Georgia: New Times with New Challenges Ahead
Op-Ed
Prologue: Remaking the Order
Georgia's case is no exception in terms of the security exposure characteristic of a small nation in a region influenced on all sides by regional, revisionist and global powers. The vulnerabilities of this exposure are multifaceted and range from one extreme to another: from classic, age-old challenges to unprecedented situations (usually the former in a new disguise, redefined by modern technology and new fashions of "doing politics"). Moreover, classic notions of running world affairs through Westphalian networks and a "concert of nations" are now only a regular source of inspiration for academics, and the bipolar order and the Washington consensus are increasingly nostalgic. Given the steady decay (hopefully only temporary) of the international liberal order as we all knew it during the brief post-Cold-war period, the need to compose a new world order is becoming ever more undeniable. The search for a new "grand chessboard" is intrinsically linked to the opening up and setting into motion of new arenas for the promotion of national (i.e. hegemonic) interests across neighbouring regions and around the world, as and when the ego may admit, and available resources permit.
“Barbarians” at the Gate: Hard Power
The past two decades of Georgia’s modern sovereignty have been marked by an unending series of covert incursions and transgressions by our neighbor to the north, often experimenting with new forms of hybrid and asymmetric warfare. This has ended in (but has it in fact ended?) the overt deployment of troops on the ground to divide et impera along the arc of Russia’s soft southern underbelly, as well as in a chain of ethnic conflicts, all strongly driven by geopolitical rivalry, spanning the region. Georgia’s persistent determination to assert its internationally upheld right to make its own choices has finally succeeded in stripping the "mask of decency" from the USSR’s spiritual successor and heir to its legacy, which continues as before to violate basic norms of international law by seizing significant swathes of Georgian territory and, practically speaking, unashamedly annexing them. Russia has also pursued this Soviet tradition of using physical power along the western flank of its hinterland during ongoing incursions into Ukraine. Unless an effective deterrent is soon put in place, much the same menace will loom over all or specific parts of other, mostly small, nations.
All in all, besides the naked use of military force required by “gunboat expediency” which resonates so well with the historical traditions of states impressing their influence abroad (besides fostering a politically useful public perception of “things being taken care of”), new means of extending national interests across borders and beyond are taking concretely discernible shapes, and are worth examining more closely and more professionally from the Georgian standpoint.
The Lingering Power of Soft Power
The notion of a “soft” form of power rapidly became a catch-all term for all kinds of influence not associated with “hard” military coercion, and although this wide theoretical definition of soft power is exact, it is only partially so.
Quite frequently also referred to as “civic”, soft power is based upon the positive appeal of a country's culture, of its social values and political ideals. A vivid example of such persuasiveness is the BBC, which although it benefits from government backing remains a fairly independent and credible instrument of soft power. The British Council, Germany's Goethe Institute and various US scholarship programmes are further examples of this concept. Surprisingly, the US President’s use of Twitter as a means of digital diplomacy is also considered as an expression of soft power to boost the image of the Unites States (although the direction in which the President is doing so is debatable).
Another state which to a large extent exemplifies the use of soft power is China, in addition to whose major media outlets (e.g. the Xinhua News Agency and China Radio International) relies heavily upon its Confucius Institutes—a world-wide network of centres teaching the Chinese language and culture abroad. China also boasts several foreign policy think-tanks (e.g. the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations and the China Institute of International Studies) whose functions are dual. According to researchers at George Washington University, China spends around USD 10bn a year on its soft power instruments.
An emerging soft power yet to be scrutinized by scholars is India, which has long been attempting to become a recognizable world power. What the country lacks in terms of its diplomatic resources (India's Foreign Service employs barely 900 people for a population of 1.2 billion), it tries to compensate with Bollywood, yoga, Hinduism or Ayurveda, as well as through its 25-million-strong diaspora, whose members are remarkably well-engaged in political and economic centres around the world. Indian Premier Modi’s description of his country as “the world's youngest country and its most ancient” during his trip to the US were clearly rebranding India in order to revitalize its international image.
As a flexible force of persuasion capable of absorbing other methods, however, the contours of soft power can become blurred as it mutates into “smart” or even “sharp” power. Using the latter, a state attempts to base its informational policies on fake news, deliberate deception, disrupting political and information environments in targeted countries, exploiting a target country’s social fractions and rifts—and essentially crossing the line beyond which persuasion becomes coercion. Both the United States and the Soviet Union frequently resorted to sharp methods during the Cold War; nowadays, the Russian television networks “Russia Today” and “Sputnik” are good examples of such practices—not necessarily seeking to “win hearts and minds” through fair competition, but instead manipulating target audiences by distorting information, undermining democracy, and attacking the liberal order.
It should also be pointed out that a certain degree of unilateralism was also typical of US post-Cold-War foreign policy, underwritten by clear elements of coercive democratization and the effective transformation of that policy into the “smart” version of soft power—combining both hard and soft powers in an attempt to align tactics with objectives and create smart strategies. The new, recently adopted US National Security Strategy bears an extremely strong resemblance with the smart power concept projected during the Cold War—the US military deterring Soviet aggression while undermining communism behind the Iron Curtain.
The intrinsic nature of autocratic states, however, predominantly colours their efforts to exercise soft power, conveys the aggressiveness of regimes, and makes it incredibly hard to qualify such efforts as normal public policy.
