervention in Georgia in 2008, namely the granting of statehood to Kosovo and the promise of NATO enlargement to Georgia and Ukraine. The exploration of these arguments has, however, in this paper been sacrificed to the methodological exploration at hand. Nonetheless, although a strong argument of how Russian successes and failures in the post-Soviet space is given, the failure to address the ‘Kosovo sovereignty’ argument - in brief, expressing that South Ossetia and Abkhazia are in the same situation as Kosovo in 1999 and should be granted full sovereignty following the example in Kosovo - and the argument concerning Russian frustrations over NATO expansion (though Russian frustration features briefly in answer to another question), the lack of discussion around an immediate (geopolitical) ‘trigger’ for the conflict is difficult to ignore.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 86
A constructivist precursor? Historic alternatives
In terms of the attempted method, this question ‘failed’ as the researcher could not conceive of a scenario that was similar enough to bear direct comparison to the argument presented in Chapter 4 (concerning the difference between NATO’s actions in relation to the ethnic cleansing by Croats of the Krajina and the ethnic cleansing by Serbs of Kosovo).
A constructivist precursor? The expansion of geopolitical hegemony
The application of a ‘geopolitical expansion’ hypothesis, that states that the major geopolitical actors (here, NATO and Russia) took action in the respective conflicts because of their assumed right to do so, in addition to their concerns over peace and security, was largely successfully applied to both scenarios under discussion. Using the ‘positive’ (successful behaviours to be repeated) and ‘negative’ (lessons learned, actions and behaviours not to be repeated) tool was conducive in bringing out the differences between the experience of NATO, which experienced success in its influencing strategies due to implicit support from the citizens of much of Western Europe and beyond, as well as from Western institutions such as the EU, and the experience of Russia, which did not experience much success in its own influencing strategies.
The problem of demonstrating the method
A problem of the method is that it is difficult to show its value due to its nature as a ‘working method’; the results may be seen in balanced writing, but showing the process itself would be the subject of another paper. This is because, if an issue appears when applying the principles extracted from the first text to the second text, and the principles are then adjusted, causing adjustments in the first text to take place (i.e. the method is ‘successful’ in this case), the entire process is ‘organic’. For example, if the first text concerns the growing popularity of human rights discourse in the second half of the 20th century, and Russia is seen as not a natural part of this in the 1990s, the second situation, e.g. the idea of New
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 87
Thinking under Gorbachev, will add the idea that the Russians at one point actually wanted to go further than ‘the West’ in terms of non-interference in sovereign countries, forcing changes in the core argument that ‘human rights’ was driven principally by the West. The result of this is that the first text is adjusted, becoming more balanced. However, this may be through the addition of simple phrases like ‘apparently’ or changing the first text in any number of ways. This thesis therefore represents an explicit execution of working methods which has hopefully been insightful regarding the subject matter and suggested innovative methods for conducting research, but cannot, due to the limitations of the format, show the method in operation.
The problem of moral equivalence
One of the dangers of the method is that, once similar actors and scenarios have been identified, narratives from one scenario will be ‘forced’ onto the second scenario, and the evidence made to fit around the desired narrative. This is absolutely not the intended use of the method used in this paper; in fact, the opposite effect is desired. The method of the paper has taken as its starting point that much information is available, making many narratives able to be ‘evidenced’. The objective has been to admit possible narrative bias, and indeed to seek it out. The ultimate test of the arguments that appear in the paper is, perhaps, whether they are able to be viewed outside of the context of the method applied without any loss of clarity, meaning, or strength, which is for the reader to judge.
Suggestions for further development of the method
The method at hand could conceivably be developed into an aid to teaching analytical methods and to improve writing; secondly, the method would perhaps benefit from consideration of the use of adding quantitative methods to the historical framework. (22’251 words)
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 88
Bibliography
Alexander, Paul, “Fallout from Somalia still haunts US policy 20 years later,” Stars and Stripes, October 3, 2013, available at https://www.stripes.com/news/fallout-from- somalia-still-haunts-us-policy-20-years-later-1.244957#.WVABNlFLfIW
Alston, Philip and Weiler, James, “An ‘Ever Closer Union’ in Need of a Human Rights Policy: the EU Union and Human Rights” The EU Union and Human Rights, ed. Philip Alston, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999.
