WARNING! The views expressed in FMSO publications and reports are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.
Chechen Nationalism and the Tragedy of the Struggle for Independence by Mr. Lester W. Grau, and Dr. Jacob W. Kipp Foreign Military Studies Office, Fort Leavenworth, KS.
This article was previously published in National Strategy Forum Review Autumn 2000 Volume 10, Issue 1
... Future Prospects for Chechnya
Prudence suggests leaving predictions to tarot card readers, but one can forecast four alternative futures for the Russian-Chechen imbroglio: Chechnya and Russia separate; Russia continues to prosecute a protracted guerrilla war; Russia goes for the knock-out punch expanding the war beyond the borders of Chechnya; or Russian and Chechen leaders seek grounds for a compromise solution that leaves Chechnya autonomous but inside a federated Russia.
Should Russia and Chechnya agree to go their separate ways and Chechnya attains her full independence, Chechnya is likely to revert to the same situation that plagued the land between the 1996 cease fire and the current fighting. Russian intervention is the single unifying factor among most Chechens, and in the absence of a Russian threat, the various Chechen clans will re-establish control over their traditional territory and clash violently over disputed areas. Criminalization of the state and the great game developing over Caspian oil and gas will make foreign intervention more likely.
Russia, on the other hand, will discover if there is truth to the domino principle: that other peoples will take Russia's defeat as a sign to secede as well. The potential dismemberment of Russia would precipitate a major Eurasian crisis that would inevitably draw in neighboring nations and provoke other realignments of peoples and clans.
Should Russia continue to stay and fight it out, she may eke out a costly win. Despite the massive efforts required to win the war and rebuild the area, the Russians may have to re-fight the independence-minded Chechens in fifty years or so. Fighting a civil war over decades will recast the Russian state, society, and armed forces, giving greater power to organs of internal security.
Faced with these two gloomy futures, the Russian leadership might consider expanding the war to inflict a decisive defeat on the Chechen resistance. Chechens now cross into Russian Dagestan and Ingushetia and independent Georgia for medical treatment and supplies. The Chechens currently receive foreign aid (money, weapons, supplies, and warriors) from outside (predominately Islamic) countries. Russia might interfere significantly in the internal affairs of its own republics of Dagestan and Ingushetia by imposing martial law. Russia has conducted air strikes and hot-pursuit ground penetrations on Georgian territory, and could consider mounting a major incursion into Georgia in an attempt to wipe out the Chechen resistance. Such a move might blow the top off the entire region. Outside assistance could mount. Neighboring nations could react militarily and economically to an attack on a sovereign state.
Russians and Chechens deserve a better future. The best possible answer is a political settlement based on the limited ability of each side to impose its will upon the other. However, having mobilized their public opinion against the "enemy," neither leadership now is in a position to engage in serious negotiations. Unfortunately, at this juncture, it doesn't seem to be in the cards.
<http://call.army.mil/fmso/fmsopubs/ISSUES/chechnatism.htm> ***** -- Yoshie
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