Carnegie Moscow Center
It has been clear from the beginning that the Sochi Olympics would be a likely target for the terrorists. The contest between the terrorists and the forces of the Russian state is one contest that Russia absolutely must win.
If Russia were able to overcome its defensive rhetoric and come up with its own version of “a good neighborhood policy,” Georgia would of course benefit; perhaps more significantly, Russia itself would benefit.
Philippe Lefort is stepping down as the EU’s special representative for the South Caucasus. Now a new representative will have to start again from zero in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and the worry is that in the meantime the Caucasus conflicts will slip down the EU agenda.
The Sochi Olympics are more politicized than any other Games in recent history. A number of world leaders have announced that they would not attend the Games. However, the Kremlin uses foreign criticism as proof of the West's perennial desire to hold Russia back, and keep it weak.
Russia is demanding to be treated as an equal partner in its relationship with the EU, but Brussels had long ignored this shift, and EU-Russian relations have stagnated as a result. It is time for a fundamental rethink of the EU’s Russia policy.
Probably for the first time in the history of the Olympics, sports-related issues concerning the Games took a back seat to the issues of security. Keeping the Sochi Olympics safe is a matter of Russia’s political prestige, as well as the evidence of its ability to respond to terrorism.
In the last few months the almost moribund peace process over Nagorny Karabakh has got back on its feet. This isn’t a resumption of full negotiations, but it is a start.
The situation in Dagestan is chronically tense, and many analysts think that the civil war there continues. The conflict is accompanied by social Islamicization, as well as the growing influence of radical Islam and Salafi movements.
Europeanization must mean that Georgia becomes an attractive market in terms of human and infrastructural resources, a country which is a reliable contract guarantor and, thereby, a hub and a model for the region as a whole.
To paraphrase Tolstoy, “All democracies are alike, all non-democratic regimes are unhappy in their own way.” This is what should be borne in mind, looking ahead into 2014 in the Caucasus region.