Anderson, Perry, in Richard Lachmann, States and Power, Cambridge: Policy, 2012.
Armatta, Judith, “Historical Revelations from the Milošević Trial,” Southeastern Europe, 2012.
Asmus, Ronald D., “Europe’s Eastern Promise: Rethinking NATO and EU Enlargement,” Foreign Affairs, No. 87, 2008.
Atlantic Council, “Why Europe Whole and Free,” 28 April 2014, available at http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/resources/why-europe-whole-and-free.
Aydin-Düzgit, Senem, “Unravelling European Union Foreign Policy through Critical Discourse Analysis: Prospects and Challenges,” Cooperation and Conflict, 2014, 49:3.
Balkan Insight, “Bulgaria Leaked Milošević Ethnic Cleansing Plan,” 10 January 2012, available at http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/bulgaria-leaked-milosevic-ethnic-cleansing-plan
Bataković, Dusan T. “Kosovo and Metohija - A Historical Survey (1),” available at http://www.spc.rs/sr/kosovo_and_metohija_a_historical_survey1_prof_dr_dusan_t_ batakovic
Bataković, Dušan T., Serbia’s Kosovo Drama: a historical perspective. Belgrade: igoja, 2012.
Batyuk, Vladimir, “The End of the Cold War, A Russian View,” History Today, 49:4, April 1999.
BBC News, “World: Europe Serbs highlight ‘KLA atrocity,’” August 29, 1998, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/160978.stm
BBC News, “Russian Jets Attack Georgia Town,” 9 August 2008, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7550804.stm
BBC News, “Russia ‘ends Chechnya operation,” 16 April 2009, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8001495.stm
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 89
BBC News, “Hague war court acquits Croat Generals Gotovina and Markac,” 17 November 2012, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-20352187
BBC News, “Abkhazia profile,” 7 December 2015, available at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-18175030
BBC News, “South Ossetia profile - Facts,” 7 December 2015, available at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-18269214
BBC News, “Afghanistan Profile - Timeline,” 8 March 2017, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-south-asia-12024253
BBC News, “Kosovo profile,” 14 May 2017, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe- 18328859
BBC News, “Georgia profile,” 18 May 2017, available at http://www.bbc.com/news/world- europe-17301647
BBC News, “Serbia Country Profile,” 8 June 2017, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe- 17907947
Beato, Andrew M., “Newly Independent and Separating States’ Succession to Treaties: Considerations on the Hybrid Dependency of the Republics of the Former Soviet Union”, American University International Law Review, 9:2, 1994.
Blomfield, Adrian and Kirkup, James, “Stay away, Vladmir Putin tells NATO,” The Telegraph, 5 April 2008, available at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1584027/Stay-away-Vladimir-Putin- tells-Nato.html
Blomfield, Adrian, “Russians Shell Gori Despite Claims Georgia Conflict is Over,” The Telegraph, 12 August 2008, available at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/georgia/2546100/Russians- shells-Gori-despite-claims-Georgia-conflict-is-over.html
Bonner, Raymond, “Separatists in Georgia Look to Russia for Protection: Ethnic Conflict and Russia’s Southern Flank,” New York Times, 12 June 1994.
Boveza-Abazi, Katrin, The Shaping of Bulgarian and Serbian National Identities, 1800s-1900s, February 2003 PhD Thesis, Department of History, McGill University, Montreal.
Bozo, Frédéric, “De la « bataille » des euromissiles à la « guerre » du Kosovo : l’Alliance atlantique face à ses défis (1979-1999),” Politique Étrangère, 3/99.
Bucknam, Mark A., Responsibility of Command: How UN and NATO Commanders influenced airpower over Bosnia, Maxwell Airforce Base, Alabama: Air University Press, 2003.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 90
Burstein, Paul and Freudenburg, William, “Changing Public Policy: The Impact of Public Opinion, Antiwar Demonstrations, and War Costs on Senate Voting on Vietnam War Motions,” American Journal of Sociology, 84:1, July 1978.
