Friends and Enemies in the South Caucasus

On 1 April, 2014 the International School of Economics at Tbilisi State University (ISET) published a blog which described a future Transcaucasian Confederation agreement signed by the three South Caucasian states. Despite the fact that the blog was an April Fool’s Day joke, it provoked significant interest and reader response. Many political scientists who study alliances (such as Gärtner, Reiter and Rothstein) claim that a common foreign policy view is the primary motivation for countries (especially for small countries) to form alliances. Often, this view may be expressed in having a common enemy or having a common friend. If we look at the recent history of the South Caucasus, a union was formed in 1918 as the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic (Transcaucasian Federation), which according to Geukjian (2012), dissolved after several weeks due to a lack of consensus on fighting a common enemy. Additionally, the idea of making a union in the Caucasus was has been expressed by different former leaders in the South Caucasus: Zviad Gamsakhurdia, Eduard Shevardnadze and Heydar Aliev, and Mikheil Saakashvili. Yet, no viable steps were taken in this direction.

The purpose of this blog is to examine whether there is a common enemy or friend by which any type of union, confederation or political alliance in the South Caucasus could be formed, or if it is merely a topic of humor. Of course, theoretically there could be other political, social or economic motivations for creating a union. However, this blog looks at data from the 2013 Caucasus Barometer (CB) on who citizens of the three South Caucasian countries think is their countries’ biggest friend and enemy.

The results below show that attitudes are noticeably different between the three countries. The majority of Armenians consider Russia to be their country’s main friend (83%), while the majority of Azerbaijanis say Turkey is Azerbaijan’s main friend (91%). Georgians views are yet again different as they most commonly name the United States (31%).

Note: In this graph the option “no one” was grouped to “other.” The “other” option also includes Ukraine, Armenia, Iran, Georgia, Poland, Germany, Israel, Lithuania, Europe, Italy, China, Belarus, Baltic countries, Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Nagorno-Karabakh, Northern Cyprus, Spain, Great Britain, Greece, Latvia, Abkhazia and Pakistan.

As for enemies, Georgians perceived Russia, Azerbaijanis named Armenia, and Armenians considered Azerbaijan as the main enemy of their countries. Both figures show that the opinions of Georgians are not as well defined as in Azerbaijan and Armenia; nearly a third of Georgians said they “don’t know” or “refuse to answer”. Thus, these are quite diverse preferences for countries in this small region.

Note: In this graph, option “no one” was grouped to “other”. The “other” option also includes USA, Iran, Georgia, Everyone, Israel, Great Britain, Czech Republic, Abkhazia, China, South Ossetia, Ourselves and Germany.

Differences in opinions regarding the European Union, in particular, are not as stark as in the cases of the perceived main friend or enemy. CB results shown below indicate that support for the EU is stronger in Georgia, but that there are stable attitudes towards the EU, although much lower, in Armenia and Azerbaijan. This could reveal a potential common foreign policy in the future.

Note: In this graph “support” is a combination of the responses “rather support” and “fully support”, and “don’t support” is a combination of the responses “rather not support” and “don’t support at all”. Question text: “To what extent would you support country’s membership in the EU?”

This blog has discussed the possibility of creating an alliance based on a commonly-perceived enemy or friend in the South Caucasus and come to the conclusion that it is not realistic in the near future. To explore similar issues, we recommend using our ODA tool here or reading this blog post detailing how the three countries perceive doing business with and getting married to one another.

By Edisher Baghaturia

Iakobashvili on the Current State of the Conflict

I attended State Minister Teimuraz Iakobashvili’s talk held at the Institute for European Studies at TSU on November 14. Overall, the talk was the first talk in Georgia I have seen where the majority of people who attended were Georgian students. Despite the fact that the audience was overwhelmingly Georgian, Minister Iakobashivili spoke entirely in English. Additionally, the Minister was very generous with his time and engaged in an extensive Q&A session with students who also asked questions only in English

Iakobashvili’s main points (in note format) are as follows

1. Russia is in a state of decay. This decay will take time, but things are bad in Russia. They lost political and economic ground and the war revealed Russia’s military weakness. According to Iakobashvili.

