S. Enders Wimbush, director of the Center for Future Security Strategies and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, in Washington, D.C., says Russia's reaction to recent incidents in Georgia doesn't coincide with Moscow's superpower status. "[Russia's] a big, powerful, rich, great country, but it still acts like an adolescent when it’s dealing with its immediate neighbors."

WP: Diplomatic relations between Russia and Georgia have reached a marked low point, reaching crisis proportions.  What are the underlying reasons for this increase in tensions?  

The underlying reasons for the recent increased tension, I think, are pretty clear but one has to go back a lot further than what just happened recently. One has to go back to the break-up of the Soviet Union and Russia’s absolute refusal to accept the fact that it was going to be a smaller state than during its Soviet days. And one can plot the history of Russian-Georgian relations almost entirely on the downward curve from 1991 onward, with both sides engaging in some rather risky behavior. But I would say that the underlying cause of all of this is Russia’s absolute refusal to realize that it lives in a different world.  It has still not adopted what I would call a grown-up politics, a grown-up foreign policy. It’s a big, powerful, rich, great country but it still acts like an adolescent when it’s dealing with its immediate neighbors.

WP: President Saakashvili has declared that the “irreversible process toward Georgian membership in NATO has begun.” What would a closer partnership with the Euro-Atlantic alliance mean for Georgia and for Russia?

Well, for Georgia it would be a host of benefits; frankly, I think that it would be a host of benefits for Russia, too. For Georgia, it would certainly provide access to greater amounts of economic aid, a lot more political visibility, and entry into a lot of political decision-making circles that function on the transatlantic side. It would just pull it into a different kind of political universe and certainly a different kind of strategic universe. For Russia that is not a particularly threatening occurrence. Russia’s real problem in the Caucasus is the insecurity of its borders and the threats that are coming from other places and coming up through the Caucuses, so it strikes me that Georgia, well secured and well integrated into the Western strategic and security structures, is a net gain to Russia as well.

WP: Would this closer partnership have any impact on the conflicts in South Ossetia and Abkhazia?

The conflict itself in South Ossetia and Abkhazia are conflicts that are run out of the Kremlin with the sole end of destabilizing Georgia. In fact, I was one of the first people there in 1992, before the Abkhaz, with very heavy Russian support, occupied Sukhumi. I was asked by President Shevardnadze to help negotiate or help to get the settlement negations going, but the Russians have torpedoed those at every juncture and for perfectly good reason. They see that their best interests at this point are in keeping Georgia tenuous; they don’t want it to consolidate….

WP: Do you see NATO membership for Georgia in the foreseeable future?

No, not in the foreseeable future. The whole application process to NATO takes a long time, and they have to meet specific criteria….It’s not entirely clear that it will ever succeed. I think it’s a very worthwhile goal and I think that the Georgians are very correct and wise to seek this, but one should not underestimate the difficulties that are involved.

WP: Can you talk about the status of U.S.-Georgian relations? What role can the United States play in mitigating relations between two post-Soviet states?

It’s hard to know. I know that there were attempts; this administration certainly attempted a couple of times to get Russians to lower their profile and not engage in silly things like banning Georgian wine. Today and yesterday they started rejecting visas at the border and they are talking about sanctions and blocking remittances from Georgians working in Russia going back to Georgia.  This is just silly stuff. This is the stuff that little third-world African countries engage in, not us, not big sophisticated superpowers.  But it just goes back to my earlier point that Russia hasn’t yet developed political sophistication to be able to handle initiative like this. I don’t think that the United States can do much, to answer your question. The Russians have to grow up and they have to realize that a stable and prosperous Georgia is very much in their interests and, quite frankly, the Georgians recognize that too. I spend a lot of time in Georgia, and there is not a lot of anger towards Russia.  It rises when the Russians start doing silly things, but there is a great willingness on the part of most Georgians to acknowledge where they are strategically, which is right at Russia’s flank.  They can’t pick Georgia up and make it Switzerland; it’s always going to be there. Russia is a major market for Georgian goods.  This should be a mutually beneficial relationship.  The Georgians recognized that a long time ago.  The Russians have yet to even get in that door to get to understand it.

WP: How do you see Russian-Georgian relations progressing in the near future?

I’m not optimistic. I wish I could be more optimistic if it can’t happen under president Putin, it is very unlikely to happen under his potential successors…. Putin is a very smart guy and he is a very clever strategist but he can’t get over this infantilism, he can’t do it. It’s going to take a generation or two before the Russians are ready to play like a sophisticated player. I’m not terribly optimistic that it will get much better, that cool heads on both sides will understand that it’s not an easy relationship for a considerable amount of time going forward...

WP: What is Georgia’s role in improving the Russian-Georgian relationship?

Actually Georgia has done a pretty good job at this.  They’ve been a little combative sometimes, but I think the responsibility for making this relationship work is on the Russian side.  They are the big guys.  They are supposed to be grown up. The Georgians could do a better job at helping the Russians understand why a stable and prosperous Georgia is not a threat to them, but a net asset. And they could certainly do more just to get dialogue going between the two of them.  Although the dialogue is not going to cure entirely a long historical hangover, and that’s what we are dealing with.

-- 10/06/2006