Central Intelligence Agency, “Croatia’s Ethnic Serb-Controlled Areas: A Geographic Perspective,”Intelligence Report C05960768, May 1995, retrieved from https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/1995-05-01A.pdf
Cheterian, Vicken, “The August 2008 war in Georgia: From Ethnic Conflict to Border Wars,” in War and Revolution in the Caucasus: Georgia Ablaze, New York: Routledge, 2011. CIA, “Yugoslavia: A Growing Albanian Minority,” Directorate of Intelligence, 9 August 1985, available at https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA- RDP85T01058R000303230001-5.pdf
Cohen, Ariel and Hamilton, Robert E., “The Russian Military and the Georgia War: Lessons and Implications,” Strategic Studies Institute, June 2011, available at http://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pdffiles/pub1069.pdf
Cohen, Stanley, “Post-Moral Torture: From Guantánamo to Abu Ghraib,” Index on Censorship 1.
Companjen, F.J., “Georgia,” in The Colour Revolutions in the Former Soviet Republics: Successes and Failures, eds. Donnacha Ó Beacháin and Abel Polese, 22.
Corley, Felix “South Ossetia between Gamsakhurdia and Gorbachev: Three documents,” Central Asian Survey, 16:2, 1997, DOI:10.1080/02634939708400987
Croatian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, Military Operation Storm and Its Aftermath, Zagreb 2001.
Czechoslovakia: A Country Study, ed. Glenn E. Curtis, Washington D.C.: Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress, 1992.
David Holloway, “Gorbachev’s New Thinking”, Foreign Affairs, America and the World 1988 Issue, retrieved 18 May 2017, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russia- fsu/1989-02-01/gorbachevs-new-thinking
Denike, Margaret, “The Human Rights of Others: Sovereignty, Legitimacy, and ‘Just Causes’ for the ‘War on Terror.’” Hypatia, 23:2, Spring 2008.
De Waal, Thomas, The Caucasus: An Introduction, Oxford:Oxford University Press, 2010.
Degoev, Vladimir, “The Diplomacy of the Caucasus War as a History Lesson,” Russian Social Science Review.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 91
Deighton, A. “The European Union and NATO’s War over Kosovo” in Alliance Politics, Kosovo and NATO’s War: Allied Force or Forced Allies, eds. Pierre Martin and Mark R. Brawley (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2000), 63. NATO, “Partnership for Peace programme,” last updated 7 April 2016, http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_50349.htm
Del Rosso, Jared, “Textuality and the Social Organization of Denial: Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo, and the Meanings of U.S. Interrogation Policies,” Sociological Forum, 29:1, March 2014.
Dittmer, James and Parr, David A., “Mediating sovereignty: a comparative latent analysis of US newspapers and conflicts in Kosovo and South Ossetia,” Media, War and Conflict, Vol. 4, No. 2, 124-141.
Dmitry Medvedev, “Statement by the President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev,” August 26, 2008, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/page/219
Dorrien, Gary J., Economy, Difference, Empire: Social Ethics for Social Justice, Columbia University Press, 2010, 235.
Duelfer, Charles, “WMD elimination in Iraq, 2003,” The Nonproliferation Review, 23:1-2, DOI:10.1080/10736700.2016.1179431.
Dyomkin, Denis, “Russia says Georgia War stopped NATO expansion,” Reuters, 21 November 2011, http://in.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-60645720111121
Encyclopedia Brittanica, “The reunification of Germany,” available at https://www.britannica.com/place/Germany/The-reunification-of-Germany
Englund, Will, “Refugees call Korisa a setup,” The Baltimore Sun, 20 June 1999, available at http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1999-06-20/news/9906220504_1_refugees- yugoslavia-korisa
European Commission, “Agenda 2000: For a Stronger and Wider Union,” Bulletin of the European Union, 15 July 1997, 41.