From a military perspective

• Over 2,000 Russian soldiers were killed
• The 60 number quotes by Russians were only from Yamadayev’s troops
• Georgia destroyed Khrulyev’s column included 30/35 armored vehicles each carrying at least 8 people for a minimum of 240 dead from this column alone
• Russia suffered major hardware losses including: 17 airplane, 1 strategic bomber, 3 helicopters
• Russian soldiers are starving in Akhalgori and have resorted to raiding local Ossetians
  

From an economic perspective

• Gas prices have led to major budget shortfalls in Russia
• Europe will not ultimately be reliant on Russian gas
• No liquefied natural gas terminal and no ports for them in Russia
• China can get gas from Central Asia
  

From a political perspective

• Demographic tides are promoting separatism
• Only Moscow, St. Petersburg and Muslim dominated parts of Russia are growing. Muslim areas in Russia are demonstrating more ethnic homogeneity and anti-Russian sentiment
• High birth rates in Muslim Russia are leading to more unemployment and dissatisfaction
• 15% of Russian conscripts from the North Caucasus—many refusing to eat pork and stationed in Siberia
• Ingushetia has all signs of civil war
• Ossetians and particularly Abkhaz are angry at Russia
• Russia has upset Abkhaz political dominance by either 1) Installing a Russian second in command 0r 2) Directly taking over certain operations
  

2. Russia is angry now and was angry before and this is particularly dangerous for Georgia in the coming winter months

Russia was angry before because Georgia’s strategy of “soft power was working”

• Sanakoyev and Upper Kodori were successes
• “Boney M, swimming pools and cinemas” were a success
  

Russia is angry now because of all the bad results of the war

• This makes Russia very dangerous in the short term

3. Georgia’s strategy going forward – “Crisis gives you opportunity”

Build bridges to Abkhaz and Ossetians

• Georgia has a mission to save Abkhaz and Ossetians from Russian domination
  

Georgia is not a member of NATO and doesn’t have the “goddamn plan” MAP

• But MAP was only created recently under specific circumstances and should not be for Georgia
• A special GAP or specific technical goals should be given to Georgia – it should be a political decision
• Better than NATO, however, would be two American brigades in Georgia
• Georgia should “fight when the fight makes sense” – Georgia should not argue with the EU resuming talks with Russia – but should seek to influence the process
  

Q & A and Other issues

Q: Why didn’t the Georgian Government heed the European Commission’s recommendations about Upper Kodori and South Ossetia?

A: The EU is a “status quo” organization. “We would have to abandon our people” if Georgia listened to them.

Q: What about Georgia and Georgia’s future image and what about Swiss inquiry?

A: Russia saw they were getting beat in the press. Iakobashvili has a list of PR agencies Russia has engaged in. Russia allowed the NYT to swallow a story from a guy who no longer works for the OSCE. Russia is also influencing press freedom abroad. Berlusconi has censored debate in Italy.

Georgia should work hard to build relations with Obama’s foreign policy team

As a result of the war, the level of awareness about Georgia has significantly increased.

Q: Does government have scenarios, even worse case scenarios?

A: Yes. The government learns quickly. Reservist system needs to change. The war showed MANAGEMENT problems. The reservists were not the problem. The war showed us “who is worth what”

Q: What about the Armenians in Abkhazia. Who do they support?

A: They leave the politics to the Abkhaz, though the status quo has been good to them, since they generally live in the north of Abkhazia. 30 or 31 out of 35 members of Abkhaz parliament are ethnic Abkhaz. This is called “apartheid.”

Q: What about the EU Monitors?

A: It would be better if they were armed and in Tskhinvali, But they are much better than the OSCE or UN, because they are free from Russian influence. UN cannot help solve the problem.

Q: What about the Geneva negotiations?

A: Georgia expects 3 countries (US, Russia, Georgia) and three int’l organizations (EU, UN, OSCE). They will not accept SO or Abkhazia. Russia can have whatever technical experts they want on their team. But there should be parity, so if Kokoity is attending, so should Sanakoyev.

Q What is with the UN?

A: UNOMIG was asked to leave Kodori. To justify this, they issued a “ridiculous report.”
UN will not play a significant role politically because of Russia, but they have been very helpful on the humanitarian front.

The August Conflict | Economic Impact on Georgia?

Tbilisi radar, destroyed by a Russian missile

In Georgia, attention now turns towards sorting out the impact of the short August conflict. How plausible is the reporting we are seeing? Do the journalists get it right?

Here's one account by the New York Times, outlining some of the damage and the upcoming challenges.


Click here for the complete article (access is free, but it will require you to register; we can make the article available to you directly as well).

