Commonwealth of Independent States

On May 18, Azerbaijan registered an official protest with Beijing, claiming that China sold eight Typhoon missiles (with a range of 37 miles) to Armenia. Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Tofig Zulfugarov further claimed that the weapons were sold to Armenia by an unnamed joint Sino-Russian company following a joint visit by Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev and Armenian Defense Minister Vargen Sarkisyan to China. Azerbaijani authorities said that there are two possible explanations for how this deal took place: either the Chinese government has no control over heavy arms sales or Beijing is violating UN Security Council resolutions, which prohibit the sale of arms to conflict zones. In its response to Azerbaijan's allegations, the Chinese embassy in Azerbaijan said that it had no information regarding any Chinese arms deliveries to Armenia.

The issue was also brought up at a meeting of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) Council of Defense Ministers, which is currently taking place in Armenia's capital, Yerevan. At the meeting, Armenian Defense Minister Vazgen Sarikisian denied Azerbaijan's allegation, saying it was "nonsense." Azerbaijan, which had made it clear earlier that it did not plan to extend its membership in the CIS Collective Security Treaty, is not participating in the meeting. Azerbaijan's Foreign Policy Adviser Vafa Guluzade said that his country would not participate given that the meeting was being held on Armenian territory. According to Guluzade, Russia has intentionally strengthened the CIS's security ties with Armenia, thereby alienating Azerbaijan. According to an Azerbaijani spokesman, further evidence of Russian intentions may be found in their selection of the site for the CIS security meeting.

If, in fact, the China-Armenia arms deal was brokered by Moscow, it would highlight the dramatic shifts taking place within the CIS, and the degree of hostility that they have fueled. Earlier this year, three out of the nine original signatories of the 1992 CIS Collective Security Treaty -- Georgia, Uzbekistan, and Azerbaijan -- made it clear that they did not intend to continue as members in the alliance. The three former Soviet republics said they were dissatisfied with Moscow's dominant position and its policies toward the CIS. On May 20, only six CIS countries - - Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan confirmed their readiness to extend their membership in the alliance. The original treaty will expire this month. Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Georgia have already joined in a security alliance with Ukraine and Moldova, two CIS members that never joined the Security Treaty in the first place. That alliance operates under the auspices of NATO's Partnership for Peace program.

In addition to the defections from the CIS, there are other indications that the alliance is crumbling. According to Guluzade, Russia had to deal repeatedly with Kazakhstan and Belarus's unwillingness at past CIS security council meetings to assist Russia with its military commitments in Tajikistan and Georgia. To counterbalance these tendencies that threaten to tear the CIS security alliance apart, Moscow is now openly reinforcing its politico-military ties with those CIS members that are still prepared to follow its lead. And as NATO becomes a central issue in the CIS division, Russia's confrontational behavior can only be expected to intensify.

On May 21, NATO announced that it was considering Georgia as a possible candidate for associate membership in the alliance. This undoubtedly would encourage Azerbaijan, a country that had previously asked NATO to station its forces on its territory, to seek closer cooperation with the Western alliance. Russia is now playing an old game among the former Soviet republics: divide and, if not conquer, then at least develop a pivotal influence. By openly reinforcing its alliance with Armenia through the brokering of missile sales, Russia is seeking to reestablish its influence in the region. By pursuing relations with Azerbaijan and Georgia, NATO is doing the same. As tension escalates between Yerevan and Baku, Moscow and Brussels may find the seriousness of their commitment to their proxies put to the test.

A June 4 meeting in Minsk, Belarus, of Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) foreign ministers, deadlocked over proposed changes in the CIS decision-making bodies and on a CIS free trade zone. Lining up against the measures were the "GUUAM" group of countries -- Georgia, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova -- which have already opted out of the CIS Collective Security Treaty in favor of establishing closer ties with NATO. Scrambling to work out a solution were the Russian and Belarusian prime ministers and foreign ministers. In the end, the CIS foreign ministers dealt with the most recent dispute by passing draft resolutions on these issues to the CIS Council of Heads of Government -- essentially deferring the conflict to a later date and higher level. While temporarily patched over, the rift in the CIS now encompasses not only military but also fundamental economic and political issues, raising the question of whether and how long the current CIS grouping can continue to limp along.

