RUSSIA’S SECOND CHECHEN WAR:
TEN ASSUMPTIONS IN SEARCH OF A POLICY

Gail W. Lapidus

---

Gail W. LAPIDUS, Senior fellow, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Institute for International Studies, Stanford University (U.S.A.).

---

Introduction

The military campaign unleashed in Chechnya in September 1999 was portrayed by the Russian leadership as a limited and carefully targeted counter-terrorist operation aimed at eliminating the threat to Russia posed by ‘international terrorism’. In a 14 November article in the New York Times, then Prime Minister Putin sought to deflect American criticism of Russian actions and to win acquiescence, if not sympathy, by likening Russia’s effort in Chechnya to US anti-terrorist actions. The Russian military, he insisted, had chosen ‘accurately targeted strikes on specifically identified terrorist bases’ to avoid direct attacks on Chechen communities.¹

But the radical discrepancy between the initial rationale and the actual conduct of the campaign makes it clear that what we are seeing is in fact a deliberate resumption of the 1994–96 war by the Russian Government—and a unilateral abrogation of the agreements that terminated it—now pursued with even greater determination and brutality, with even less regard for civilian casualties, and with a more sophisticated military and public relations strategy. What was labelled a ‘counter-terrorist operation’ to restore law and order to the republic has expanded into a full-scale war involving over 100 000 Russian troops in an effort to resolve Chechnya’s political status by force. It also aimed at avenging a succession of humiliating military defeats by bringing the republic under complete Russian control at any cost. As Major-General Vladimir Shamanov, then commander of Russian forces in western Chechnya put it, ‘for me this war is above all to restore the trampled-upon honor of my motherland’.²

Not only is there a massive chasm between the professed aims of the campaign and its actual conduct; there appears to be a major disconnect between the real problems of the region and the Russian Government’s response. Indeed, the attempt at military subjugation and occupation of Chechnya by Russian forces is likely to exacerbate rather than solve the deeper problems of the Northern Caucasus. While it is difficult to fathom from public pronouncements the underlying expectations and beliefs that actually animated Russian decision making, Moscow’s approach appears to be driven by a series of flawed assumptions about the sources of the problems, the measures needed to deal with them, and their likely results.

My analysis here focuses on three broad issues: (a) the challenge facing Moscow in Chechnya more broadly, and in particular why the opportunity for a political solution of the conflict afforded by the Khasaviurt and other peace agreements was squandered; (b) the assumptions that appear to underlie the actions of the Russian Government and why some of these assumptions appear to be questionable; and (c) the prospects for a political resolution of the conflict and for establishing longer-term peace and stability in the region.

The sources of conflict

Notwithstanding efforts to frame the current conflict as a struggle against terrorism, the war in Chechnya is fundamentally an ethno-political conflict over Chechnya’s political status. Although shaped by a long history of stubborn Chechen resistance to Russian and Soviet rule, and by the bitter legacy of Stalin’s ethnic cleansing and deportations of the Chechen population in 1944, the current conflict is largely a product of the broader process of economic and political liberalization that accompanied Gorbachev’s reforms and that culminated in the dissolution of the USSR. The emergence of national movements that adopted anti-imperial discourses and linked demands for political democratization with calls for republic sovereignty and, in some cases, outright independence was not confined to the 15 Union republics of the USSR; autonomous republics in Georgia, Azerbaijan and in the Russian Federation itself also engaged in efforts to elevate their status. These demands came to focus on the claim to ‘sovereignty’, a vague and highly elastic term in Soviet usage, but one that was enthusiastically embraced by republic after republic in 1990, including the Russian republic itself in June 1990. When in November 1990 the Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic issued a Declaration of State Sovereignty, it was merely one additional manifestation of a broader trend.