European Initiative, Liberal Academy Tbilisi, “The Economic Transformation of Georgia in its 20 years of Independence,” 2012, 3. Available at http://www.ei- lat.ge/images/doc/the%20economic%20transformation%20of%20georgia%20- %2020%20years%20of%20independence%20eng.pdf
European Parliament, “The Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties,” http://www.europarl.europa.eu/atyourservice/en/displayFtu.html?ftuId=FTU_1.1.3. html
European Stability Initiative, “Medvedev and Putin on Red Lines in the Caucasus,” December 2009, available at http://www.esiweb.org/index.php?lang=en&id=281&story_ID=26&slide_ID=2
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 92
Feifer, Gregory, “Russia: Putin’s Statements on Chechnya May Reflect Public Opinion,” 13 Novermber 2002, https://www.rferl.org/a/1101362.html
Ford, Peter, “Bid to Stem Civilian Deaths Tested,” The Christian Science Monitor, accessed 17 June 2017, http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0409/p06s01-woiq.html
George, Julie A., The Politics of Ethnic Separatism in Russia and Georgia, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
Gross, Michael L., The Ethics of Insurgency: A Critical Guide to Just Guerilla Warfare, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
Luke Glanville, Sovereignty and the Responsibility to Protect: A New History, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014.
Harding, Luke and Glendinning, Lee, “Russia Has Taken Over Half The Country, Georgia Claims,” The Guardian, 11 August 2008, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/aug/11/georgia.russia8
Henning, Eric and Robinson, Piers, “Report X Marks the Spot: The British Government’s Deceptive Dossier on Iraq and WMD,” Political Science Quarterly, 129:4, 2014-15.
Hitchens, Christopher, “South Ossetia Isn’t Kosovo,” Slate, August 16 2008, retrieved from http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2008/08/south_os setia_isnt_kosovo.html
Honig, Jan Willem, “Avoiding War, Inviting Defeat: the Srebrenica Crisis, July 1995,” Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 9:4, December 2001.
Human Rights Watch, “Russia/Georgia: Investigate Civilian Deaths - High Toll from Attacks on Populated Areas,” August 12 2008, available at https://www.hrw.org/news/2008/08/12/russia/georgia-investigate-civilian-deaths
Hurd, Ian, “Constructivism,” The Oxford Handbook of International Relations, eds. Christian Reus-Smit and Duncan Snidal, September 2009.
ICTY, “’Operation Storm (IT-03-73) ermak & Markač” Case Information Sheet, available at http://www.icty.org/x/cases/cermak/cis/en/cis-cermak.pdf
Independent International Commission on Kosovo,” Kosovo Report, Oxford University Press, 2001. Available at http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/The%20Kosovo%20Report.pdf
International Committee of the Red Cross, “What are jus ad bellum and jus in bello,” 22 January 2015, available at https://www.icrc.org/en/document/what-are-jus-ad- bellum-and-jus-bello-0
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 93 iPress Hrvatska, “ ermak slobodan, tužiteljstvo se neće žaliti,”17 May 2011, available at http://ipress.rtl.hr/hrvatska/cermak-slobodan-tuziteljstvo-se-nije-zalilo-15178.html
Judah, Tim, Kosovo: War and Revenge. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002.
Johnson, Carter, “Keeping the Peace After Partition: Ethnic Minorities, Civil Wars, and the Third Generation Ethnic Security Dilemma,” Civil Wars, 17:1, 2015. DOI:10.1080/13698249.2015.1059566
Jones, Stephen, “The Establishment of Soviet Power in Transcaucasia: The Case of Georgia 1921-1928,” Soviet Studies, Vol. 40, No. 4 (Oct., 1988).
Jones, Stephen, Georgia: A Political History Since Independence, New York: I.B. Tauris, 2013. Kačić, Hrvoje, “Affirmation of Statehood and Territorial Integrity of Croatia,” Croatian International Relations Review, January- March 1999.
Kaufman, Joyce P., NATO and the Former Yugoslavia: Crisis, Conflict and the Atlantic Alliance, Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002.
Kaufman, Stuart J., Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War, Cornell: Cornell University Press, 2001.
King, Charles, “The Five-Day War,” Foreign Affairs, November/December 2008, retrieved from https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russia-fsu/2008-11-01/five-day-war
Klaiber, K-P, “The Membership Action Plan: Keeping NATO’s Door Open,” NATO Review: Web Edition, 47:2, Summer 1999, 23-25. Retrieved 11 May 2017, http://www.nato.int/docu/review/1999/9902-05.htm
Krasniqi, Mikra, “The Origins of Poverty in Kosovo,” Kosovo 2.0, March 19, 2014, available at http://archive.kosovotwopointzero.com/en/article/1101/the-origins-of-poverty-in- kosovo
Lang, David, A Modern History of Soviet Georgia, New York: Grove Press, 1962.
