Russian Counter-terrorism--Spare Me!

The Geek would enjoy very much standing on the sidelines and watching the recent "anti-terrorism" war game involving Chinese and Russian forces. It would have been more of a hoot than listening to Dick Cheney prognosticate a quick, easy, and cheap victory in Iraq.

And, just as out to lunch.

If the Russians are as good at counter-terrorism as they are at counter-insurgency, Osama bin Ladin and the rest of the merry bomb throwers are absolutely safe.

To be quite blunt, it is the Geek's typically humble opinion that the Russians are so bad at both varieties of military force employment they make the US look good. What the hey, the Russians are so pathetic, they make the Israelis look good at it,

(Pre-emptive strike follows. Before any Israeliphiles out there hyperventilate too much, answer this question for yourselves. If the Israeli Defense and security forces are so good at counter-insurgency, then why are they still doing the job every day forty years after the Six Day War?)

Back when the Russians were the Soviets, the Red Army, NKVD, and the other odious mechanisms at the disposal of the Kremlin could defeat an insurgency. One good example of this is from the closing days of WW II when the "Great Leader and Beloved Teacher" Josef Stalin was running the show. His henchman, Nikita Khrushchev, ramrodded the effort necessary to defeat the Ukrainians who showed displeasure at the return of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat by piling Red Army corpses up in untidy heaps. To shorten a lengthy and very bloody story, Khrushchev created a desert and called it peace.

Stalin approved. He had done the same during the more vigorous days of his youth and rise to power. He had learned a couple of important lessons. It is possible to kill your way to victory. That was lesson number one. Lesson number two was: Don't let word get out about what you're doing.

When outsiders know about what a counter insurgent is doing, it is far less possible to kill your way to victory.

Those pesky folk, those interlopers from the larger world, can impose costs which make the notion of making a desert and calling it peace far less attractive. Not only can they focus diplomatic and economic sanctions, they can provide assistance either covert or open to the insurgents.

There is a second inhibition on the Stalinesque approach of turning whole peoples into corpses. To execute either genocide or ethnic cleansing through population relocation, overwhelming force and enormous resources must be applied quickly and thoroughly. The alternative, too little force, or too much time, assures that the counter insurgent will fall behind the wave. More new insurgents will be created than are removed through death or relocation.

In fairness to historical experience, the second reason has been operative more often in the Russian (and Chinese) experience than the first. It is all too easy for an authoritarian regime to block the word. (Yes, even today. The Internet has a plug. Any government can pull it. Anytime. At least right now.)

The Geek will not bore you with the humorous details of the Soviet debacle in Afghanistan. Suffice it to say that it was not US assistance to the guerrillas that spelled the difference. Nor was it the presence of foreign fighters. Nor was it the simply the determination of the Afghans. Nor, does the Geek believe, was it Allah's will. The Soviets were simply politically and militarily more inept than the US had been in Vietnam. That is saying two or three mouthfuls.

Closer to the Kremlin, the Russians have been facing an insurgency in Chechnya for thirteen years. After numerous assaults (including one by armored units into urban areas which is a recipe for disaster) and boredom with the Chechen war within the West, the Russian Army finally subdued organised resistance and occupied the territory.

Since then the behavior of the Russian Army personnel (and the secret police as well) are of the sort that guarantees a continuation of the insurgency by terroristic means as the recent almost devastating attack on the rail line between Moscow and St. Petersberg shows. If the Geek were to write a list of Things You Must Not Do, If You Want To Win, the Russians can be shown to have violated almost every Thou Must Not.

The troops burgle, assault, rape, and murder with impunity. At least 5,000 rapes by Russian personnel have been reported--not committed, but reported--since 1999. The total number of murdered and disappeared Chechens cannot be estimated accurately. Suffice it to note that the European Court of Human Rights has ruled against Russia no fewer than thirteen times in the past few years. (Stalin must be spinning in his grave. In the old days the word never would have leaked out.) In the most recent decision, the Court ordered the Kremlin to pay 143,000 euros to a village where drunken troops killed fifty-six civilians (none of them of military age and most women or children.)

Lest anyone think the Russians learn from the mistakes of the past, just a few days back in another "counter-terrorist" operation in one more small, rural village, twenty-seven were hospitalised including a woman seven months pregnant and kids less than fifteen years old. There was no definitive word on either the number of dead or the number of terrorists captured.

The humanitarian side of the Geek would like to give some friendly advice to the Russians such as the days of Stalin are past. Creating a wasteland and calling it peace is not a viable option. He will refrain as he hates to waste good advice.

The Russians wouldn't listen. Perhaps they are deaf from the sound of exploding bombs.