The primary agenda of the meeting of CIS foreign ministers in Minsk was the implementation of political decisions regarding the restructuring of the CIS, which were adopted at the meeting of CIS Council of Heads of State on April 2, 1999. The measures, which were to have been endorsed at the meeting, included the establishment by January 1, 2000, of a CIS free trade zone and the formal administrative bodies to secure its smooth operation. In addition, the 12 foreign ministers were to have discussed the draft resolutions to establish an Executive Committee, an Economic Council, and a Council of Permanent Authorized Representatives within the CIS. Significant details, such as the distribution of seats in these CIS agencies and modifications to these resolutions proposed by some CIS members, were also on the meeting's agenda. The meeting of the CIS foreign ministers was to be followed, also in Minsk, by an afternoon meeting of the CIS prime ministers.

Although there had been previous indications of discord among the CIS states regarding economic integration, the complete failure of the CIS foreign ministers to reach agreement on the draft resolutions came as a surprise. Given the fact that several states were unable to submit their recommendations and comments on the basic draft documents, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov then proposed that the regulations be implemented as a temporary measure. Only six states, however, supported Russia's proposal and six other CIS members opposed it. Because the participants neither reached a compromise on restructuring the CIS nor were they able to reach a consensus on the guidelines for establishing a free trade zone, the draft documents were forwarded to the meeting of the prime ministers of the CIS to be held later that day.

Following the failed CIS foreign ministers' meeting, Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko charged that some participants "literally block[ed] decisions on setting up a free trade zone." Lukashenko also claimed that the prime ministers, who hindered the implementation of the free trade zone, were acting in a fashion that was not only shocking but also inconsistent with the political will of and directives given by the leaders of the CIS. Lukashenko's accusations clearly targeted the GUUAM alliance foreign ministers.

On June 5, ITAR-TASS reported that a "delicate compromise" had been reached at the meeting of CIS prime ministers. Thanks to the efforts of the Belarusian and Russian delegations, the prime ministers agreed, with one abstention, to pass draft resolutions to the CIS Council of Heads of Government -- effectively deferring confrontation over the free trade zone and the new structure of the CIS to a later date and higher level. At the same time, the GUUAM grouping of CIS countries managed to achieve certain modifications in the structure of CIS agencies. Significantly, the number of deputies in the Executive Secretary was raised from six to twelve -- one representing every state in the CIS. This change, which is designed to foster further decentralization in decision-making, was advocated by the prime minister of Uzbekistan, a country associated with GUUAM. Whether this decentralization will increase or decrease the rift within the CIS is not yet clear.

What is clear is that the CIS's division has spread from security issues to economic and political issues. When Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova began their informal alliance, they insisted that it was focused only on expanding trade, and did not and would not have a military component. When the group expanded to admit Uzbekistan and signed agreements on defense and security cooperation -- alongside ceremonies commemorating the 50th anniversary of NATO in Washington DC -- GUUAM members again insisted that the organization was not incompatible with the CIS. Shortly thereafter, those GUUAM members who has been part of the CIS Collective Security Treaty opted out of the renewed Treaty, preferring to develop relations within GUUAM and with NATO. Now GUUAM members have balked at CIA economic and political agreements being championed by the newly federated Russia and Belarus.

Thanks in part to a compromise that further decentralized CIS decision making, the CIS did not collapse last week in Minsk. However institutional compromises are limited in their capacity to bind together an organization increasingly divided on all issues into pro-Russian and pro-Western blocs. The CIS was intended to maintain a degree of unity and cooperation among new countries that, while technically independent, remained economically, politically, and militarily incomplete as individual states. But CIS members have had time to deal with their individual loose ends, and a decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union, its successor organization appears ready to dissolve as well.

Besides Kosovo, the Baltics, and Ukraine, another area of heated contention between Russia and the West is in the Caucasus. There, Russia is increasingly cooperating militarily with Armenia and is believed to be cooperating politically with Abkhaz separatists, to counterbalance NATO influence in Azerbaijan and Georgia. Complicating matters, the wild card Chechnya is forging its own path with the aid of Middle Eastern interests. Caught in the middle are international oil companies, who are attempting to cash in on Central Asia's oil wealth.

The main pipelines for Central Asian oil -- the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline and the Baku-Supsa pipeline -- pass through the Caucasus and are vulnerable to regional unrest. The older and larger Baku-Novorossiysk line was ruptured by an explosion early on June 14, apparently during an attempt by Chechen rebels to steal oil from the route. The pipeline has been illegally tapped in the past. Flow through the pipeline has also been halted repeatedly by the Chechen government, on the grounds that Russia has failed to pay fees for use of the portion of the pipeline that passes through Chechen territory.

