PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • Membership
      • All Members
      • Core Members
      • Collegium Members
      • Associate Members
      • About Membership
    • Ukraine Experts
    • Executive Committee
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
    • Submissions
  • Podcasts
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
  • Task Forces
    • Ukraine
    • Amplifying Voices of Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia (AVECCA)
  • Ukraine Experts
Contacts

Address
1957 E St NW,
Washington, DC 20052

adminponars@gwu.edu
202.994.5915

NEWSLETTER
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Podcast
PONARS Eurasia
PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • Membership
      • All Members
      • Core Members
      • Collegium Members
      • Associate Members
      • About Membership
    • Ukraine Experts
    • Executive Committee
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
    • Submissions
  • Podcasts
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
  • Task Forces
    • Ukraine
    • Amplifying Voices of Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia (AVECCA)
  • Ukraine Experts
DIGITAL RESOURCES
digital resources

Bookstore 📚

Knowledge Hub

Course Syllabi

Point & Counterpoint

Policy Perspectives

RECOMMENDED
  • Cossack Education Becoming Further Institutionalized Across Russia’s Regions

    View
  • 2023 Annual Policy Conference

    View
  • How Foreign Funders Should Strengthen Their Support for Civil Society: A Case Study of USAID in Kazakhstan

    View
  • Clearing the Air: Secretary Blinken Visits Ukraine

    View
  • The Kremlin Uses Registered Cossacks as a Means of Stealth Mobilization

    View
RSS PONARS Eurasia Podcast
  • The Putin-Xi Summit: What's New In Their Joint Communique ? February 23, 2022
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman speaks with Russian China experts Vita Spivak and Alexander Gabuev about the February meeting between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, and what it may tell us about where the Russian-Chinese relationship is headed.
  • Exploring the Russian Courts' Ruling to Liquidate the Memorial Society January 28, 2022
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with scholars Kelly Smith and Benjamin Nathans about the history, achievements, and impending shutdown of the Memorial Society, Russia's oldest and most venerable civic organization, and what its imminent liquidation portends for the Russian civil society.
  • Russia's 2021 census and the Kremlin's nationalities policy [Lipman Series 2021] December 9, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with social scientist Andrey Shcherbak about the quality of the data collected in the recent population census and the goals of Vladimir Putin's government's nationalities policy
  • Active citizens of any kind are under threat [Lipman Series 2021] November 5, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Alexander Verkhovsky about the Kremlin's ever expanding toolkit against political and civic activists, journalists, and other dissidents.
  • Russia's Legislative Elections followup [Lipman Series 2021] October 4, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Tanya Lokot and Nikolay Petrov about the results of Russia’s legislative elections and about what comes next.
  • Why Is the Kremlin Nervous? [Lipman Series 2021] September 14, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Ben Noble and Nikolay Petrov about Russia’s September 17-19 legislative elections, repressive measures against electoral challengers, and whether to expect anything other than preordained results.
  • Vaccine Hesitancy in Russia, France, and the United States [Lipman Series 2021] August 31, 2021
    In this week's PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Denis Volkov, Naira Davlashyan, and Peter Slevin about why COVID-19 vaccination rates are still so low across the globe, comparing vaccine hesitant constituencies across Russia, France, and the United States.  
  • Is Russia Becoming More Soviet? [Lipman Series 2021] July 26, 2021
      In a new PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Maxim Trudolyubov about the current tightening of the Russian political sphere, asking whether or not it’s helpful to draw comparisons to the late Soviet period.
  • The Evolution of Russia's Political Regime [Lipman Series 2021] June 21, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Grigory Golosov and Henry Hale about the evolution of Russia's political regime, and what to expect in the lead-up to September's Duma elections.
  • Volodymyr Zelensky: Year Two [Lipman Series 2021] May 24, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Sergiy Kudelia and Georgiy Kasianov about Ukrainian President Zelensky's second year in office, and how he has handled the political turbulence of the past year.
  • Commentary | Комментарии

New Policy Memo: Was the West’s Engagement with Abkhazia Doomed to Fail?

  • August 12, 2015
  • Eiki Berg

Over the last five years, Abkhazia has received more international attention than ever before in its over two decades of de facto statehood. In 2009 the West launched an engagement strategy paralleling Georgia’s own initiatives for dealing with Abkhazia. According to this strategy, Abkhazia was given the opportunity to engage with the West on a number of political, economic, social, and cultural issues, while leaving recognition as an independent state off the table. The overall aim was to maintain trust between the West and the local population, open a new international path that avoided leaving all Abkhazian eggs in the Russian basket, and support the idea of Georgia as a “role model” that would become a political-economic magnet for residents of Abkhazia.

Contrary to expectations, however, the implementation of this engagement strategy alienated Abkhazians. By contrast, Russian-Abkhazian relations reached a new level in November 2014, when the two parties signed a Treaty of Alliance and Strategic Partnership. This move was interpreted, in light of the Crimean annexation, as an attempt by Russia to annex Abkhazia and dismember Georgia.

In the end, the West’s ability to engage with Abkhazia had serious limitations that would be very difficult to overcome. Although Abkhazians do not have any illusions of doing better under Russia, Western engagement remains an even worse option. And even if the United States and European Union were to improve upon their strategy in a way that better accommodated Abkhazia’s concerns, engagement would still be unlikely to succeed, given Russian dominance in all possible spheres. 

Read More | PDF

Related Topics
  • Abkhazia
  • Berg
  • Georgia
  • Nagorno-Karabakh
  • Russia
Previous Article
  • Policy Memos | Аналитика

Was the West’s Engagement with Abkhazia Doomed to Fail?

  • August 12, 2015
  • Eiki Berg
View
Next Article
  • In the News | Hовости

Притча об Аландах: Финляндия разрабатывает план российского наступления

  • August 12, 2015
  • Arkady Moshes
View
You May Also Like
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Clearing the Air: Secretary Blinken Visits Ukraine

  • Volodymyr Dubovyk
  • September 19, 2023
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Ensuring Genuine Results? A New Electoral Design in Uzbekistan

  • Akrom Avezov
  • May 19, 2023
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Ukraine, Taiwan, and Macron’s “Strategic Autonomy”

  • Maurizio Delli Santi
  • April 30, 2023
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Russia’s Regional Governors: Backing the War, Upholding the Status Quo

  • Irina Busygina and Mikhail Filippov
  • April 7, 2023
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

The Desire to Possess: Russia’s War for Territory

  • Irina Busygina
  • February 8, 2023
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Kyiv-Washington Relations in Times of Colossal War: The Ultimate Test of a Strategic Partnership

  • Volodymyr Dubovyk
  • January 11, 2023
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Prevailing Soviet Legacies

  • Irina Busygina and Mikhail Filippov
  • December 27, 2022
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

In Russia’s Nuclear Messaging to West and Ukraine, Putin Plays Both Bad and Good Cop

  • Simon Saradzhyan
  • December 23, 2022

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

PONARS Eurasia
  • About
  • Membership
  • Policy Memos
  • Recommended
  • Events
Powered by narva.io

Permissions & Citation Guidelines

Input your search keywords and press Enter.