conflict in the former ussr - cambridge university...

Conflict in the Former USSR

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, conflict in the former USSR has been a key concern in international security. This book fills a gap in the literature on violent conflict, evaluating a region that contains all the modern ingredients for instability and aggression. Bringing together leading experts on war and security, the book addresses cur-rent debates in international relations about power, interests, global-isation and the politics of identity as major drivers of contemporary war. Incidents such as the 2008 Russo-Georgian conflict, the wars in Chechnya, and Russia’s struggles over national identity and resources with former communist states are all thoroughly examined. With new issues like energy security, terrorism and transnational crime, and older tensions between East and West threatening to deepen once more, this is an important contribution to the international security literature.

dr m at t h e w s u s s e x holds a PhD from the University of Melbourne (2001) and completed his undergraduate and Honours qualifications at the University of Queensland. He is currently Senior Lecturer in the School of Government, University of Tasmania, where he coor-dinates that institution’s international relations programme. His research interests include international security, Russian politics and foreign policy, strategic studies, European politics and international relations theory.

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Cambridge University Press978-0-521-76310-3 - Conflict in the Former USSREdited by Matthew SussexFrontmatterMore information

http://www.cambridge.org/9780521763103

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Conflict in the Former USSR

Matthew Sussex

Edited by






c a m b r i d g e u n i v e r s i t y p r e s s

Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Mexico City

Cambridge University PressThe Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

www.cambridge.orgInformation on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521135283

© Cambridge University Press 2012

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2012

Printed and bound in the United Kingdom by the MPG Books Group

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Conflict in the former USSR / [edited by] Matthew Sussex.

pages cmIncludes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 978-0-521-76310-3 (hbk.) – ISBN 978-0-521-13528-3 (pbk.)1. National security – Former Soviet republics. 2. Security, International. 3. Political stability – Former Soviet republics. 4. Violence – Former Soviet republics. 5. Ethnic conflict – Former Soviet republics. 6. Social conflict – Former Soviet republics. 7. Former Soviet republics – History, Military. 8. Former Soviet republics – Politics and government. 9. Former Soviet republics – Ethnic relations. 10. Former Soviet republics – Social conditions. I. Sussex, Matthew, editor of compilation.UA770.C686 2012355.020947–dc23 2012016906

ISBN 978-0-521-76310-3 HardbackISBN 978-0-521-13528-3 Paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.






For Nicholas






vii

List of maps page ixList of contributors xAcknowledgements xiiiList of abbreviations xiv

1 Introduction: understanding conflict in the former USSR 1m at t h e w s us s e x

2 The return of imperial Russia 15ro g e r e . k a n e t

3 The shape of the security order in the former USSR 35m at t h e w s us s e x

4 Great powers and small wars in the Caucasus 64r ic h a r d s a k wa

5 The Russo-Georgian war: identity, intervention and norm adaptation 91b e at k e r n e n a n d m at t h e w s us s e x

6 Why not more conflict in the former USSR? Russia and Central Asia as a zone of relative peace 118n e i l robi n s on

7 Transnational crime, corruption and conflict in Russia and the former USSR 146l e s l i e hol m e s

8 The transformation of war? New and old conflicts in the former USSR 172m at t k i l l i ng s wor t h

Contents






Contentsviii

9 Conclusions: the future of conflict in the former USSR 195m at t h e w s us s e x

Bibliography 210Index 239






ix

Maps

1.1 The USSR, 1984 page xvi1.2 The Russian Federation and its neighbours xvii1.3 The Caucasus and Central Asia xviii






x

Contributors

l e s l i e hol m e s has been Professor of Political Science at the University of Melbourne since 1988. He specialises in communist and post-communist politics. He was President of the International Council for Central and East European Studies (ICCEES) from 2000 to 2005, President of the Australasian Association for Communist and Post-communist Studies (AACaPS) from 2005 to 2007, and Co-President of the Contemporary European Studies Association of Australia (CESAA) from 2001 to 2002. He was elected a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia in 1995. His most recent sole-authored book is Rotten States? Corruption, Post-Communism, and Neoliberalism.

