Interview: Europe and US ‘misguided’ on Russia

While Georgia and Russia are the first to blame for the conflict, the United States and Europe must also bear some responsibility, according to Thomas Gomart of the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI), who spoke to EURACTIV in an interview.

According to IFRI’s Russia and Caucasus expert, America’s military support to Georgia led President Saakashvili to believe he had “a kind of freehand” over the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. 

When Saakashvili used military force to try and regain control of the pro-Russian region of South Ossetia, Russia replied with overwhelming power, pushing deep into Georgian territory and dealing the Americans a blow – albeit indirectly.

“Here we are touching the limits of NATO’s expansion strategy and notably the ‘do it strategy’ promoted by numerous American and European experts, according to whom NATO could be enlarged without Russia reacting,” Gomart says. He also singles out a “general attitude” in the US believing “that one can modify or transform whole regions” by supporting local leaders.

“I believe that here we probably have a significant amount of ideological responsibility from the United States.”

According to Gomart, Europeans also need to realise that their strategy of promoting the rule of law in Russia and the Caucasus is insufficient without military power to back it up. “If the EU believes it can get away with only promoting the rule of law, it is misguided,” he said. “As long as the EU is not taken seriously on security, it will have lots of difficulties making itself heard in Moscow over norms and values.”

As a result, he says a possible “paradoxical effect” of the Georgian conflict could be that it hastens the realisation that Europeans need to take care of their own security without the United States. But he doesn’t think this will happen overnight, as only Great Britain and France currently have the necessary military capabilities.

Gomart also believes the EU could have communicated better over its declared intention to diversify energy supplies away from Russia. “In terms of political communication, they have had a tendency – voluntarily or involuntarily – to present this diversification as a will to isolate Russia,” Gomart says. “In any case, that’s how Moscow interpreted it.”

In terms of energy supplies and pipeline routes – one of the driving factors of the war according to some analysts – Gomart says the Kremlin’s message is clear: “Nothing will be done in the Caucasus without us”. He believes the message is “addressed even more directly to Azerbaijan” which is tempted to follow Georgia in seeking to build closer ties with Europe and the US by forging gas supply deals and building military capability.

Referring to the Karabagh region, a disputed area between Armenia and Azerbaijan, “the message [delivered by Moscow] is extremely explicit,” Gomart warns. “The military option should not be discarded.”

That said, Gomart believes that the EU’s diversification strategy on energy does not necessarily have to irritate Moscow. “Regarding the Nabucco [gas pipeline] project, it could only work to the full with Iranian or Russian gas,” Gomart points out. “This is not incompatible with an intensification of [the EU’s] energy relations with Russia.”

Please click here to read the full interview transcript (in French only).

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