Without recapitulating here the whole sequence of events that led to the Russo-Chechen war of 1994–96,³ the failure to find a political solution to the conflict was the result of intra-elite conflict as well as a chaotic policy-making process in both Moscow and Grozny. As a number of knowledgeable Russian analysts and political actors have confirmed, a variety of possible avenues for achieving a political resolution of the conflict were not seriously explored or utilized by Moscow before the resort to military force. By 1996, however, in the context of Presidential elections in which Boris Yeltsin risked defeat, the inability to achieve a military victory combined with widespread public opposition to the war to compel a negotiated solution.

The Khasaviurt Agreement of August 1996, the competitive and internationally monitored Presidential elections of January 1997, and the Treaty on Peace and the Principles of Mutual Relations between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria signed in May 1997 appeared to offer a promising foundation for resolution of the conflict. They postponed the contentious issue of Chechnya’s status for 5 years, creating time and opportunity for innovative approaches.⁴ They established a moderate and internationally legitimate government in Chechnya under President Aslan Maskhadov, committed to working with Russia; and they encompassed a variety of economic agreements that acknowledged the importance of continuing economic and political ties between the two signatories and committed the Russian Government to contribute to the reconstruction of Chechnya’s devastated infrastructure. Had these undertakings been carried out in good faith by the Russian side, they might well have helped stabilize the political situation, alleviate the desperate socioeconomic condition of Chechnya, provide employment opportunities for the large numbers of impoverished and alienated youth, and contribute to re-integrating or marginalizing radical political and military forces.⁵

But the opportunity was squandered. Engulfed by a mounting economic crisis, Moscow was unwilling or unable to marshal the substantial resources needed to reconstruct the devastated infrastructure of the republic and to provide the opportunities for gainful employment that was a key to stabilization. Rampant corruption swallowed up whatever modest funds were directed to the region. Moscow was unwilling to turn to foreign sources for assistance. Influential political and military figures portrayed the peace agreements as a humiliation rather than an opportunity; Maskhadov’s legitimacy was questioned and his authority was undercut; international involvement was denigrated as an infringement of Russian sovereignty; and the OSCE Assistance Group, which had played an enormously constructive role in facilitating negotiations, was pushed aside. These developments in turn contributed to further deterioration of the internal situation in Chechnya and further radicalization. Elite conflicts threatened to erupt into civil war, criminal activities and hostage-taking became a means of survival, and Chechen society began to disintegrate into general lawlessness and anarchy despite the efforts of President Maskhadov to preserve some degree of order and avert open conflict.

The Russian Government’s renewed resort to massive military force in August 1999 was an undiscriminating and disproportionate response to two crises: two incursions from Chechen territory into Dagestan by armed militants (many of them Dagestanis) in support of Islamist insurgents there, incursions which were neither supported nor approved by the Maskhadov government or by the Chechen population more broadly; and several bombings of apartment buildings in Moscow and Volgodonsk which were immediately blamed on Chechen terrorists without any convincing evidence to support the allegations. Playing on the fears of the Russian population, and following up on military assaults on Wahhabi villages in Dagestan, the government seized on the opportunity to launch a full-scale military attack on Chechnya, repudiating the Khasaviurt Agreement, denouncing the Maskhadov government as a criminal regime (much as it had earlier denounced the Dudaev government) and refusing to engage in any negotiations. The military assault was initially portrayed as a targeted attack on armed terrorist formations, but its scope progressively broadened. Whether by design from the start or as a product of ‘mission creep’, the objectives progressively escalated: from the creation of a ‘cordon sanitaire’, to military occupation of northern Chechnya up to the Terek River, to a massive military campaign across the entire territory of Chechnya without any clear political end-game. It has involved artillery and air bombardment of civilian settlements and populations, the destruction of the city of Grozny as well as of most of the republic’s infrastructure, and the flight of over 200 000 refugees to Ingushetia. It has also been accompanied by tight control over the media and an effort to downplay casualties so as to capitalize on public support, minimize protest and promote Vladimir Putin’s presidential bid.