Posted on an e-mail newsgroup focusing on Georgia, this NYT article quickly drew a response. Here is what (Dr.) George Welton, a consultant we have worked with extensively and who has done various research projects in Georgia, had to say:

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"This is sufficiently fishy to warrant comment. First, ‘Caucasian Tiger’ gimme a break. As far as I could tell before the war the economy was vastly overheating with an inflated property market and a banking sector expanding way too fast (is there any other city in the world with this many ATMs?) But more importantly, Georgia was still not really producing anything that the world wanted to buy. Two of its largest exports – manganese and copper – have increased their revenues dramatically largely because of the price of resources going up on world markets and agriculture has still not recovered from the Russian market closing (wine is now exporting at about 40% its pre-ban levels – not allowing for inflation). But now everything wrong with the Georgian economy is going to be blamed on the war.

That said, I think that the war damage melodrama is vastly unhelpful.

1/ I don’t really buy this claim of $50 million repair costs for Caucasus Online. Can anyone verify this happened? I know people who were emailing, texting and skyping throughout the war – and there are lots of reasons why a business might want to exaggerate its losses. I have a feeling a lot of Georgian businesses might find they had things hit by the Russians in coming weeks.

2/ The tourist season has been damaged but ‘Russian tourists?!’. The Armenian tourists (who have to be the vast majority of the Georgian tourist market) will be back next year.

3/ There is no evidence that the fire outside of Borjomi National Park was started with incendiary bombs. The 950 hectares (just under 10 square kilometres) was almost entirely outside the park (the revised Gvt figures put 150 hectares in the park) and even if it had all been in the park, this is only slightly more than 1%. Borjomi did not ‘burn’.

4/ The idea that the Russians targeted infrastructure or that they might in the future is completely unsupported by the evidence. One train bridge (right next to another train bridge which almost immediately replaced it) was destroyed. None of the key infrastructure (Inguri dam, the BTC pipeline, the ports etc) were damaged significantly.

5/ The banking system survived without banks closing their doors for a significant time and in spite of the fact that there was a war. This is remarkable and while I am sure it will continue to need support, I think this should be seen as a sign of the strength of the Georgian economy, not its weakness.

6/ One billion infrastructure losses?!? – I guess he must be talking about the military (which still seems a little implausible)

The reason why this matters is that where the article is right is that the key damage to this country is investor confidence. Foreign aid might get the Georgian budget through the next two years or so – but after that if investors don’t start to come back then the country is really in trouble. And talking about the horrendous damage and huge risks that Russia poses to the country are not going to help that confidence return.

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So far George Welton's comments. Any views?

Russian Public Opinion | Levada Update

And here is an update on Russian views, made available by the Levada Center on the 22nd of September. As previously stated, this indicates that Russian public opinion generally supports the government's course.

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In September 12-15, 2008, the Analytical Center of Yuri Levada conducted a poll among 1600 Russian respondents in 128 settlements of 46 regions. Margin of error is ± 3%.

When we talk about Abkhazia and South Ossetia – in your opinion, is the situation intensifying, staying tense, or tension is decreasing and life becomes more peaceful?

Situation is intensifying      6
Situation is staying tense 57
Tension is decreasing and life becomes more peaceful 30
Hard to answer     7

In your opinion, should Russia keep its military forces in South Ossetia or should they withdraw their forces?

Keep its military forces in South Ossetia 56
Withdraw its military forces from South Ossetia 27
Hard to answer 17

In your opinion, Russia’s recognition of independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia will benefit Russia, will harm Russia, or will neither benefit nor harm Russia?

Benefit 40
Harm 15
Neither benefit nor harm  28
Hard to answer 18

What do you think about annexation of South Ossetia and Abkhazia into the Russian Federation?

This should be done as soon as possible 20
Probably this should be done, but later, when the tense will go away 26
This decision should be well thought, is it worth doing it or not 25
This should not be done 12
Hard to answer 18

What do you think of inclusion of South Ossetia and Abkhazia into the Union of Russia and Belarus?

This should be done as soon as possible 20
Probably this should be done, but later, when the tense will go away 20
This decision should be well thought, is it worth doing it or 24
This should not be done 14
Hard to answer 22

----------------------------

Now what would be interesting to test is how much average Russians actually know about the conflict. As has been reported somewhere (unfortunately we lost trace of the exact source), Russians typically overestimate the number of Georgians, Ossetians and Abkhaz. (One Moscow-based friend believed that Abkhaz and Ossetians together numbered 2 million, when the real combined number is unlikely to be beyond 300.000.)

So: what do Russians otherwise know? Do they believe that there were mass killings of Ossetians? Are they aware that there were several Georgian peace initiatives? Do they know that Georgia has experienced significant progress since 2004? It would be interesting to find that out.

