Development of Abkhazia - Essay Example

As a means of seeking to define and understand the dynamics of Abkhazia to a more complete degree, this brief analysis will be concentric upon discussing the history of Abkhazia, analyzing whether or not it has any state claim, or a state within a state for that matter, as well as the particular situation that exists within Abkhazia within the present time.

Like so many of the other ethnic groups within the region of the South Caucuses, the ethnic definition of the “state of Abkhazia” quite literally has a direct connotation to the land of the “Land of the Apsians”; the racial and ethnic identifier that the individuals who reside within the bounds of Abkhazia utilize to denote themselves as compared to the Ossetians to the east, Russians to the north and the Georgians and Armenians to the South (Harzl, 2011). Within such an ethnic interpretation of what defines Abkhazia, the reader can quickly come to understand how the conflict which played out in 2008 was ultimately fomented and furthered. Abkhazia, as with so many other ethnic communities within this region has been incorporated in a litany of different countries throughout history, including: Imperial Russia, the Ottoman Empire, the Soviet Union, and ancient manifestations of the nation of Georgia. As a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Abkhazia was lumped in alongside the Republic of Georgia; thereby denoting that the majority of individuals that fell within the confines of the Republic of Georgia would be ethnically Georgian with a minority Abkhazians as well as other ethnic groups. Recent developments within the region have been defined by a veritable back and forth between Abkhazian separatists, oftentimes aligned with radical Islamic support, and the government forces of the Republic of Georgia – seeking to bring a level of control over an otherwise rebellious and restive region (Kabachnik, 2012).

However, all of this changed with the 2008 Russian Georgian war that placed Abkhazia as well as certain other parts of previously held Georgian territory within the grip of their native people; or by proxy within the firm grip of the Russian Federation and its forces. Currently, the Russian Federation, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Nauru, as well as the unrecognized states of South Ossetia, and Transnistria have all recognized Abkhazia as an independent state. However, the remainder of the world has refused such a gesture because the territory was carved out of an existing state by force by the intervention of a third-party nation. As such, although certain proxies of the Russian Federation currently promote an appreciation for the statehood of Abkhazia, it is highly doubtful that the remainder of the world will be integrating with a new approach to the status of Abkhazia anytime within the near future (Cooley & Mitchell, 2010). Instead, the region itself will likely serve to be the instigation of another regional conflict within the coming years as key interests of the United States, Turkey, and the Russian Federation are all represented within this particular region of the world; not to mention the integrity and pride that the sovereign state of the Republic of Georgia has lost as a result of having this region wrested from its control. Although it would be a gross over implication to state that the entire Georgian/Russian conflict was concentric upon ethnic strife, it would also be remiss of this analysis not to at least tangentially mentioning the power that the Russian Federation hopes to exercise within the region both as a function of future and proposed oil/gas pipelines as well as with regards to ingratiating itself with yet another Black Sea port in which it can harbor its already tightly constrained naval forces.