Ten questionable assumptions

It is difficult to fathom the underlying assumptions and beliefs that actually animated Russian policy because of the multiplicity of actors and aims, and the extent to which public pronouncements were carefully scripted to influence domestic and international opinion. But Russian behaviour appears to be motivated by a series of questionable assumptions and expectations that deserve closer examination.

1. Invoking a ‘domino theory’ of Russian disintegration

An underlying assumption of Russia’s policies toward Chechnya appears to be a version of the ‘domino theory’, according to which sovereignty or independence for Chechnya would set off a chain reaction of separatist claims and result in the disintegration of the Russian Federation itself. While understandable, this assumption is highly questionable. Clearly, the dissolution of the USSR in 1991 along the lines of its former Union republics has created considerable anxiety among Russian elites that Russia itself is similarly vulnerable to disintegration, despite the very fundamental differences in the ethno-political structure and policies of the two systems.⁶ Moreover, the often chaotic and uncontrolled devolution of power to regions and republics that has accompanied the shift from a unitary to a more genuinely federal system has been highly unsettling to many political actors accustomed to the extreme centralization of power and uniformity of the Soviet system. Although the real power of federal subjects is more limited than is typically true of federal systems elsewhere, there is a widespread perception in Russia that they have become ‘appanage principalities’, virtually independent of central control. Deeply-ingrained conceptions of hierarchy and control, and the tendency to view centre–periphery relations as a zero-sum game, result in the tendency to equate decentralization and federalism with disorder. President Putin’s preoccupation with reasserting state power, and his efforts to sharply rein in the powers of regional leaders, reflects this predilection for a pyramidal and hierarchically organized form of state power. Against this background, Chechnya is feared as a heretical model and a catalyst for disintegration.

Nonetheless, the evidence suggests that Chechnya is not a domino but an exception. Its assertion of sovereignty reflects a combination of circumstances—historical, cultural, ethno-political and geopolitical—which are unique to Chechnya and unlikely to recur elsewhere. It should be recalled that only two of Russia’s republics—Chechnya and Tatarstan—refused to sign the 1993 Federation Treaty or hold a vote on the proposed Constitution. After protracted and difficult negotiations, Tatarstan ultimately signed a bilateral treaty with Moscow providing for a more substantial degree of economic and political autonomy than that enjoyed by most other republics.⁷ But the widespread popular support for economic and political sovereignty in the regions as well as republics of the Russian Federation reflects not so much separatist tendencies as a struggle for resources and a desire for greater control over local affairs.⁸ While the Northern Caucasus remains a distinctive and particularly volatile region, the fundamental challenges of that region involve socioeconomic crisis and the high potential for ethnic conflict and violence rather than separatism. There is little evidence elsewhere of either strong political support for Chechnya or of interest in following in its footsteps.

2. Framing ethno-political conflict as a campaign against organized terrorism

The Russian Government has sought to clothe what is essentially an anti-Chechen war in anti-terrorist garb. Presenting the military intervention in Chechnya as a struggle against terrorism is an effort to gloss over the central underlying issue in Russian–Chechen relations: contending views of the political status of Chechnya and of the proper methods for deciding it. By ignoring the whole historical legacy of Russian–Chechen relations, including the deportations and ethnic cleansing of 1944, and by framing Russian military actions as a limited and targeted campaign to eliminate armed terrorism, the Russian leadership sought to disguise what is essentially an effort to bring Chechnya under Russian control, using the kind of military force and occupation usually reserved for foreign enemies. As Berkeley scholar Johanna Nichols has put it, ‘for the second time in a decade and the third time in half a century, Chechen society has been utterly ruined by a government that claims it as part of its citizenry’.⁹

This approach also involves conflating and stereotyping as ‘Chechen terrorism’ a variety of different interests and groups not confined to Chechnya and many of them linked to and entwined with Russian counterparts. Paramilitary organizations, Wahhabis, Islamist radicals, kidnapping gangs, arms traders, drug traders, most of them distinct from and in opposition to the Chechen government and many of whom are linked to Russian organized crime, as well as to the Russian military, are all lumped together as manifestations of Chechen criminality and banditry.

