Tension is mounting around the Black Sea following Russia’s recognition of two Georgian regions, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, as independent states.  

Russia said its navy was monitoring ”the build-up of NATO forces in the Black Sea area” as the U.S. Navy shipped humanitarian supplies to Georgia on Wednesday.

In a move that could further aggravate Russia, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said he wanted to discuss charging Russia more for the lease of a naval base in the Crimean port of Sevastopol, which is part of Ukraine.   

Ukrainian leaders say they fear they might be next on Russia’s hit list, a concern echoed by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner. He told France’s Europe 1 radio: ”I repeat that it is very dangerous, and there are other objectives that one can suppose are objectives for Russia, in particular the Crimea, Ukraine and Moldova.”

Analysts say the Crimea region, in southern Ukraine, could be used by Russia to destabilise Ukraine. Not only does it host Russia’s Black Sea fleet, but the majority of people living there are ethnic Russians.                                                            

It would not be the first time Crimea has been at the heart of a war. The territory has been conquered many times and has been controlled by people including Goths, Huns, Bulgars and Greeks. 

The Russian Empire lost the Crimean War of 1854-1856 against an alliance of France, Britain, the Kingdom of Sardinia and the Ottoman Empire but the war is regarded by many Russians as a glorious defeat.

Crimea was again the scene of heavy fighting during World War Two, when it was occupied by Nazi Germany and Sevastopol was under siege from October 1941 until it succumbed in July 1942. Its resistance is regarded by many Russians as a heroic struggle against the odds.

Eighteenth-century Empress Catherine the Great built the neo-classical port at Sevastopol to house the Russian Navy after taking decades to conquer the Crimean region. The pride and joy of the Russian military, the region was granted to the Ukrainian Soviet Republic in 1954. After the Soviet Union fell, Moscow was forced to lease the harbour space under a deal that expires in 2017. 

Could this region — a popular holiday destination because of its green mountains, deep-blue sea and sunny climate — really be at the heart of a new war as Ukraine seeks membership of NATO and the European Union?

Ukrainian politicians say Russia’s actions in Georgia are unacceptable and they fear the worst. ”What has happened is a threat to everyone, not just for one country. Any nation could be next, any country. When we allow someone to ignore the fundamental right of territorial integrity, we put into doubt the existence of any country,” Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said on Wednesday.  

Moscow says Ukrainian politicians are trying to antagonise Moscow. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin accused Kiev on Wednesday of stirring tensions and hinted that some politicians wanted to trigger a tough response from Moscow to boost their own standing. ”This is a cynical and dangerous game,” he said.  

Political analysts acknowledge tensions are running high but say there is good cause to hope conflict can be avoided. ”There is a reason to be wary in the short-term future, there is a threat in that Ukraine is similar to Georgia in terms of what has happened in recent years,” said one analyst, Oleksander Dergachev. ”But I find it difficult to think that the threat posed is a military one. Russia relies on the fact that it has more of an influence over Ukraine economically.”
       

Russia’s bear-paw swipe at Georgia has got many people drawing comparisons with the Cold War, but personally I like to look for parallels in the 19th century.

At the time the faultlines between Russian and British imperial interests ran from the Balkans through the Crimea and the Caucasus to Central Asia and Afghanistan. That is remarkably similar to some of the faultlines creating upheavals today.  

Angered by western support for the independence of Kosovo in the Balkans, Russia is at loggerheads with NATO over Georgia in the Caucasus.  The row over Georgia has raised fears Russia may halt vital transit of NATO cargoes to Afghanistan – though this has been denied by Moscow – threatening the U.S.-led campaign against al Qaeda and the Taliban. Such is the geographical sweep of the world’s problems, that British commentator Simon Jenkins even suggested we may be drifting towards a new global war.

So what are the lessons of history? And what can we learn about what Russia’s motives really are in the current crisis?

According to Lawrence James’s history of the British Raj, the Russians in the 19th century were experts at applying in war and diplomacy a technique adapted from a chess manoeuvre known as a “Maskirovka”. This aims to deceive your opponent into expecting an attack in one place in order to gain strategic advantage elsewhere. In particular, he says, they tried to trick the British into fearing a Russian invasion of India to divert their attention so that Russia itself could focus on securing its European flank.

The Russians considered this gambit during the Crimean war when Britain and its allies fought Russia for control of the Black Sea (the scene of tensions today between U.S. and Russian ships off the Georgian coast) — eventually driving the Russians out of the port of Sebastopol in 1855 (now known as Sevastopol in Ukraine and leased to Moscow as the base of its Black Sea fleet).  It seems history has a way of repeating itself when it comes to choosing its faultlines. 

They tried it 20 years later, prompting Britain to invade Afghanistan in 1878 to secure a buffer state between Russia and India. It was Britain’s second attempt to take over Afghanistan and like its earlier invasion from British India ended in humiliation and defeat. But then history has repeated itself so often when it comes to unsuccessful invasions of Afghanistan that it’s a wonder that any foreign army would choose to set foot in the country ever again.

Reading between the lines of James’s account, it’s easy to reach the conclusion that western powers — from the old British empire to the United States of today – have so consistently underestimated Russia’s sense of vulnerability on its European flank that they have misread the signals on other fronts to the point of making foolish counter-moves of their own. Indeed James says one of the few rulers of British India not to have fallen for Maskirovka adopted a policy of “masterly inactivity”.

Perhaps time to take a long hard look at what matters to Russia, and to work out what it is trying to achieve, rather than interpreting its every move as a potential step towards a new Cold War?

The Caucasus tinderbox is alight again. How far will the flames spread this time and what can the outside world - the United States, the European Union, NATO - do to extinguish them?

The strategic significance of this mountainous region stretches back through history.

To the west lies the Black Sea, to the east the Caspian, to the south the Mediterranean, Iran and Turkey.

In the past Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan and the Russian tsars struggled to control its trade routes. Today Russia and the West are competing for influence over its energy pipelines carrying Caspian oil to world markets.

The Caucasus’ blue mountains and fiercely independent people have caught the imagination of Russian writers, Lermontov and Tolstoy. It has created only headaches for political leaders.

Georgia’s pro-Russian breakaway region South Ossetia is the latest battle ground in a long-running conflict.

Will the fighting, involving Russian and Georgian troops end there, or will another of Georgia’s breakaway regions Abkhazia seize the opportunity to press its claim for autonomy?

And what of Chechnya, a thorn in Russia’s side for nearly two centuries. Moscow sent in the troops to bring Chechnya to heel in 1994 and again in 1999. Will it try again to free itself of Moscow’s influence?

And what can the international community do to end the fighting. Dependent on Russian oil and gas, Europe has little or no room for manouevre. The United States has provided vocal backing of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, but he would be misguided to expect more. So who can put out the flames?