MacFarquhar, Neil, “Saddam Hussein, Defiant Dictator Who Ruled Iraq With Violence and Fear, Dies,” 30 December 2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/30/world/middleeast/30saddam.html
Makarychev, Maksim, “Minutes Before Midnight - Georgian President Issues Order to Start Aggression a Couple of Hours After Talking About a Truce,” Rossiiskaya Gazeta, in Countdown to War in Georgia: Russia’s Foreign Policy and Media Coverage of the Conflict in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, August 9 2008, 399.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 94
Marcie C. Goeke-Morey, Ed Cairns, Laura K. Taylor, Christine E. Merrilees, Peter Shirlow, E. Mark Cummings, “Predictors Of Strength Of In-Group Identity In Northern Ireland: Impact Of Past Sectarian Conflict, Relative Deprivation, And Church Attendance,” Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology, Vol. 25, 2015.
Martin, Terry, “The Affirmative Action Empire: nations and nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923-1939,” Cornell: Cornell University Press, 2001.
Matas, David and Mills, Dennis, No More: The Battle Against Human Rights Violations, Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2008.
Matsuzato, Kimitaka, “Transnational minorities challenging the interstate system: Mingrelians, Armenians, and Muslims in and around Abkhazia,” Nationalities Papers, 39:5, 2011, 816, DOI:10.1080/00905992.2011.599376
MccGuire, Michael, “Why did we bomb Belgrade,” International Affairs, 76:1, January 2000.
Medvedev, Dmitry, “Statement by President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev,” retrieved 30 June 2017, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/1222
Memisevic, Tija “EU conditionality in Bosnia and Herzegovina: police reform and the legacy of war crimes,” War Crimes, Conditionality and EU Integration in the Western Balkans, eds. Judy Batt and Jelena Obradovic-Wochnik, Chaillot Paper 116, June 2009, 54.
Mendoza-de Jesús, Ronald, “Being, Sovereignty, Unconditionality: Heidegger’s Walten in Derrida’s La Bête et le souverain II,” Mosaic: a journal for the interdisciplinary study of literature, 44:3, no. 3, September 2011.
Menon, Rajan and Fuller, Graham E., “Russia’s Ruinous Chechen War,” Foreign Affairs, March/April 2000, available at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russia- fsu/2000-03-01/russias-ruinous-chechen-war
Mihalkanin, Edward, “The Abkhazians,” in De Facto States: The Quest for Sovereignty eds. Tozun Bahcheli, Barry Bartmann, Henry Srebrnik, London: Taylor & Francis, 2016.
Minasyan, Liana, “South Ossetia: ‘NO COMPROMISES WITH GEORGIA’ - This is the Desire of Alan Chochiyev,’ in Countdown to War in Georgia: Russia’s Foreign Policy and Media Coverage of the Conflict in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Minneapolis: East View Press, 2008, 34.
Moravcsik, Andrew, “The Origins of Human Rights Regimes: Democratic Delegation in Postwar Europe”, International Organization, 2000, 54:2.
Moseley, Alexander, “Just War Theory,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (no date given).
