What Happens If the Big Bad Bear Awakes?

By Kevin Fedarko

A few miles down the road from the border guards' shack where Lieut. Colonel Reso Chachua wards off the winter winds of the Caucasus, a thick rope stretches across a boundary that neatly illustrates what it means to have Russia as a next-door neighbor. On Chachua's side of the rope lies Georgia, a former republic of the Soviet Union that declared its independence in 1991. Less than 200 yards on the other side lies Abkhazia, a former part of Georgia, which won its as yet unrecognized independence last year by breaking a Moscow- mediated cease-fire and, with the help of arms supplied by Russian military commanders, thrashed the Georgians badly enough to send them heading home to Tbilisi.

But no sooner had Eduard Shevardnadze, Georgia's head of state, suffered this humiliating defeat than he too began receiving military assistance from the Russians. Those weapons, however, were not for fighting the Abkhazians -- who had already consolidated their victory -- but for putting down another insurrection by Georgian followers of former President Zviad Gamsakhurdia. Thanks to the Russian guns, Gamsakhurdia's resistance finally collapsed. Now rival leaders on both sides of the rope boundary find themselves indebted to Moscow. To Chachua, at least, the logic is all too obvious. "Everything here," the Georgian commander concludes, "depends on Russia."

That is the realization dawning throughout the 14 republics along its periphery that Moscow somewhat possessively refers to as the "near abroad." In the Baltics, Belarus, Ukraine and across Central Asia, Russia has been engaged in a bold game of restoring its influence. By applying pressure along ethnic fault lines and playing rival political factions against one another, Moscow has succeeded in making its presence count among its former vassals. At the same time, Russian diplomats have ventured farther abroad, playing a successful part in easing the Bosnian conflict -- most recently by persuading the Serbs to open the airport in the besieged town of Tuzla. While Russians feel a new sense of pride as their mediation efforts pay off, these activities have also provoked speculation that the imperialist Russian bear has awakened from its post-cold war snooze.

The methods by which Moscow seeks to woo back the near abroad republics can be crude, often mustered under the broad banner of protecting ethnic Russians. In some cases the tool is brute military force of the sort used in December 1992 when Russian-manned planes from Uzbekistan helped bring down a government of Tajikistan composed of Islamic and democratic groups, and installed pro- communist rulers. In other regions, Russia prefers to flex its muscles by yanking the economic rug out from under a government -- as it did last week when Moscow began cutting off gas supplies to Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine. Regardless of the medium, the message remains the same: Moscow holds -- and withholds -- the keys to survival in the near abroad. This is not so much imperialism, says former CIA Director Robert Gates, as it is an effort "to make a bad situation worse so that these countries are forced to come to Russia for help."

Shevardnadze and other near abroad leaders seem convinced that such strong- arm tactics indicate a resurgence of the imperialist impulses that dominated Russia's czarist and communist regimes for centuries. But from Russia's standpoint, such actions are simply part of the diplomatic repertoire of any great nation that, by virtue of its size and wealth, exerts influence over its smaller neighbors.

The Clinton Administration wonders how much Russia's new assertiveness derives from the struggle for reform taking place in Moscow. Under growing pressure from nationalists like Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Russia might be seeking to re-establish its empire by meddling belligerently in the affairs of its neighbors. Or it could be trying to use its influence to bring peace to the troubled periphery, which would benefit Russia's own uncertain stability.

Moscow's foreign policy reflects both trends, an ambivalence that is perhaps best embodied by Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev. Once viewed as a staunch pro-Western liberal and roundly denounced as a "traitor" by hard-liners, Kozyrev has recently begun spouting belligerent nationalist rhetoric that harks back to the cold war. During the past several months, he has admonished Eastern Europe against joining NATO, hinted at keeping Russian troops in the Baltics and sternly warned republics not to mistreat ethnic Russians. Observers are left to speculate that the Foreign Minister's new stance may be a signal that the only way Yeltsin's beleaguered Kremlin team can undercut the appeal of the nationalists is by becoming more conservative themselves.

Complaints like one last week from Kentucky Republican Senator Mitch McConnell about Russia's "neo-imperial ambitions" provoke ferocious indignation in Moscow, particularly among those who feel Russia has been left standing penniless and irrelevant at the edge of the world stage. "People are sick of the Puerto Rico-ization of Russian foreign policy," says Vladlen Sirotkin of Moscow's Diplomatic Institute. "For too long, we have kept the West under the impression that a positive foreign policy is when we go along with everything the West does."

Both sides, of course, are discovering that the post-cold war honeymoon is over. "Washington and Moscow are realizing that their interests don't always coincide," says Alexander Konovalov, an analyst at the U.S.A. and Canada Institute. "We should be mature enough to realize that is not a tragedy." One sign of such divergence is Ukraine's budding relationship with the U.S., underscored last week when Clinton increased his total aid package $225 million -- but carefully avoided providing any guarantees against Russian meddling.

The West might be willing to accept a Russian foreign policy based on its own national interests, were it not for the fact that democracy in Russia seems to be hanging by a thread, economic reform has sputtered to a halt, and an enfeebled Russian President seems to slip further into disarray each passing day. No wonder Moscow's neighbors -- and the rest of the world -- are worried about Russia's determination to reassert itself and win back the international respect it considers its due.

With reporting by Sally B. Donnelly/Moscow, Ann M. Simmons/Washington and Yuri Zarakhovich/Zugdidi