The North Caucasus: Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia

**Cliff** · 02-10-2011

An interesting Op-ed article on the Guardian's web site, by way of World Politics Review's Media Roundup.

Basic gist of the article is that Putin's heavy-handed approach has caused the Chechen insurgency to metastize and spread. Definitely seems like they are not using classic counterinsurgency tactics.

I'm curious to hear what our learned folks here think.

V/R,

Cliff

**Dayuhan** · 02-10-2011

They seem to be using classic Russian counterinsurgency tactics.

Leo Tolstoy's short novel The Raid is well worth a read when seeking perspective on Chechnya. Plus c'est la change...

**kotkinjs1** · 02-10-2011

yeah - he should obviously learn from us in Afghanistan. Our use of "classic counterinsurgency techniques" is winning the war over here, didn't he realize? There's no metastisizing or spreading here.

**bourbon** · 02-11-2011

In the eyes of Putin and the Siloviki, Chechen nationalism was a concrete threat to Russia and the Jihadis were an abstract threat and a useful tool.

The nationalists defeated the Russian Army in the First Chechen War achieving de facto independence, and had legitimacy in the eyes of the international world. The Siloviki were convinced of foreign meddling in the conflict, and viewed the issue in the context of a greater process of the fracture and disintegration of the Russian Federation.

You let one tribe go free and soon all the others will want independence. As go the Chechens, so go the Ingush…the Dagestanis…the Karachays…etc. Then goes the North Caucasus, and much of Russia’s access to the Caspian.

To Putin and company it is about keeping and maintaining control. The Jihadis are the cost of defeating the Chechen nationalist movement and maintaining control. The loss of innocent life - both ethnic Russian and Caucasian, does not factor into their decision making.