The recently opened Baku-Supsa route, while touted as a safer route for avoiding the Chechen instability, also quite poignantly avoids Russia altogether -- undermining Russian influence on the region's oil and Russian revenue from that oil. The Baku-Supsa route was opened following military maneuvers training to defend the line by Ukrainian, Georgian, and Azeri troops, acting as part of the regional alliance then known as GUAM, and under the framework of NATO's Partnership for Peace. GUAM, which also included Moldova, expanded to include Uzbekistan during meetings in Washington DC, held concurrently with the NATO anniversary summit in April, and established a charter encompassing military cooperation within the group and with NATO. GUUAM members, though part of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), have opted out of the CIS Collective Security Treaty.

Intensifying this increasing competition between Russia and NATO in the Caucasus, Azerbaijan claims that Russia brokered the sale of several Chinese surface to surface missile complexes to Armenia, which remains in a fragile truce with Azerbaijan over the contested Nagorno-Karabakh enclave. Russia has also provided Armenia with advanced jet fighters and surface to air missile systems. Reports have now surfaced, denied by Yerevan, that three of the Chinese missile systems are targeted at Georgia's Supsa oil terminal. On June 14, in the largest incident of its kind since the two countries signed a cease-fire five years ago, 300 Armenian troops reportedly attacked Azeri positions in the Terter region. Baku claims three Armenian assaults were repulsed with heavy losses.

As tension escalates in the Caucasus, NATO must again decide -- now that it has put a toe in the pool, whether it intends to dive in. Oil companies may not be willing or able for the situation to be resolved. While the Baku-Supsa route was a Russia-skirting stopgap until the expensive and controversial U.S.-backed Baku- Ceyhan pipeline to Turkey could be built, neither route looks particularly secure now or in the future. As long as foreign access to the oil fields is not threatened, oil companies may now revive their interest in previously considered alternative pipeline routes. One of these, through western Afghanistan, has its own security concerns to contend with. But the other, and perhaps most rational route -- south through Iran -- is primarily blocked by U.S. political opposition. However, U.S.-Iranian relations have been gradually improving, and we expect to see U.S. oil companies with interests in Central Asia take another shot at accelerating U.S.-Iranian detente.

Russia's decision on Sept. 9, 1999, to lift border controls on the separatist region of Abkhazia has raised Russia- Georgia tensions at a time when cooperation is critical. Russia's sudden maneuver is clearly timed to push Georgia toward a more cooperative policy on Chechnya. At the height of an air campaign in Chechnya, Russia has opened the northward route from the separatist Abkhazia, doing its best to coerce Georgia into cooperation. Georgia's response to Russia's provocation could mold interstate relations for the near-term.

Previously, Russia oversaw border policing in Abkhazia's north, while maintaining a U.N.-backed contingent in Abkhazia's south. Though Russian peacekeepers will stay on the buffer zone on the Abkhaz-Georgia border, Russian border police will no longer monitor the north. Consequently, Abkhazia and Russia share an open border, allowing Abkhaz separatists to foster trade and military contact in Russia and the North Caucasus. This could potentially bolster Abkhazia's defenses against Georgia.

Abkhazia was an autonomous republic administered by Georgia until a bloody, yearlong war ended on Sept. 27, 1993. More than 3,000 soldiers from the Georgian army were killed, along with 7,000 civilians of Georgian, Russian, Armenian and Abkhaz nationality. Over 300,000 (60 percent) of Abkhazia's pre-war population, most of whom were Georgian, fled the region and sought asylum elsewhere.

Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze portrays this conflict similarly to the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, though lacking international sympathies. Since 1994, Russian forces have patrolled the Georgia-Abkhazia border in a peacekeeping capacity under the U.N. Observers' Mission in Georgia, and maintained a cordon between Russia and Abkhazia.

Russia decreased its military presence last July and demobilized the remaining 1,800 forces along Georgia's borders with Chechnya and Turkey, at the urging of the Georgian government. Barring any regional conflicts, Georgia's military and police structure could have adequately protected its own borders.

However, with the onset of war in Chechnya, the situation has changed. Georgia does not have the military capacity or the transportation facilities to seal its border with Chechnya per Russia's request. Georgia's reluctance to cooperate in the war effort, coupled with President Shevardnadze's amicable relations with Chechen Aslan President Maskhadov, has polarized Russian-Georgian interests.

On September 9, Russia unilaterally annulled bilateral resolutions, in place since 1994, for securing the northern borders of Abkhazia and Azerbaijan. Georgia's foreign ministry was informed by memo more than a week later. Caucasus Press judged the memo to be a thinly veiled threat for noncooperation with Russia along the Georgia-Chechnya border.