Housing IDPs | Lessons Learnt

In the current situation, one issue facing Georgia is what to do with and for the Internally Displaced People (IDPs) that are now coming from South Ossetia and the Kodori Gorge, in Upper Abkhazia. A friend with significant experience in development work posted a candid analysis in an e-mail group. We thought that the analysis is worth sharing since this issue affects the region.

So here is what he had to say:

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"I was speaking about this issue with some Georgian friends just yesterday. They have been involved in IDP shelter work with people from Abkhazia since the mid-1990s. I've done a bit of work with those shelters myself, and would STRONGLY encourage anybody getting involved with shelter issues now to visit some of these old shelters if they have not already done so, and not just in Tbilisi. Some of the shelters I saw in Kutaisi and Samegrelo were horrific. Families have been vegetating in them for fifteen years now, with every politician promising them return next year.

In our discussion, we came up with two big lessons learnt:

1. LESSON ONE: Don't pretend it's temporary

Yes, thankfully, most new IDPs - especially from Gori town - will go home soon. However, many IDPs in Georgia will not. It's not going to happen. Live with it. They weren't ethnically cleansed (houses burnt etc) to pave the way for their return, and Georgia lost the war. The Palestinians aren't returning any time soon, either. No idea how many people this is - let's say Kodori and South Ossetia. [...] We're prob talking 20,000 people minimum.

We should seek to identify those IDPs who will probably not go home soon, and seek durable, humane living conditions for them. Most of Georgia's old IDP shelters are a patchwork of small interventions - an NGO puts in windows, a year later, another puts in floors, two years later there's a new door. Look for yourself - this approach leads to crap results, not only in human terms, but also in terms of value for money. (Repeat assessments are one example - IDPs from Abkhazia have told me how sick they are of assessments by now.)

The key point to remember is that there will be loads of money coming in soon. After that, funds will dry up. By 2006, there was hardly any funding to be had for shelter work. Let's spend it well NOW, while there is money to be spent.

The main prob is that the GoG will probably not look favourably on this approach. IDPs in misery desperate to go home bolster Georgia's claim to these territories. One way to get round this would be to point out that should the IDPs return, the municipalities would get buildings in good shape, ready for privatization or social housing needs. Be diplomatic.

Urban Institute's voucher project was good, but the Georgian housing market was a lot less elastic than they thought. Handing out vouchers to buy flats worth 5000 dollars each to a few hundred families sent housing prices rocketing in Kutaisi (it wasn't enough to money to buy in Tbilisi or Batumi). Vouchers are not feasible on a large scale.

Privatization doesn't solve anything either. One day, your family lives in a crap shelter. The next day, it lives in a crap shelter you own. Without money to renovate, it improves security of residence, but living conditions are exactly the same. How will 50 broke families ever be able to repair their communal roof?

The way I see it, the only humane option is to (1) do large-scale thorough rehabilitation of existing buildings, or (2) to build new housing from scratch (NRC has done the latter on a small scale). A nice side effect is that such large-scale, donor-funded construction efforts will generate a lot of employment in a sector that will be badly affected by the probable fall in investment after this war.

2. LESSON TWO: Don't dump IDPs in depressed or remote areas

Placing people in "no future zones" like the town of Vani, where there is zero employment even for locals, is a bad idea. Also, some shelters in Samegrelo are in the middle of nowhere. Those IDPs who cannot escape get stuck there with nothing to do except to cry, to drink, or to do both. Some have been doing just that for over a decade now. Think poverty trap, think psychosocial problems, think domestic abuse. Also, microcredit or employment generation will not work in the back of beyond.

Maybe they should all be housed in Tbilisi?

------------

That's just my take, and that of some friends of mine. The history of sheltering IDPs from Abkhazia has created lots of "lessons learnt". Ask your more experienced Georgian colleagues and LNGO partners what they think, and please do visit a few shelters from the 1990s outside Tbilisi before you start knocking out funky proposals. Let's use the money that's gonna pour in now wisely, because we are not going to get a second shot at this.

I would be extremely grateful if we could hear the thoughts of more people on this."

-----------------------------

This, then, the comment of said person (who works in this field and therefore, for now, preferred not to be named). Any views?

Russian-Georgian Relations | Alex Rondeli on July 29

On July 29, just before the tensions in around South Ossetia began to escalate, Alexander Rondeli gave a talk at the Tbilisi Summer Seminars, a weekly lecture series which we were organizing with GFSIS and American Councils. Alexander Rondeli runs the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies (which he also set up), has the rank of an ambassador, works closely with the Georgian government, and teaches International Relations.