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 95
Naas, Michael, “The End of the World and Other Teachable Moments: Jacques Derrida’s Final Seminar”, Fordham University Press, October 2014,
NATO, “The North Atlantic Treaty,” 4 April 1949, retrieved from http://www.nato.int/nato_static/assets/pdf/stock_publications/20120822_nato_tre aty_en_light_2009.pdf
NATO, “The North Atlantic Treaty (1949),” available at http://www.nato.int/nato_static/assets/pdf/stock_publications/20120822_nato_tre aty_en_light_2009.pdf
NATO, “The Alliance’s New Strategic Concept,” 7-8 November 1991, available at http://www.nato.int/cps/sl/natohq/official_texts_23847.htm
NATO “The Alliance’s Strategic Concept,” 24 April, 1999, available at http://www.nato.int/cps/on/natohq/official_texts_27433.htm
NATO, “Former Secretary General Dr. Javir Solana,” updated October 4 2002, http://www.nato.int/cv/secgen/solana.htm
NATO, “NATO’s Command Structure: The Old and the New,” last updated 1 June 2004, http://www.nato.int/ims/docu/command-structure.htm
NATO, “Bucharest Summit Declaration,” 8 May 2014, available at http://www.nato.int/cps/in/natohq/official_texts_8443.htm
NATO, “Consensus decision-making at NATO,” last updated 14 March 2016, http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_49178.htm
NATO, “Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council,” last updated 7 April 2016, http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_49276.htm
NATO, “The Kosovo Air Campaign,” last updated 7 April 2016, http://www.nato.int/cps/bu/natohq/topics_49602.htm
NATO, “NATO Enlargement and Open Door - Factsheet,” July 2016, retreived from http://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2016_07/20160627_1607- factsheet-enlargement-eng.pdf
NATO, “Founding Treaty,” last updated 30 January 2017, http://www.nato.int/cps/iw/natohq/topics_67656.htm
NATO, “NATO’s role in Kosovo,” last updated 9 March 2017, available at http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_48818.htm#
NATO, “Member Countries,” last updated 19 April 2017, http://www.nato.int/cps/is/natohq/topics_52044.htm
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 96
NATO, “Enlargement,” last updated 16 June 2017, http://www.nato.int/cps/da/natohq/topics_49212.htm#
Nichol, Jim, “Russia-Georgia Conflict in August 2008: Context and Implications for U.S. Interests,” March 3, 2009, 3-7, available at https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34618.pdf
Nugent, Neill, The Government and Politics of the European Union, Seventh Edition, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
Ó Tuathail, Gearóid, “Russia’s Kosovo: A Critical Geopolitics of the August 2008 War over South Ossetia,” Eurasian Geography and Economics, 49:6, 2008.
Oliver, Pamela E., “Rational Action,” The Oxford Handbook of Social Movements, eds. Donatella Della Porta and Mario Diani, 2015.
OSCE “Forced expulsion,” Kosovo/Kosova, 5 May 2003, 2, available at http://www.osce.org/odihr/17772?download=true
OSCE, History, accessed 15 June 2017, http://www.osce.org/who/87
Parfitt, Tom, “Years of ‘Frozen Conflict’ Leave Abkhazia Isolated and Poor,” The Lancet, Vol. 367, 1 April 2006.
Pavković, Aleksandar, “Recursive Secession of Trapped Minorities: A Comparative Study of the Serb Krajina and Abkhazia,” Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 17:3, 2011, 301, DOI:10.1080/13537113.2011.600111
Physicians for Social Responsibility, Body Count: Casualty Figures after 10 Years of the ‘War on Terror’, First International Edition, March 2015, available at http://www.psr.org/assets/pdfs/body-count.pdf
Phillips, Andrew, “The wars on terror, duelling internationalisms and the clash of purposes in a post-unipolar world,” International Politics, 50:1, 2013, 83.
Pickel, Andreas, “Nationalism and Violence: A Mechanismic Explanation,” Centre for the Critical Study of Global Power and Politics, Working Paper CSGP 07/1, available at https://trentu.ca/globalpolitics/documents/Pickel071.pdf
Poulton, Hugh, “Macedonians and Albanians as Yugoslavs,” in Yugoslavism: Histories of a Failed Idea 1918-1992, ed. Dejan Djokić, London, Hurst and Co., 2003.
Putin, Vladimir, “Speech and the Following Discussion at the Munich Conference on Security Policy,” February 10, 2007.
Radio Free Europe, “Newsline - November 10, 2000,” retrieved 25 June 2017, https://www.rferl.org/a/1142280.html
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 97
Rae, Heather, State identities and the homogenisation of peoples, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Robert Jervis, “Understanding the Bush Doctrine: Preventative Wars and Regime Change,” Political Science Quarterly, 131:2, 2016.
Roberts, Adam, “NATO’s ‘Humanitarian War’ over Kosovo,” Survival, vol. 41, no. 3, Autumn 1999, 110.
Roeder, Philip G. Where Nation States Come From: Institutional Change in The Age of Nationalism, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007.
Rubin, F. “The Theory and Concept of National Security in the Warsaw Pact Countries,” International Affairs, 58:4, Autumn 1982, 648.
