On Wed, 17 Apr 2002, ChrisD(RJ) wrote:
> This is what a lot of people in teh West don't get... Chechnya IS
> independent, de facto (or was). In 1996, Russia pulled out its troops,
> cops, almost all the governmental apparatus, everything.
But Chris, wasn't Chechnya de facto independent in 1994, before the first war? I could swear that Anatol Lieven argued (in an article which I can't now locate) that, from a purely rational point of view, the first Chechen war made no sense, especially in view of what happened in coming years, because lots of local rulers achieved de facto independence from Yeltsin's crumbling center, and the Chechens could easily have done the same. But that to the Chechens, the difference between de facto and de jure was enough to go to war over. In which case, they'd still be aggrieved on that score today, no? When they are even less autonomous de jure. Even if it doesn't make sense to us outsiders, they wouldn't be the first nationality who violently rejected broad autonomy because it wasn't total independence.
I'm just asking this to clarify a minor point of fact -- I'm not questioning your larger argument about the Second Chechen war.
Michael