Unquestionably, the already-difficult situation within the republic had deteriorated further after the 1994–96 war ended. The government’s authority eroded amidst growing factional conflicts and the proliferation of criminal groups and paramilitary organizations, and lawlessness and violence grew. The classic strategy for dealing with such situations is to strengthen the role of legitimate authorities and to seek to marginalize extremist groups and deprive them of social support. Large-scale intervention and occupation by regular armed forces is hardly a suitable approach to such problems.

3. Assuming terrorist groups can be targeted without incurring massive civilian casualties and destruction

The assumption that large-scale military forces can be employed in an anti-terrorist campaign without necessarily incurring massive civilian casualties and the destruction of civilian infrastructure has proven to be equally unfounded. Military repertoires developed for use against foreign enemies are being employed within what is claimed as Russian territory, and against Russian citizens, with devastating consequences. Civilian populations have become the target of air and artillery bombardment as entire settlements are destroyed to eliminate cover for small numbers of militants. The virtually total destruction of Grozny was the result of an ultimately unsuccessful effort to rout out guerrilla forces operating in the city.

Moreover, the very nature of guerrilla warfare makes it difficult to differentiate between fighters and non-combatants. In an atmosphere of insecurity and fear where Russian forces are likely to view virtually any Chechen with suspicion, brutal treatment of civilians is legitimized as a form of self-defence. The notorious filtration camps are only one example.

This approach has created a vicious circle in which growing numbers of civilian casualties, destruction and refugees push ever more people to join the fight against Russian forces, with the prospect of continuing partisan warfare in the years ahead.

Moreover, the problem extends far beyond the borders of Chechnya itself. One of the terrible consequences of the campaign against terrorism, as well as of the war itself—has been the stereotyping, dehumanizing and demonizing of Caucasians generally, of Islam and Muslims within the Russian Federation (especially after the Afghan experience), and of Chechens in particular. In cities like Moscow, popular hostility has been given official sanction in campaigns to expel from the city persons ‘of Caucasian appearance’ fuelling widespread suspicion and discrimination, and arbitrary seizures and shakedowns of suspects. This hostile atmosphere contributes to the further alienation of the targeted groups.

4. Evading the key challenge: the socioeconomic crisis of the region

The preoccupation of Russian authorities with combating terrorism and lawlessness in Chechnya both minimizes and diverts attention from the central problem of the whole region: the acute socioeconomic crisis which has engulfed it, and the failure to develop a coherent strategy for alleviating it. Not only is this region the most economically depressed of the Russian Federation, with poverty levels greater than is typical of Russia as a whole; massive unemployment, combined with high birth rates, has created a population of young males with few prospects for the future. Add to this the devastation of economic infrastructure and the social destabilization created by the first war and you have a highly explosive mix of challenges. The failure of the Russian Government to take effective measures to deal with these problems, even in republics such as Dagestan and Ingushetia which do not challenge Moscow’s authority, does not augur well for the future of Chechnya, or of the region as a whole.

5. Assuming the Chechen population welcomes Russian forces as guarantor of peace and stability

The Russian Government appeared to expect that the Russian occupation forces and administration would be welcomed as liberators by the Chechen population, and that they would be viewed as restorers of peace, stability and normal life. But these expectations have not been borne out. Whatever the attitude of the population toward the boeviki, the high civilian casualties and destruction which accompanied the Russian military assault, and the abusive behaviour of the Russian forces toward the civilian population—including cold-blooded murders, rape and looting—has created or intensified a chasm of distrust between the Russian forces and the civilian population.¹⁰

Even so astute a political analyst as Alexei Arbatov apparently shared these assumptions prior to a visit to Chechnya with other members of a parliamentary delegation. On his return, he frankly acknowledged his disappointment:

‘. . . I expected the local population, sick and tired of the fighters’ arbitrary actions, lawlessness and their own helplessness, would be more loyal to the federal forces, which are actually fighting to liberate them. . . . Regrettably, this is not true for Chechnya. There are virtually no contacts vital for the gradual transition from war to peace. Of course, there is a measure of collaboration in the commandants’ offices and administrations restored in the liberated regions. But the general masses are openly antagonistic.’¹¹

Recent decisions to permanently station a major military contingent in the Northern Caucasus is a clear indication that Russian interior forces will be unable to control the situation unaided. It remains unclear how they will win the loyalty of an increasingly embittered population. Thus Russian actions have further undermined the possibility of drawing the majority of the Chechen population into support for and cooperation with Russia, and of making the Russian Federation a country they want to be part of.

6. Stigmatizing Islam and treating Islamic radicalism as the core of the problem

For many Russians, perceptions of the war in Chechnya are undoubtedly coloured by the earlier Soviet experience in Afghanistan. While the two conflicts differed in many particulars (for one, Afghanistan was outside the country’s borders), the war in Chechnya has been similarly portrayed as a fight against Islamic radicalism, against a transnational terrorist conspiracy imported and sustained from abroad. What is often neglected is the way in which the deterioration of conditions in Chechnya and the Northern Caucasus are in part a ‘backlash’ from the Soviet war in Afghanistan, which crystallized anti-Russian sentiment among Muslims and contributed to the broader spread of weapons and drugs in the region.

Moreover, the broad and indiscriminate references to ‘Wahhabism’ to stigmatize a number of different religious and political currents embracing Islamic revival is likely to be counterproductive, and to promote the political crystallization of amorphous forms of religious and social protest. Islamist groups are in fact relatively weak in the region, and are largely concentrated in Dagestan. Like other radical movements, they feed on extreme poverty, inequality, and corruption, moving to fill a moral vacuum in which traditional political and religious elites have lost their legitimacy. Advocates of introducing Islamic law (Shari’ah) in Chechnya and Dagestan as well as elsewhere often see it as an effort to impose order and social discipline in conditions of social disintegration. The emergence of these groups in Chechnya was accelerated by the devastation and impoverishment of the 1994–96 war, the destruction of the economic and social fabric, and Moscow’s failure to develop a strategy to alleviate the region’s severe socioeconomic crisis. The discipline and courage of Islamist fighters such as Shamil Basaev in defending Chechnya in the 1994–96 war further burnished their image. To the extent that these currents challenge traditional Caucasian and Chechen norms and customs, however, they have thus far failed to attract widespread popular support. Indeed, it is the effort to violently repress these movements that may well generate greater popular sympathy for them.

As in the case of Afghanistan, Moscow’s assumption that a military campaign would strike a heavy blow against Islamic radicalism has been erroneous. In fact, the Russian operation has begun to turn what began as a Chechen national movement into a rallying point for Islamist radicalism. At the same time, Moscow has been exaggerating the involvement of outside actors, blaming ‘international terrorism’ for the resistance. Ironically, as in the case of Afghanistan, Russian behaviour has been increasingly attracting militants from elsewhere in the Muslim world to join the struggle in Chechnya, although their numbers are in fact extremely limited and some have roots in, or family connections to, the region. It is worth recalling that Dudaev originally envisioned Ichkeria as a secular liberal republic, as spelled out in its first constitution, and it was his disappointment with the lack of support from the West that led him to turn increasingly toward Islam as the basis for state and nation-building. It is worth noting that the war in Bosnia attracted increasing numbers of militants from the Muslim world until Western support and involvement halted and reversed this trend, returning Bosnia toward the goal of building a secular multiethnic state.

