Finishing the Job

By 2008, Moscow appeared to have realized that Georgia had irreversibly moved away from its "sphere of influence" (a cherished term among Russian policymakers) and that a pliant, pro-Russian government in Georgia was simply not going to happen. The only option left therefore was to punish Georgia by making its territorial amputation official through overt conquest.

Events since the war are consistent with this narrative. After the cease-fire, Moscow refused to honor its commitment to withdraw troops from the territories and immediately engaged in fortifying its positions there, announcing the building of permanent military bases that officially were to host 3,800 Russian troops in each of the two territories, far in excess of prewar numbers.

In fact, Moscow's decision to officially recognize the independence of the two territories was closely related to its basing needs. Given that Russia could no longer reasonably call its troops on Georgian soil "peacekeepers," it needed a new, if ever so tenuous, legal basis to station its forces there. Hence, recognition. Given Moscow's veto power in the U.N. Security Council, all the West could do was denounce the maneuver. But in essence, Russia has annexed the two territories in blatant violation of international law.

South Ossetia, effectively cleansed of all ethnic Georgians, is now essentially a Russian military post, with a civilian population not exceeding 30,000. There is no civil society to speak of, and the territory is under the firm control of the Russian military and security services. It is likely to remain so in the foreseeable future.

Abkhazia, on the other hand, is multiethnic, consisting of roughly equal-sized communities of Abkhaz, Armenians, and Georgians, the latter living predominantly in the southern Gali district. It also has a small but growing Russian population. Moreover, Abkhazia has experienced true participatory politics in the past decade (if only within the narrow Abkhaz ethnic community, and marginalizing ethnic minorities, particularly Georgians). Within the Abkhaz elite, there are divergent views of the territory's future, including those of a limited but nevertheless vibrant civil society and a substantial Abkhaz nationalist faction that is wary of excessive Russian dominance over the territory.

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