摘要：The
recent crisis in Abkhazia reveals a fundamental qualitative change in the
conflict in which the balance among three main actors is shifting, and
increasingly the conflict plays a more important role in the triangular
relations between Georgia, Russia and the West. The search for a new equilibrium
in the conflict, one that would be an optimal outcome for the actors involved,
will require rethinking the mutually constitutive roles (identities) and
interests they want to assume with respect to the conflict and the entire South
Caucasus. This is argued to be a matter of the ‘first order’ with respect to
conflict resolution in Abkhazia, with confidence-building measures and political
status questions representing only a ‘second order’. For Tbilisi and Sukhumi,
such a process may involve resigning the discourse of sovereignty; for Russia,
pondering the costs and benefits of the current ‘hard power’ approach; and for
Western actors, delimiting their interests towards the region and recognizing
the power they possess vis-a-vis Russia’s current weakness.