ro g e r e . k a n e t is a professor in the Department of International Studies at the University of Miami, where he served as Dean of the School of International Studies, 1997–2000. Prior to 1997, he taught at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he was a member of the Department of Political Science and served as head of that department from 1984 to 1987, and as Associate Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Director of International Programs and Studies (1989–97). He has published more than 200 scholarly art-icles and edited more than twenty-five books. Recent publications include: Russian Foreign Policy in the Twenty-first Century, 2010; co-edited with Maria Raquel Freire, Key Players and Regional Dynamics in Eurasia: The Return of the ‘Great Game’ (2010); The United States and Europe in a Changing World (2009); and A Resurgent Russia and the West: The European Union, NATO and Beyond (2009). He is a mem-ber of the Council on Foreign Relations, New York.

b e at k e r n e n is a professor and Head of the Department of Political Science at the University of Southwestern Missouri. He holds an MPhil and a PhD from the University of Kansas. Professor Kernen’s research and teaching interests include post-Soviet politics,






List of contributors xi

international relations, the European Union and East European pol-itics. He has published articles in The Soviet and Post-Soviet Review, Crossroads, Political Chronicle, Yearbook of East European Economies and East European Quarterly.

m at t k i l l i ng s wor t h is an associate lecturer at the University of Tasmania. His PhD on lustration in Eastern and Central Europe was completed at the University of Melbourne in 2007. He has pub-lished on opposition and dissent in the former communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe, lustration in the Czech Republic and Poland and the changing nature of war in the former Soviet space. He is Vice-President of the Contemporary European Studies Association of Australia (CESAA) and editor of the Australian and New Zealand Journal of European Studies.

n e i l robi n s on is Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Limerick. Prior to his appointment at Limerick he taught at the uni-versities of York and Essex. His research interests focus on Russian and post-communist politics, particularly the political economy of post-communism and post-communist state building. He is the author of Ideology and the Collapse of the Soviet System: A Critical History of Soviet Ideological Discourse (1995) and Russia: A State of Uncertainty (2002) and co-author (with Karen Henderson) of Post-communist Politics (1997). He is the editor or co-editor of Institutions and Political Change in Russia (2000), Reforging the Weakest Link: Global Political Economy and Post-Soviet Change in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus (with Aidan Hehir, 2004), State-building. Theory and Practice (2007) and (with Todd Landman) The Sage Handbook of Comparative Politics (2009). He is the author of articles in journals including Soviet Studies, European Journal of Political Research, Political Studies, The Journal of Communist Studies and Transitional Politics, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Demokratizatsia and Review of International Political Economy.

r ic h a r d s a k wa is Professor of Russian and European Politics at the University of Kent. Sakwa is one of the UK’s leading scholars of Russian politics. He has published extensively on Soviet, Russian and post-communist affairs, and has written and edited numerous books and articles on the subject. While completing his doctorate on Moscow politics during the Civil War (1918–21) he spent a year on a British Council scholarship at Moscow State University (1979–80), and then worked for two years in Moscow in the ‘Mir’ Science and Technology Publishing House. Before moving to Kent he lectured at






List of contributorsxii

the University of Essex and the University of California, Santa Cruz. His current research interests include democratic development in Russia, the nature of post-communism and global challenges facing the former communist countries. He is also an Associate Fellow of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, a member of the Advisory Boards of the Institute of Law and Public Policy in Moscow, a member of the Eurasian Political Studies Network and a member of the Academy of Learned Societies for the Social Sciences.

m at t h e w s us s e x is a senior lecturer in the School of Government, University of Tasmania. His PhD on contemporary Russian for-eign policy (2001) was completed at the University of Melbourne. His research interests include strategic and security studies, Russian politics and foreign policy, and conflict in the international system. He has been awarded grants from bodies such as the Australian Research Council and the Fulbright Commission, amongst others. His publications include articles and book chapters on globalisation and contemporary war, Russian foreign policy, the foreign policies of great powers and Australian security policy. He is a Fellow of the Contemporary Europe Research Centre, a National Executive mem-ber of the Australian Institute of International Affairs and a founding member of the Australian Council for Strategic Studies.