7. Assuming Moscow can create an effective alternative to the Maskhadov government

At least some segments of the Russian political and military leadership appear to have believed that attacking and discrediting the Maskhadov government would clear the way to installing a pro-Moscow government in Grozny that could then serve as a loyal negotiating partner and facilitate a resolution of the conflict on Moscow’s terms. Maskhadov, it was alleged, had too little control over the situation to be an effective negotiating partner. Moreover, his refusal to accept Moscow’s preconditions for negotiation—preconditions which would have amounted to the unilateral disarmament and surrender of Chechnya—was cited as evidence of complicity with the militants, although it is clear that Maskhadov was engaged in a struggle against more radical figures such as Shamil Basaev and Movladi Udugov even as he sought to forestall open conflict and civil war in the republic.¹²

The refusal to acknowledge the complex political situation in which Maskhadov was compelled to operate, and to cooperate in strengthening his position rather than seeking to undermine it, undermined the prospects for a political solution and indicated that Moscow was seeking not an opportunity for negotiations but an excuse for rejecting them, and for imposing its position unilaterally without serious bridge-building to Chechen society.

In fact, it has proven impossible to come up with an acceptable alternative: a figure trusted by Moscow and at the same time able to win the support of a substantial part of Chechnya’s population. Indeed, such a figure would be widely viewed as a quisling in current circumstances, and could survive in office only under the constant protection of Russian forces. The recent decision to abrogate elections in Chechnya and place it under direct Presidential rule is in fact an acknowledgment that Moscow is unable to come up with an authentic Chechen figure who could head a viable pro-Moscow government in Grozny, and fears that local elections will confer legitimacy on a variety of leaders whose loyalty to Moscow is suspect. The recent appointment of Mufti Kadyrov is, in effect, an effort to create a fig leaf of authenticity around what is de facto an occupation regime.

8. Assuming that international involvement is a threat to Russian interests

In both conflicts, Russian responses to foreign criticism and proposals have revealed a good deal of suspicion about Western motives and interests. Notwithstanding the fact that the international community has accepted and endorsed Russia’s right to defend its territorial integrity, and has tended to limit criticism to the methods being used, various authoritative Russian political figures have been highly defensive in regard to the scope of Russian sovereignty and territorial integrity, and have sought to define sovereignty exclusively in terms of Russia’s rights, ignoring the concomitant responsibility of states to treat their citizens in accordance with international norms.¹³ Operating with an atavistic mindset that sees all international involvement as unwarranted, unhelpful and suspect (despite Russia’s acceptance of various international instruments and treaty commitments, from the 1975 CSCE Helsinki accord to the recent OSCE Budapest and Istanbul declarations), they see efforts at Western involvement as seeking to whittle away at, or even undermine, Russia’s power in the Northern Caucasus, rather than as a potentially useful contribution to conflict resolution and a prelude to the much-needed reconstruction and stabilization of the region. Fears of alleged Western plans to establish strategic bases in the Caucasus likewise reflect traditional zero-sum thinking, according to which the West is an adversary rather than a partner and its aims are bound to have negative consequences for Russia. This attitude has even extended to the OSCE, which Russia has itself sought to establish as the pre-eminent security structure in Eurasia and which played an enormously constructive role in the earlier war in promoting a political solution to the conflict. The exclusion of the OSCE Assistance Group from any further role in mediation after the 1997 accords—as well as the rejection of a whole series of proposals for mediation between Moscow and Grozny by other international agencies and actors—suggests that Moscow does not welcome greater transparency in its discussions with Chechen representatives, nor does it wish to find a political solution to the Chechen conundrum on other than its own terms.¹⁴

9. Assuming the benefits of military action outweigh the long-term costs

Russian strategic planners clearly assumed that the gains that would flow from a military victory in Chechnya were bound to outweigh the costs—including the collateral damage—of such an operation. While many of the costs can hardly be quantified, it is obvious to an outside observer that this was a gross misjudgment.

For Chechnya and the Chechen civilian population, their very physical, social and cultural survival is at risk; the area has suffered a massive devastation of its infrastructure; its capital city of Grozny has been destroyed beyond belief; more than 200 000 refugees have fled into neighbouring republics; the entire area is in the grip of a profound socioeconomic crisis; Chechens have been the objects of vicious stigmatizing and stereotyping; and the behaviour of Russians has engendered a longer-term hostility and resentment that will last for generations, embittering relations between Russians and Chechens and creating one more obstacle to reconciliation.