Rondeli talked about the Georgian Russian relationship, and suggested that ultimately this relationship puts Georgia in the near-impossible situation. For a small state like Georgia, Rondeli suggested, it is the greatest tragedy to have an old-fashioned great power next to it. In this position, a small state has no luxury to make any mistake. Americans are far, and Europe ultimately doesn't care ("they look at us the way we look at Mongolia").

Escaping Russia under those circumstances may appear like going against nature, against geography. But becoming part of Russia's orbit offers a bleak future: according to Rondeli, Georgia could never become democratic and a viable modern nation if it accepted Russia's domination. Russia had several key interests in keeping Georgia under control. First, it was a linchpin for security in the broader region, and thus part of the global competition with the United States. Georgia is the gate to Central Asia, but also for Russians the gate to the Middle East, and the path to their main ally, Armenia. Second, there was a distinct interest in keeping Turkey away from the South and North Caucasus. And then, thirdly, controlling Georgia meant asserting one's credibility with all other states. Losing Georgia, conversely, would greatly damage Russia's bullying power. Given these interests, Russia had little incentive to let Georgia thrive, and to let Georgians determine their own political orientation.

Moreover, Russia had regularly shown spite, with Putin belittling Saakashvili, asking him whether he really thought anyone would come and fight for the Georgians in the South Caucasus. Having dealt with the Russians themselves, the young government had gained a new appreciation of what Shevardnadze had had to go through in dealing with Moscow.

In this way, Rondeli argued that Georgia had little choice: while running up against Russia may appear suicidal, submitting to it entails a certain demise. Without taking some risks, there is no opportunity. Internally, the country's elite had intense and frank debates, weighing the options and ultimately coming to the conclusion that it faced either complete defeat or complete victory.

Yet Rondeli pointed out that there are several challenges to the pursuit of a successful policy: Much of the country's elite had emigrated, and Tbilisi had undergone a 'red-neckization' as a result. The current foreign policy elite ultimately remained inexperienced, unable to articulate a multivectoral policy that balances Russia with the West -- although Rondeli was doubtful whether such a policy would be feasible in the first place. Moreover, Socialism had left deep scars: "Stalin and Lenin still are deep inside of us", which in turn radicalized the government, giving it the sense that it needs to revolutionize the people, doing it fast, and not just build institutions. But even existing institutions remain weak, pushing people to turn towards a church that carries somewhat problematic political notions. All in all, this meant that there was little cohesion: in battling Russia, "we don't have the same qualities as the Finns".

In the lecture, there was no sense of an immediately impending conflagration. But Rondeli made it clear that there were sizable risks: "Misha has learned to provoke the Russians, so that they show themselves for what they are. That's quite an achievement, but we're playing with fire."

Book Review: Georgia Diary: A Chronicle of War and Political Chaos in the Post-Soviet Caucasus | Thomas Goltz

This reviewer is not the first to review Goltz’s Georgia Diary: A Chronicle of War and Political Chaos in the Post-Soviet Caucasus. Most notably the Wall Street Journal lauded the book and the hardcover published by M.E Sharpe gathers teasers from a wide variety of noteworthy folks on the back cover.

However, for those new to Goltz, Georgia Diary forms the third part of a trilogy of books about the Post-Soviet Caucasus, the first two covering the bad old times in the 1990s in Chechnya and Azerbaijan. This last addition to the trilogy differs from the other two in that it is written long after the events at the heart of the book took place. In that sense, it will not be quoted in the same way in academic circles as Goltz’s earlier books were. Though some take issue with the sometimes anecdotal style of Goltz’s accounts, his work is widely cited and he often speaks to academic audiences on the topic of Azerbaijan.

Though Georgia Diary, may be quoted by fewer academics, Goltz attempts to be much more academic than he was Azerbaijan Diary. But the academic part of the book is not the book’s strongest and seems to pale in comparison to Tony Anderson’s Bread and Ashes, where the academic background makes Anderson’s trek through the high Georgian Caucasus all the more delightful.

Nevertheless, Goltz’s unforgettable fast-paced writing returns when he recounts time spent in Sukhumi before and during and after the withdrawal of Georgian troops from Abkhazia. This is Goltz at his best and his work serves to highlight for many the multiple angles of the Georgian civil war and the difficulty in writing about it clearly or classifying well from an academic perspective what exactly was going on.