xiii

This volume grew out of a series of workshops on security and con-flict on the territory of the former USSR held in Limerick, Republic of Ireland, and the Australian National University in Canberra. Much excellent scholarship has been done on the politics of former commun-ist states, and there are many detailed evaluations of the often troubled relationship between Russia and the West. But there are few books that examine the topic of war and conflict in the former USSR as their cen-tral theme. We therefore offer this contribution to supplement current research.

I owe a particular debt of thanks to Jo Lane and John Haslam at Cambridge University Press for their words of wisdom, encouragement and gentle prodding during this volume’s gestation. Their assistance during the preparation of the manuscript was professional, first-rate and understanding. I also thank the copy-editor, Joanna Pyke.

I am also grateful to the Australian Research Council (ARC) for fund-ing my project on globalisation and war in the Caucasus. This grant made it possible to bring together a variety of experts from across the world in the one place, and was the primary impetus for this volume.

There are a number of other people I should acknowledge, but space precludes a more fulsome list. I owe my particular thanks, then, to my fellow contributors, but also to Peter Shearman for his wisdom and long-suffering guidance over the years, to Les Holmes for jumping into the breech, to Matt Killingsworth for being an irreverent kindred spirit, and most of all to my wife, Tracey, whose tolerance of my regular late nights bashing the keyboard made this book possible.

Finally, I would like to dedicate my part in this volume to my young son, Nicholas. He won’t be able to read (much less understand) this book for quite a while, but he certainly enjoyed drawing obscure pictures on early drafts and edits. Come to think of it, so did I.

Matthew SussexHobart, Tasmania

Acknowledgements






xiv

Abbreviations

ABM Treaty Anti-Ballistic Missile TreatyAO autonomous oblastASEAN Association of Southeast Asian NationsASSR autonomous Soviet socialist republicBEEPS ‘Business Environment and Enterprise Performance

Surveys’BPI ‘Bribe Payers Index’BTC pipeline Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipelineCFE Treaty Conventional Forces in Europe TreatyCHS Commission on Human SecurityCIS Commonwealth of Independent StatesCNPC China National Petroleum CorporationCOMECON Council for Mutual Economic AssistanceCPC Caspian Pipeline ConsortiumCPI ‘Corruption Perceptions Index’CSTO Collective Security Treaty OrganizationEaP Eastern PartnershipENP European Neighbourhood PolicyEST European Security TreatyEU European UnionEurAsEc Eurasian Economic CommunityG8 Group of 8GDP gross domestic productGFC global financial crisisGSSR Georgian Soviet Socialist RepublicGUAM Georgia-Ukraine-Azerbaijan-MoldovaICC International Criminal CourtICISS International Commission on Intervention and State

SovereigntyICVS ‘International Crime Victims Survey’IMU Islamic Movement of UzbekistanIO international organisation






List of abbreviations xv

KPRF Communist Party of the Russian FederationKSOR CSTO Collective Rapid Reaction ForceLDPR Liberal Democratic Party of RussiaMAP Membership Action PlanNATO North Atlantic Treaty OrganisationNGO Non-Governmental OrganisationNMD national missile defence (US)OSCE Organisation for Security and Cooperation in EuropePCA Partnership and Cooperation AgreementPfP Partnership for PeacePRC People’s Republic of ChinaR2P Responsibility to ProtectRMA revolution in military affairsRSC regional security complexSCO Shanghai Cooperation OrganisationSSR Soviet socialist republicTI Transparency InternationalTRNC Turkish Republic of Northern CyprusUN United NationsUNGA UN General AssemblyUNSC UN Security CouncilUSSR Union of Soviet Socialist RepublicsWMD weapons of mass destruction






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