Fully-fledged democracies continue to struggle to develop strategies capable of meeting the destructive impact of “sharpened” soft power; but this effort is even more challenging for new democracies like Georgia, with their frail institutions, scarce resources and, most importantly, high rates of poverty, the population exposed to malign distraction and manipulation.
Newly Re-Emerged "Battlegrounds"
Soft power is sometimes associated with economic sanctions, but economic or financial instruments tend not to be seen as forms of soft power (although it is difficult in practice to distinguish between economic performance and soft power). The latter represent a separate and independent set of means with which to exert influence, under the newly resurfaced term of “geoconomics”. In a word, geoconomics purport to defend and promote the national interest and to produce desirable geopolitical outcomes through economic actions. The newly redefined concept harnesses a set of instruments consisting of trade, monetary, investment, energy and commodity policies, as well as cyberspace, sovereign wealth funds and development aid.
In fact, however, geoconomics are nothing new in terms of one or several states attempting to influence others: the Lend-Lease policy of 1941 was an attempt to pursue economic goals alongside military ones, and the Bretton Woods system, whose aims were admittedly predominantly positive, came quite close to implementing this concept in practice. Other clear post-Second World War examples include the Marshall Plan and the US threat in 1956 to instigate a collapse of the British financial system, which brought an end to the Suez Crisis. In 1960s and ‘70s, however, the power of geoconomics began to wane—with the striking exception of 1973-’74, when the Arab members of OPEC sought to discourage foreign support for Israel by imposing an embargo on oil deliveries to the United States and the Netherlands, triggering a global economic slowdown—but regained momentum in the ‘80s in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
The concept, however, is certainly being reinvigorated nowadays thanks to various revisionist powers that are routinely devoting their attention to such means. Quite remarkable in this regard are China's attempts to not only prevent any unwanted actions on its peripheries, but also to greatly extend its influence well beyond South-east and South-west Asia. And Beijing is backing up its geoeconomic ventures with serious money, allocating $50 billion to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, $41 billion to the New Development Bank, $40 billion to the Silk Road Economic Belt, and $25 billion to the Maritime Silk Road and to the Asia-Pacific Free Trade Agreement. Beijing has pledged to invest $1.25 trillion worldwide by 2025, raising the total to an unprecedented $1.41 trillion (the Marshall Plan cost the equivalent of $103 billion in today’s dollars). All this is synonymous with the slogan of “Chinese characteristics of a new era”.
Another revisionist state to utilize economic instruments to further its geopolitical aims is Russia, which for example repeatedly threatens to cut natural gas supplies to Ukraine both to attract Kiev to Moscow's orbit and remind the EU of Moscow's status as a regional power. Besides threatening to reduce energy supplies to Europe if the latter continues to support anti-Russian sanctions, it also created the Eurasian Economic Union to tie up the countries of its “near neighbourhood”. Banning imports of Georgian agricultural products is a further example of Russia pursuing her own geoconomics agenda.
By meticulously attempting to construct an alternative to the post-war Western order, both China and Russia are clearly on a collision course for Eurasian domination. This promises us—including Georgia—a new and thrilling chapter of their geoconomics struggle, with China trying to relegate Russia to a second-tier regional power. Let us simply hope that this clash of their economic instruments will not result in a hard power showdown.
Plenty of other geoconomics-related policies are currently being carried out by the Gulf States, India and, to a limited extent, Iran—thereby embodying this method into policies which will flourish over the coming decades. On top of all this, the US style of geoconomics has yet to overcome a unique domestic political and legal makeup in order to fully blossom, and clearly Trump’s “America First” concept will certainly help to make this happen.
Postscript: Spotting the Right Place
Modern world affairs are volatile, and projections are often uncertain. Small-sized nations with respectable economies do have an effect, but have a clear, unchaotic vision for the development of a state identity in alignment with acceptable regional structures is vitally important in the long run.
This country is undoubtedly sensitive to all the above due to its history, its geography, and to the challenges it faces, but it should not idly observe the geopolitical currents swirling around it and passively accept any outcome: Georgia can and should play its own role, giving much-needed shape and color to regional matters. Firstly, the country can exert a soft power of its own, provided that the necessary reforms it implements are uncompromising, that no setbacks or slowing down are tolerated, and that it appears as a model of development for neighbouring countries. Secondly, Georgia is in a position to play its own chord of geoconomics by maintaining the importance of its “energy power” (e.g. as a transit country for hydrocarbons) which corresponds to Europe’s need for energy security. Thirdly, the country might consider screening inbound investment as a geoconomic instrument capable of increasing geopolitical clout (like, for example, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States). Georgia is developing key domestic infrastructure which will play a wider regional role (e.g. the Anaklia deep-water port and free zone). Lastly, by virtue of its unique location as the maritime gate for a range of land-locked countries, the quest to identify and develop supranational transport and logistics systems should be even more rigorous and robust. Besides, thanks to a set of free trade agreements, Georgia is well placed to articulate itself boldly as a convenient venue for trade linking the Caucasus, Asia and Europe.
Such a Brave New World may appear a little futuristic, but it is by no means dystopian—and only a nation with a long-term and progressive vision, creative and self-disciplined, could succeed in creating such a world for itself.
Victor Kipiani