Tuesday Map: Abkhazia, what’s really at stake?
The smaller the renegade province, the bigger the pawn — at least so it seems in the world of post-communist geostrategic positioning. Just as the dust has begun to settle around the Kosovo independence issue, Georgia’s breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia now find themselves front and center in the separatist question lime light. ...
The smaller the renegade province, the bigger the pawn -- at least so it seems in the world of post-communist geostrategic positioning. Just as the dust has begun to settle around the Kosovo independence issue, Georgia’s breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia now find themselves front and center in the separatist question lime light.
In recent months, the U.S. has pushed for Georgian memebership in NATO, rebel pockets and all; while Russia has upped its ties with both of Georgia's de facto independent states. And just this week, the EU threw in its two cents, declaring support for Georgian territorial integrity.
The smaller the renegade province, the bigger the pawn — at least so it seems in the world of post-communist geostrategic positioning. Just as the dust has begun to settle around the Kosovo independence issue, Georgia’s breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia now find themselves front and center in the separatist question lime light.
In recent months,
With Moscow-Tbilisi tensions running high, let’s take a look at what Abkhazia and
According to this week’s Tuesday Map of Georgia’s environmental and security issues from the IDMC (Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre), the two rebel provinces come complete with two refugee camps (orange triangles), two nuclear waste sites (yellow markers), and one “large aging Soviet industrial complex still generating pollution” (red circle).
Abkhazia does have a beautiful coast — so beautiful, in fact, that the most famous Georgian of them all incorporated it into
All in all, I can see why neither
More from Foreign Policy


Is Cold War Inevitable?
A new biography of George Kennan, the father of containment, raises questions about whether the old Cold War—and the emerging one with China—could have been avoided.


So You Want to Buy an Ambassadorship
The United States is the only Western government that routinely rewards mega-donors with top diplomatic posts.


Can China Pull Off Its Charm Offensive?
Why Beijing’s foreign-policy reset will—or won’t—work out.


Turkey’s Problem Isn’t Sweden. It’s the United States.
Erdogan has focused on Stockholm’s stance toward Kurdish exile groups, but Ankara’s real demand is the end of U.S. support for Kurds in Syria.