At present, Abkhazia has an open border with Russia. Georgia does not have the material capability to restore the northern Abkhaz border or deploy troops along the 80 km border with Chechnya. Nor does Georgia have the political leverage to compel Russia to reinstate its border resolution, or maintain economic sanctions on Abkhazia. By opening its southern border with Abkhazia, Russia is challenging Georgia's sovereignty and mocking its military self- sufficiency.

In reply, Georgia has a variety of options. It can fight back diplomatically and continue its appeals to the OSCE and Council of Europe to remove four of Russia's last military bases from Georgia. Georgia could continue to leave its border with Chechnya unguarded, risking an influx of refugees and rebels. Or Georgia could do the politically unconscionable and assist Russia in its war effort, cooperating to capacity with Russian troops and fortifying the Georgian-Chechen border.

Dagestan, Ingushetia and North Ossetia have all thrown the welcome mat down for Russian forces, making the quarantine of Chechnya almost complete. Georgia, however, is a sovereign state and a gaping whole to Chechnya's south. It could be a sieve for rebel forces either in retreat or gunrunning into Chechnya. If Georgia continues to balk on military cooperation, President Shevardnadze might find himself in the same league with Chechen President Maskhadov as accomplice to the Chechen rebels.

Committees within the Russian Duma and Ministry of Defense are already bustling with allegations against Georgia for noncooperation. Though Russia is in no position to impose itself militarily against Georgia, Georgia is in a position to help Russia in its fight in Chechnya. If it does not, Russia may pressure Georgia even further, lifting economic sanctions on Abkhazia altogether and perhaps interfering in Georgian pipeline projects.

In late October, the Swiss People's Party, led by Christoph Blocher, won 22.6 percent of the vote in a national election, making it the second-largest party in the lower house of the Swiss Parliament. Earlier in October, the Austrian Freedom Party, led by Joerg Haider, won 27.2 percent of the vote, making it the second largest as well.

What makes these two events noteworthy is that these are commonly referred to as extreme right-wing parties. They share certain core tenets. In particular, they are hostile to immigration. They also believe multinational institutions - such as the European Union (EU), and in the case of the Swiss Party, the United Nations - pose a threat to national identity and control over national institutions. In other words, a massive nationalist movement has emerged in these two countries.

Such parties have been present in Europe for years. In France, the National Front was quite successful in elections. In Italy, right- wing parties won over 10 percent of the vote in the last election; though they have declined somewhat, they are still significant domestic political forces. But the October elections in Austria and Switzerland have redefined the issue.

No economic preconditions for the rise of mass nationalist parties appear to be in place, making the vote more startling. Switzerland's unemployment rate is less than 3 percent, while Austria's is about 4.4 percent. Their economies are solid, if not spectacular, and they have not recently been defeated in war. The conventional explanation for right-wing populist nationalism is massive social dislocation caused by economic failure or military defeat. Understanding why one-quarter of the citizens of these solid, prosperous and peaceful nations should vote for these parties poses an interesting question.

Let's begin by making the radical assumption that Swiss and Austrians voted for these parties because they agreed with their political platforms. Both parties take the view that the two countries are losing control of their national institutions. They see two threats. The first is massive immigration. In Switzerland, for example, 20 percent of all residents are immigrants. In Austria, one estimate is that 10 percent of the population are illegal immigrants, from throughout Eastern Europe and with large numbers from Turkey.

Tensions would be understandable if unemployment were high and natives were competing with foreigners for scarce jobs, with the competition pushing down wage rates. Not only is this not the case, but quite the contrary, the immigrants are economically useful and even necessary, working menial jobs that natives don't want, at wages that natives wouldn't accept. Forcing immigrants out of the country makes little economic sense. Nevertheless, a quarter of the voters would at the very least severely limit the influx of immigrants, and many would actually support deportation.

In order to understand this apparent irrationality, it is important to understand the other dimension of Blocher's and Haider's platform. Both oppose multinational institutions in general and the EU in particular. The EU was formed to maximize economic well-being by creating a single, integrated European economy. In order to create that, national sovereignty had to be relegated, to some extent at least, to the European Union's massive bureaucracy. The relationship between this bureaucracy's power and that of the national government is unclear. But, there is clearly a sense that fundamental decisions about the nature of national life within the EU have shifted from the nation to the super-national authority.

Recently, opponents of the United Kingdom's rules on homosexuals in the military appealed for European intervention on the grounds that the rules opposed Europe's human rights covenants and that those covenants superseded the UK's national authority. Whatever one's views of the particular issue, advocates of European intervention are seeking to diminish the nation-states' authority over national issues. On a thousand less visible or controversial issues, the power of Brussels over national decision-making processes is increasing. This increases a sense of powerlessness and vulnerability on the part of many.