Sabanadze, Natalie, “Globalization and Georgian Nationalism,” in Globalization and Nationalism: The Cases of Georgia and the Basque Country, ed. Natalie Sabanadze Budapest: Central European University Press, 2010.
Sabrina P. Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, The Three Yugoslavias: state-building and legitimation, 1918-2005, Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2006.
Sakwa, Richard, Russian Politics and Society, 4th edition, Oxford: Routledge, 393.
Samuel Moyn, The Last Utopia: Human Rights In History, Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012.
Sánchez Andrés, Antonio, “La nueva doctrina militar y la transformación en la industria de defensa rusa,” Revista CIDOB d'Afers Internacionals, No. 32, Cambio Político, Transiciones Y Política Exterior Y De Seguridad (1996).
Sabine Saurugger, “Consociationalism,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, April 2013, available at https://www.britannica.com/topic/consociationalism
Schrock-Jacobson, Gretchen, “The Violent Consequences of the Nation: Nationalism and the Initiation of interstate War,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, 56:5, 2012.
Schwirtz, Michael, Barnard, Anne and Chivers, C.J., “Russia and Georgia Clash Over Separatist Region,” August 8 2008, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/09/world/europe/09georgia.html
Schwirtz, Michael, “Russia Ends Operations in Chechnya,” 16 April 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/17/world/europe/17chechnya.html
Siegel, David A., When Does Repression Work? Collective Action in Social Networks, The Journal of Politics, 73:4, August, 2011.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 98
Slagle, James H., “New Russian Military Doctrine: Sign of the Times,” US Army War College, Spring 1994.
Solana, Javier, “NATO’s Success in Kosovo,” Foreign Affairs, November/December 1999, retrieved 15 June 2017, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/europe/1999-11- 01/natos-success-kosovo.
Szayna, Thomas S., Identifying potential ethnic conflict: application of a process model, Santa Monica: Rand, 2000.
The Economist, “The Lost Cause of the Caucasus,” 31 October 2002, available at http://www.economist.com/node/1416319
The Kremlin, “Statement on the Situation in South Ossetia,” August 8 2008, available at http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/1042
The Kremlin, “Beginning of the Meeting on Providing Humanitarian Assistance to the Population of South Ossetia,” August 9, 2008, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/1048
The Kremlin, “Beginning of the Meeting with President of France Nicolas Sarkozy,” August 12 2008, available at http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/1071
Thordarson, Fridrik, “Ossetic Language i. History and Description,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, July 2009, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ossetic
Tiedtke, Stephan, “Military Détente and Differences on Military Policy within the Warsaw Pact,” International Journal of Politics, Germany Defence Debates, 13:1/2, Spring- Summer 1983.
Toft, Monica Dufy, “Multinationality, Regional Institutions, State-Building: the Failed Transition in Georgia,” Regional and Federal Studies, 11:3, 131.
Traynor, Ian and Harding, Luke, “Surrender or else, Russia tells Georgia,” The Guardian, 12 August 2008, available at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/aug/12/russia.georgia1
Tskhovrebova, Lira, “Georgia’s Shameful Attack on South Ossetia,” Los Angeles Times, November 17 2008, available at http://www.latimes.com/opinion/la-oew- tskhovrebova17-2008nov17-story.html
Tsygankov, Andrei P., Russia’s Foreign Policy: Change and Continuity in National Identity, 4th edition, London: Rowman and Littlefield, 2016.
Turner, Barry, The Statesman’s Yearbook 2015, The Politics, Cultures and Economies of the World, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 99
U.S. Department of State Dispatch, “Fact Sheet: Human Rights Issues in the Balkans,” December 1995, Supplement Bosnia, 6:48.
UN Security Council Resolution 819, April 16, 1993, available at http://www.nato.int/ifor/un/u930416a.htm
UN Security Council, Preamble, “Rambouillet Accords: Interim Agreement for Peace and Self- Government in Kosovo,” United Nations Security Council, S/1999/648, 7 june 1999, http://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/990123_RambouilletAccor d.pdf
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, “Who we are,” retrieved 11 May 2017 http://www.ohchr.org/EN/AboutUs/Pages/BriefHistory.aspx
United Nations, “History of the Document,” retrieved 10 May 2017, http://www.un.org/en/sections/universal-declaration/history-document/
United States Institute of Peace, “United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244,” adopted 10 June 1999, available at https://www.usip.org/publications/1999/06/peace- agreements-kosovo
Urigashvili, Besik, “Georgia and South Ossetia: The Peoples are Paying in Blood for the Politicians’ Mistakes,” in Countdown to War in Georgia: Russia’s Foreign Policy and Media Coverage of the Conflict in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Minneapolis: East View Press, 2008.
