The Borjomi Declaration signed by the leaders of Georgia and Ukraine on August 12 expresses the aspiration of Georgia and Ukraine to create a Regional Alliance of Democratic Nations, from the Baltic to the Black Sea, down to the Caspian Sea. This alliance raises many questions. The first of them is perhaps that of its feasibility. Is there a place for a new geopolitical alliance in this region?

Two main points have to be addressed here. First, the so called “post-Soviet space” has never been geopolitically homogeneous. Within the Russian-led Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) there have always been countries with closer strategic ties to Moscow, like Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, and countries which aspired to more geopolitical independence from the Kremlin – in particular, in terms of their foreign-policy orientation. This latter grouping at various times would comprise such CIS nations like Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. (To be sure, the Karimov regime is currently drifting back into Russia’s fold.)

The first attempt at forging some sort of a geopolitical counterbalance to Russia and its clients within the CIS was of course GUUAM/GUAM – a quasi-bloc that emerged in the mid-1990s with the full backing of the United States. But this first attempt proved to be abortive and basically didn’t work: the GUAM countries failed to fashion a clear-cut common agenda either in the economic or political spheres.

Furthermore, these countries were more concerned by their domestic problems and crises, and, more often than not, chose to deal with Russia within a bilateral format and not collectively as a close-knit group with a common foreign and security policy.

Now, with the recent Yushchenko-Saakashvili initiative to build a Commonwealth of Democratic Choice that is designed to unite “all democratic states in the Baltic, Black Sea and Caspian regions” we are clearly witnessing a second attempt at creating a group within the CIS – and probably even within a broader Eurasian geography – that will likely try to act as a geopolitical counterweight to Russia and its CIS allies.

But the second important point that needs to be discussed is whether this prospective “alliance of democratic nations” can come up with a solid common agenda that goes beyond the desire of these countries’ new political elites to get rid of Moscow’s political tutelage and receive hefty financial assistance from the West. So far, the answer to this question remains unclear, and the odds are that at the end of the day the Commonwealth of Democratic Choice may well follow GUAM’s sorry path into oblivion.


How do you see this initiative’s goals: to incarnate the ideals of the multicoloured revolutions or more as a huge operation of public relations towards the International Community?

Clearly, the Kiev-Tbilisi initiative was born of the global wave of “democratization” spearheaded by the policy of the Bush administration bent on “spreading freedom” across the world. To be sure, the political upheavals in a number of the CIS countries – like the Rose Revolution in Georgia and Orange Revolution in Ukraine – were caused primarily by those nations’ internal problems and weren’t the result of some sinister plot by outside forces. The political forces that came to power in Tbilisi and Kiev are the result of the “colour revolutions” pledged to continue democratic reforms in their own countries and to help spread democratic values further afield into the less free CIS nations.

But this initiative can also be put into a broader context as in their Borjomi Declaration the two presidents said they were going to set up a new regional group in accordance with the principles of the Community of Democracies, an informal global forum and clearinghouse for democracy promotion efforts. This project was initiated in 1999 by a group of 10 states from around the world, with the United States playing the lead role. In June 2000, the Community of Democracies came into existence in Warsaw, where representatives of over 100 states including Russia and Ukraine met. They adopted the Warsaw Declaration calling for support for civil society, free and fair elections, an independent judiciary, transparency and accountability of governance.

Some Europeans tend to view the community as a distinctly American project intended to sideline the United Nations. In November 2002 in Seoul, the members of the community adopted the Seoul Action Plan, a set of measures to ensure regional cooperation in promoting democracy. In Autumn 2004, the community’s council issued a report, in which it recommended not to invite Russia to the next meeting in Santiago, Chile, in 2005. Based on the criteria listed in the Warsaw Declaration and the Seoul Action Plan, Russia was judged as “moving away from the principles of the Warsaw Declaration” and therefore not worthy of an invitation even as an observer.

That Russia is no longer welcome in the Community of Democracies at this point has not been lost on Saakashvili and Yushchenko, who proposed the Commonwealth of Democratic Choice, citing the Seoul Action Plan as a licence to promote democracy in the region.