The costs to the entire region of the Northern Caucasus include not only widespread dislocation but also increased sociopolitical instability, an upsurge of Muslim radicalism; and a heightened perception of Russian brutality.

The costs to Russia have been—and continue to be—both economic and political. It has been estimated that the operation, including personnel, weapons and equipment, in direct expenditures, costs some 2.5 billion rubles per month (US$262 million).¹⁵ Military casualties are roughly comparable to those incurred during a similar period during the first war. Less tangible but no less serious have been the costs to Russia’s commitment to democratic institutions and practices, a commitment which is increasingly questioned both at home and abroad. The war has been accompanied by serious constraints on the freedom of the press and the media more broadly, and by punitive actions against individual journalists and media groups that present truthful but unsanctioned accounts of the war. The conduct of the war has provoked international condemnation for its massive violations of human rights, and indeed flagrant disregard for a whole range of international norms, from the Geneva Convention and the Helsinki accords to violations of CFE and OSCE agreements, prompting a decision by the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly to suspend Russia’s voting rights in the body.

Russia’s federal system is also called into question by the treatment of Chechnya. Moscow’s effort to liquidate a legitimately elected government, to use military force rather than political negotiations to establish control over one of its constituent units, to replace elected officials by direct rule from Moscow, and to impose draconian constraints on freedom of speech and press—none of which is envisioned in the Russian Constitution—violate the very notion of government by consent of the governed. The war has further eroded Russia’s international standing and raised increasingly serious questions about its role as a partner in European stability and security.

10. Assuming that the demonstration of Russian power will increase regional influence

By presenting Russian forces as a bulwark against international terrorism, Moscow’s decision makers hoped to reverse the widespread perception of Russian weakness and to restore Russia’s status as a great and influential power. In particular, they expected that the Chechen campaign would serve to reassert Russian influence on the former Soviet republics, particularly in the Caucasus and Central Asia, and to halt or reverse the perceived erosion of Russia’s position in the region. By demonstrating their considerable capacity to control developments in the arc from Armenia to Uzbekistan, Russian policy makers—and particularly military leaders—hoped to persuade their neighbours that Moscow was at once a powerful force to be reckoned with, an ally in the struggle against terrorism, and a more reliable security partner than the distant states of Europe and the United States.

Whether the war in Chechnya will contribute to the consolidation of the CIS under Russian leadership, and the strengthening of Russia’s role in the region, remains an open question. While several states, for reasons of their own entirely unrelated to the Chechen war, look to Russia for support in the pursuit of their own policies, the image of Russians engaged in brutal combat in Chechnya and incurring the criticism and disapproval of the international community has encouraged others to distance themselves still further and to strengthen their ties to the West. While the absence of effective Western assistance to Chechnya has increased their need for more clever diplomacy in dealing with Moscow, the war has further eroded the image of post-Communist Russia as a benign and democratizing country distancing itself from the Soviet past.

Conclusion

It is hard to foresee how current Russian policies could bring about a stable and peaceful Chechnya. As long as Russian forces view themselves, and are viewed by the local population, as an occupying force, guerrilla fighting and sporadic attacks on them will continue; the establishment of a popularly-accepted authority will be problematic at best; and Chechen refugees in the hundreds of thousands are likely to remain once more outside their homeland.

A year ago it might have been possible to outline an array of policies capable of beginning to normalize the life of Chechen society, restore the infrastructure of urban life, promote investment in the republic’s economy and provide new employment opportunities, and rebuild public health and education. Indeed, it would even have been possible to contemplate, in partnership with the international community, a serious programme for regional development, a kind of Caucasian Stability Pact.