Vladisavljević, Nebojša, “Competitive Authoritarianism and popular protest: Evidence from Serbia under Milošević,” International Political Science Review, 2014. von Zon, Hans, “Why the Orange Revolution succeeded,” Perspectives on European Politics and Society, September 2005, 6:3.
W. Sinding, Steven, “Population, Poverty and Economic Development,” Bixby Forum Paper, The World in 2050, delivered at Berkeley, California, January 23-24, 2008, available at https://www.cgdev.org/doc/events/04.07.09/Population_Poverty_and_Econ_Dev_Si nding.pdf
Wayne McLean, “Understanding Divergence between Public Discourse and Turkish Foreign Policy Practice: A Neoclassical Realist Analysis,” Turkish Studies, 16:4, 2015, 450, DOI: 10.1080/14683849.2015.1096205
Webber, Mark, James Sperling and Martin A. Smith, NATO’s Post-Cold War Trajectory: Decline or Regeneration?, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
Weller, Marc, Iraq and the Use of Force in International Law, Oxford Scholarship Online, 2010, 12. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199595303.001.0001
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 100
Wendle, John, “In South Ossetia, Families Remain Torn Apart,” Time, August 13 2009, available at http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1915854,00.html
Wheatley, Jonathan, “Managing ethnic diversity in Georgia: one step forward, two steps back,” in War and Revolution in the Caucasus, ed. Stephen F. Jones, Georgia, Oxford: Routledge, 2011.
“Who Recognised Kosovo as an independent State? The Kosovar People Thank You!” (website), available at http://www.kosovothanksyou.com/
Wilks, Stephen, “Competition Policy: Defending the Economic Constitution,” Leibfried, Stephan, “Social Policy: Left to the Judges and the Markets?” Lenschow, Andrea, “Environmental Policy: Contending Dynamics of Policy Change,”in Policy-Making in the European Union, eds. Helen Wallace, Mark. A. Pollack and Alasdair R. Young, Seventh Edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
Wilson, “Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, NGOs and the Role of the West,” Cambridge Review of International Affairs, March 2006, 19:1.
Wittmann, Anna M., Talking Conflict: The Loaded Language Of Genocide, Political Violence, Terrorism, And Warfare, Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2017.
Wolff, Stefan, “Georgia: Abkhazia and South Ossetia,” Encyclopedia Princetoniensis, http://pesd.princeton.edu/?q=node/274
World Statesmen, Kosovo, retrieved 15 June 2017, http://www.worldstatesmen.org/Kosovo.html
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017 101
Appendix
First conflict under consideration: Serbia (1999). The relationships addressed in the paper are shown within the dashed red lines.
Actor below NATO/US Kosovo Serbia Russia
Local and Internal Local Geopolitical NATO/US Geopolitical politics Adversary Adversary Backer Internal Autonomous Kosovo Allies Weak Links politics region
Local Internal Serbia "Host" state Backer Adversary politics Local and Geopolitical Internal Russia Weak Links Geopolitical Adversary politics Backer
Second conflict under consideration: Georgia (2008). The relationships addressed in the paper are shown within the dashed red lines. To locate a relationship, start on the left-hand column (thus, South Ossetia/Abkhazia are autonomous regions of Georgia, not the reverse).
South Actor below Russia Ossetia / Georgia US /NATO Abkhazia
Local and Internal Local Geopolitical Russia Geopolitical politics Adversary Adversary Backer South Internal Autonomous Ossetia / Allies Weak Links politics regions Abkhazia Local Internal Georgia "Host" state Backer Adversary politics Local and Geopolitical Internal US /NATO Weak Links Geopolitical Adversary politics Backer
Tomas Brogan MA Thesis East European Studies July 2017