But again, one has to distinguish between the words and the deeds, between the lofty aspirations and what is realistically achievable. So, the initiative can indeed be interpreted both ways: as an intention to give a further boost to the democratization drive within the CIS and as a clever PR move.


Could this emerging alliance strike a mortal blow to what seems to be a dying CIS?

To all intents and purposes, the CIS as a viable geopolitical bloc or international organization that has long been dead. Last spring, President Putin himself acknowledged that the CIS was created to perform just one function: to serve as a mechanism for a smooth divorce following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Everything that goes beyond that, Putin added, is simply “rubbish.”

Russia is pursuing its economic and security interests within the post-Soviet space either through bilateral relations or through other instruments like the Euro-Asian Economic Community or the Common Security Treaty Organization. However, the CIS summits bringing together all regional heads of state are still useful forums for informal discussions and as such will likely remain for quite some time. But these gatherings are basically what is left of the CIS.


New Georgian Foreign Minister Gela Bezhuashvili said on October 24 after meeting with NATO Secretary General’s Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia countries Robert Simmons that “The supreme goal of our foreign and internal policy is integration into NATO”. Do you think the creation of such a Democratic alliance would facilitate Euro-Atlantic integration for both Kiev and Tbilisi?

The timeline of Ukraine and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic integration will almost exclusively be defined by the pace and intensity of these countries’ internal transformation. The other contributing factor will be the overall character of the relations between Russia and the West. Whether or not Kiev and Tbilisi manage to forge a “Democratic Alliance” will likely play only a minor role in this process.


On October 5, Saakashvili said at a joint news briefing with visiting Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga in Tbilisi that “Latvia is an important participant and a leader in the European integration processes in the whole region”. What role could Baltic States aspire to within this possible Alliance?

The Balts see their strategic mission as being the principal promoters of democracy to the east of the EU borders.

Immediately following the accession of the Baltic States and Poland to the European Union, the new entrants tried to position themselves as key players in EU eastern policy. It is these countries that have the most interest in the continuation of the EU’s eastward enlargement and, consequently, in the profound democratic change in the CIS countries that are located on Europe’s eastern periphery. The Lithuanians and the Poles were particularly active in last year’s Orange Revolution in Ukraine with Presidents Adamkus and Kwasniewski acting as mediators in the Kiev negotiations between the authorities and the democratic opposition.

Currently the Poles and the Balts are contemplating how best to achieve the regime change in Belarus ruled by the authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko.


Is Washington’s attitude towards this alliance wariness, like Brussels’?

Unlike Brussels which is indeed wary – for a number of reasons – of the emerging alliance, Washington is definitely very supportive of it. As they say, it fits the bill very nicely: ideologically, it corresponds with the White House’s democratisation drive; geopolitically, if the alliance eventually proves to be more than just rhetoric, Russia’s sphere of influence in post-Soviet territory will shrink even further.


As the West develops a new strategy for the wider Black Sea region, one of the most difficult questions the West has to face is how to address Russian sensitivities. What’s your opinion?

Indeed, that’s the West’s perennial dilemma: how to advance its interests in the regions where Russia and Europe’s “neighborhoods” overlap. Clearly, it’s not an easy task. But Russian sensitivities are just one problem. The other, and probably no less important, problem is the nature of Europe’s policy in its “eastern neighborhood” and specifically in the greater Black Sea region. Can we really speak of any coherent EU policy vis-à-vis the countries in the western part of the CIS and the Caucasus that is being supported by all of the bloc’s member-states? There appears to be a divide between “old Europe” and “new Europe” regarding the EU’s eastern policy. While Poland and the Baltic States energetically push for more active engagement with the East and for further enlargement, the bloc’s core-countries seem to be wary of such activism and uncertain about the EU’s further direction. Russia is of course aware of these difficulties: there’s no question that the EU’s inability to elaborate a common strategy toward post-Soviet states and toward Russia makes the Kremlin’s life much easier.