For instance, the fact the supporters of the first Georgian President Gamsakhurdia were based out of Sukhumi created a complexity for those, under the banner of Eduard Shevardanadze, who were allied against Gamsakhurdia and in control of the Georgian military. While Abkhaz aligned forces were attacking Sukhumi, there was still a battle for territory in Western Georgia going on between those allied with Gamsakhurdia and those with Shevardnadze. As Goltz regales, these sides were known as the Position and the Opposition, however, which was the Position and which was Opposition appears to depend on what side you were on, and caused never ending confusion to outsiders trying to figure out what the heck was going on in a land so few in the West had ever heard of.

To someone familiar with Georgia, some of the mistakes slightly grate. The Russian use of the ploshchad instead of the Georgian moedani when Goltz claims to be speaking Georgian, the referral to Mingrelian as a dialect of Georgian rather than a separate language, or the mistranscription of the Georgian name Avtandil as Artvandil highlight Goltz’s self-proclaimed lack of familiarity with Georgia.

Nevertheless, all in all, Goltz adds yet another readable volume, to what is now his trilogy on the Caucasus.

This post is also published in the Georgian Times.

Book Review | The Post-Soviet Wars: Rebellion, Ethnic Conflict and Nationhood in the Caucasus | Christoph Zürcher

The earliest books that came out about the Caucasus after the collapse of the Soviet Union were firsthand accounts of events. Now, a second spate of books, which attempt to apply analytical frameworks to the turbulent events that occurred have the breakup of the Soviet Union are beginning to appear. Christoph Zürcher’s The Post-Soviet Wars: Rebellion, Ethnic Conflict and Nationhood in the Caucasus, published with New York University Press, falls into this category. The book examines where wars occurred in the Caucasus (Georgia, Nagorno-Karabakh and Chechnya) and where they didn’t (Dagestan and Ajara) and places those cases studies within the context of the international quantitative literature that attempts to explain why internal wars occur.

Those who are knowledgeable about the Caucasus will find much information they have already come across. However, for those interested in international conflict who possess little regional understanding, the tersely written detail provides a good overview.

To whet your appetite for some of the details about why wars started in the Caucasus, Zürcher argues that, in Georgia, anti-Soviet rhetoric allowed for no maintenance of Soviet institutions, increasing the likelihood of conflict, since state institutions utterly collapsed as a result. Furthermore, the fallback on nationalist rhetoric, which was seen as the only way of creating a cohesive political force, then alienated both Abkhaz and Ossetians. Zürcher, perhaps controversially, also claims that Armenian politics looked very similar to Baltic politics (and different from Georgian and Chechen) in that the same type of state weakness did not exist. However, Zürcher makes the claim, which has been echoed in much of the democratization commentary about Armenia, that instead of the Baltic states’ orientation towards Europe, Armenia’s politicians unified around war in Nagorno-Karabakh, creating an anti-reform minded regime.

From a more technical standpoint, the book is a rare breed within the political science literature, as it is specifically concerned about testing existing theories about internal wars by examining a series of cases studies. In doing so the volume seeks to refine those theories. While this type of book is out of vogue because the academic nomenklatura does not perceive the endeavor as groundbreaking, it serves an important role in refining theories, something Zürcher does throughout the book.

So what does Zürcher find in relationship to the international quantitative literature? Several variables that are generally cited as determinants of internal war do not appear to hold true in the Caucasus: low economic development and mountainous terrain do not help in explaining the conflagrations in the Caucasus. Despite the Caucasus being mountainous, most conflict occurred in urban environs or in the plains. In the conflicts where mountains played a role, the guerillas (which conflict theory supposes are aided by mountains) had the mountains against them. In fact, Zürcher seeks to refine the theory about the relationship between mountains and war and suggests several plausible alternative hypotheses, part of the intellectual merit of the book. One interesting hypothesis is that mountains are a proxy for the cheap recruitment of male soldiers, since mountainous areas often have high unemployment rates and hence a male population ready to mobilize.

The volume also reinforces the idea found in the international quantitative literature that state weakness often plays an important role – perhaps much more so than underdevelopment – as does the role of one ethnic group constituting the majority of the population. This ethnicity argument is well-highlighted with Zürcher’s case study of Dagestan, where ethnicity did not play the same role as in Georgia, Armenia or Chechnya, in part because of the fact that no ethnic group had a majority.

Overall, this reviewer found the findings sound, but would have like to see more analysis of some of the interesting proxy variables discussed above. This, however, could form the basis of a new and fruitful conflict research agenda in the Caucasus.

This book review was also printed in The Georgian Times.