On the one side, there are those who argue that optimizing economic performance in Europe is the most important issue. If that is the case, then it follows that anything increasing friction between nations undermines the optimization process. The process of creating a unified Europe inevitably undermines the power that national governments have over their own destinies. For the business classes of Europe, this is a matter of minimal concern. Their thinking has been global for decades.

On the other side, there are masses of Europeans who do not belong to the business classes and for whom economic optimization is not the central issue. Their issues are primarily cultural. They wish to preserve their unique national culture against internationalization. They believe the preservation of culture is threatened in two ways. First, the massive influx of immigrants threatens to undermine cultural identity. Second, multinational organizations transfer power away from the national processes to uncontrollable international processes, and to the business classes that control those processes. Austrians and Swiss fear they will become strangers in their own countries, unable to control their destiny.

Pre-World War II fascism had its roots in economies shattered by World War I. Nationalism facilitated national economic reconstruction. Masses of voters were drawn to nationalism and racism, because they seemed to provide explanations for the origins of economic collapse as well as a system for economic recovery. They explained the collapse in terms of international forces and justified nationalism as a means for shielding the nation from those forces. Nationalist aggression was similarly justified in terms of increasing the scope of protection from international threats.

Blocher's and Haider's movements differ in origin and intent. They are not a response to massive economic dysfunction. Any economic focus is a fear of future economic collapse, rooted in the fact that Switzerland and Austria are losing control of their national destiny to forces that are either indifferent to their fate or seeking to prosper from economic catastrophe. Traditional fascism is a response to very real, immediate and catastrophic economic problems. Today's right-wing movement is trying to avoid a perceived future calamity.

The fact is, however, that Blocher and Haider are not about economic issues. Their strength is drawn from the persistent strength of nationalism. They speak for the unique characteristics of their nations and against foreign immigrants who are diluting those characteristics and multi-national institutions that are usurping the authority of the nation-state. To a great extent this is a reaction against those who have directly benefited from the transfer of power from the nation to Brussels and to other multi- national organizations. In its purest form, it is a revolt against the multi-national financial institutions, from the International Monetary Fund to Citigroup, that benefit greatly from a world without borders, and whose success undermines national government.

There are those for whom economic values are the only rational ones, and the intrusion of any other value, like national culture, smacks of an archaic primitivism. These people tend to dismiss these movements as aberrant forms. But in Austria and Switzerland these movements are no longer marginal. They represent a growing political form. It is no longer possible to dismiss them. Nor is it possible to explain them in primarily economic terms. They must be understood on their own terms.

While this movement has been most successful in Alpine Europe, representatives of it are present throughout the advanced industrial world. In the United States, for example, Pat Buchanan's campaign represents an American edition of this phenomenon. Buchanan's campaign opposes immigrants and multi-national institutions like NAFTA and the World Trade Organization. He prophesizes economic disaster unless shifts in immigration and trade policy are put in place and unless power is transferred away from multi-national organizations. But it is not economic prosperity that is his main concern. Rather, he believes American culture cannot survive unless it defends itself from foreign intrusion and involvement.

It is not clear how powerful this international movement will become. We can draw no conclusions from Switzerland and Austria. We do not know if this is the high point of the movement or whether it will grow stronger. We do not know if the movement will intensify elsewhere. There is an enormous difference between 10 percent and 25 percent supporting a party. It is difficult to imagine Buchanan getting 25 percent in the United States or Le Pen reviving in France. But then, these election results would have been difficult to imagine in the past.

This much is clear. A movement is coalescing in the advanced industrial world that is a backlash against the globalism of the 1990s. It is a movement that does not adhere to the usual Left- Right logic. Industrial unionists, leftist intellectuals and small farmers are as likely to be attracted to the movement as those traditionally attracted to right-wing movements. The economic issue is free trade versus protectionism, but that is not at the movement's heart. At its heart is a desire to preserve the nation's culture from foreign, internationalist tendencies.

This cultural focus makes it difficult for traditional analysts, used to thinking in terms of economic interest, to take this movement seriously. It is easy to dismiss movements with non- economic agendas. In our view, however, this would be a mistake. The fact that these movements do not make traditional economic sense is what reveals the most about them and what makes them potentially so interesting.

For the bureaucrats in Brussels, economic growth is the only serious things for sane adults to discuss. For others, quality of life is more important and that is not just about ecology. It is also about being able to maintain a nation's culture. Frequently, that is not a very pretty sight, since maintaining a culture often means excluding or suppressing those who are different. Nevertheless, pretty or not, Austria and Switzerland seem to us to be an important signal of shifting political forces in the advanced industrial world.