Not so today or tomorrow. One of the—perhaps unintended—consequences of the second Chechen war is the realization that, at least for the near future, ‘normalization’ in Chechnya has become a chimera. Any tightening of control to promote law and order is apt to provoke a passive or active resistance among the bulk of the population. Any loosening of control to promote loyalty and morale is apt to stimulate not only a revival of local customs but also a wide range of dysfunctional activities, from crime to drug-dealing. Russia is unlikely to commit the massive resources needed for the reconstruction of the republic, and without drastic changes in Russian behaviour, including the restoration of civilian governance and real accountability for the crimes committed during the war, it is unlikely that the international community will be willing to play a substantial role. In addition, in the years ahead Russia is highly unlikely to permit the sort of access for foreign observers or organizations—governmental or NGOs—that would produce the degree of transparency needed to guard against wanton abuses of human rights and the degree of partnership that would facilitate reconstruction assistance.

Thus in Chechnya Russia will face a challenge even greater than the one which provoked the war, and with fewer options and resources to address it.

---

1 New York Times, 14 Nov. 1999.

2 A TV interview with Vladimir Shamanov, reported by York, G., Globe and Mail (Canada), 8 Nov. 1999, as posted by Johnson’s Russia List, no. 3613, 9 Nov. 1999.

3 For an extensive treatment of these events and of the war itself, see Lapidus, G. W., ‘Contested sovereignty: the tragedy of Chechnya’, International Security, vol. 23, no. 1 (summer 1998).

4 Although most discussions of the issue in the Russian media were framed around a stark dichotomy between independence and membership in the Russian Federation, some formula providing for a form of loose association combined with international legal guarantees such as those negotiated for Hong Kong was by no means out of the question. Moreover, as Mikhailov himself has acknowledged, Russian negotiators had never explored what specifically the Chechen side had in mind by ‘sovereignty’. In view of the large Chechen diaspora outside the republic, and the dense network of economic and family ties that linked Chechnya and Russia, open borders and continuing participation in the ruble zone were mutually advantageous.

5 It may well be the case, however, that creative ambiguity—in this case postponing resolution of the status issue—had its own costs. The lack of agreement on Chechnya’s status was itself an obstacle to cooperation on a broad range of economic, political and security issues.

6 For a discussion of basic structural differences between the USSR and the Russian Federation that call into question this parallel, see Lapidus, G. and Walker, E., ‘Nationalism, regionalism and federalism: dilemmas of state-building in post-Communist Russia’, ed. G. Lapidus, The New Russia: Troubled Transformation (Westview, 1994); and Hanson, S. and Alexeev, M. (eds), Federation Imperiled (St. Martin’s Press: New York, 1999).

7 Full independence was not a realistic option for Tatarstan in any case, given its location within the Russian heartland and the absence of any external border.

8 See, e.g., the studies by a team of Russian ethno-sociologists under Leokadia Drobizheva, Asimmetrichnaia federatsiia: vzgliad iz tsentra, respublik i oblastei (Moscow, 1998); and Mendras, M., ‘How regional elites preserve their power,’ Post-Soviet Affairs, vol. 15, no. 4 (Oct.–Dec. 1999).

9 Nichols, J., ‘Guilt and agency in the Russian-Chechen war,’ Contemporary Caucasus Newsletter, no. 9 (spring 2000), p. 11.

10 See, e.g., the reports by such respected organizations as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, based in part on testimony by Chechen refugees in Ingushetia.

11 Interview in Krasnaya zvezda, 10 Mar. 2000.

12 As the peace process in Northern Ireland makes clear, no serious effort at conflict resolution demands demilitarization of one of the parties as a precondition for negotiations. Demilitarization, and the reintegration of militia members into civil society, is rather an outcome of successful peace-building.

13 Emerging norms concerning sovereignty are treated at length in: Deng, F., et al (eds), Sovereignty as Responsibility (Brookings, 1996), and are reflected in recent statements by the United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan.

14 See, e.g., the account by Odd Gunnar Skagestad in this volume.

15 TV interview with Shamanov reported by Geoffrey York in Globe and Mail (Canada), 8 Nov. 1999, as posted by Johnson’s Russia List, no. 3613, 9 Nov. 1999.