For Russia, It's A Case Of Deja Vue All Over Again

The Russians fought two less than spectacularly successful counterinsurgency campaigns in Chechnya. True, the noise level in Chechnya is down a great deal from its high point(s) but, to make up for the quiet affairs, the noise in next door Ingushetia has grown much louder.

In both places the cause of the noise is Islamism combined with the effects of systematically suppressed nationalism. Either Islamist jihadism or nationalism by itself would not have been sufficient to raise the festering political alienation of the ethnic majorities to the level of insurgency, but together these factors did the job. And, did it well.

The Republic of Ingushetia is another of the many "self-governing" Russian republics. Like its neighbor, Chechnya, Ingushetia is predominantly Muslim as well as being profoundly different both ethnically and linguistically from the Russian minority. The Ingushians are genetically different from their close linguistic and cultural relatives in the Caucasus including the Chechens.

Russia occupied Ingushetia in the early Nineteenth Century. The official Russian version of this holds that the locals voluntarily accepted the rule and law of the Czar. However, a close look at Russian military records for the first half of the century shows a pattern of repeated violent repression followed by yet another outbreak of anti-Russian attacks.

Stalin attempted to liquidate the "nationalities problem" in both Chechnya and Ingushetia by liquidating the population. Many were killed either directly or in the Gulag for their alleged "pro-Nazi" activities. Far more were simply loaded on cattle cars and deported to the various Central Asian Republics. Stalin's approach to ethnic cleansing was robust but ultimately a failure.

Ingushians and Chechens were allowed to return to their homelands following Stalin's death. Upon their return the Ingushtians found that much of the country had been resettled by people from North Ossetia. The resulting friction was substantial.

The repression of the Ingushtians by both Russians and Ossetian transplants culminated in a peaceful demonstration in Grozny in January 1973. The Red Army and KGB Border Troops crushed it with blood in the snow.

Following the break-up of the Soviet Union, Ingushtia stayed with the new Russian Federation in the expectation that the Kremlin would be favorably inclined to honor the Ingushian demand that lands and homes assigned to the transplants from Ossetia be returned. The Ingushtians were disappointed, to put it mildly.

In late 1992 war broke out between Ossetia and Ingushtia. When the shooting stopped the Ingushtians had lost one more time. In the fall out of defeat more than fifty thousand Ingushtians were given the heave-ho from North Ossetia. This bit of ethnic purification went by unnoticed in the West where the events in dissolving Yugoslavia got the marquee billing.

The First Russian-Chechen War spilled over into Ingushtia. In part this was the result of Chechens comprising a fifth of the population. In larger part it was the result of the Russian's very ham handed style of counterinsurgency.

The Russian way of war generated vast numbers of refugees. This was the case in both the First and Second Chechen Wars. It was also the case in Russian counterinsurgency operations in Ossetia. By 2000 there was nearly one refugee for every native Ingushtian. The sketchy infrastructure, poorly developed economy, governmental inefficiency, and terrain combined to assure a maximum of wretchedness for locals and refugees alike.

The situation was made even worse (even though that barely seems possible) in 2001 when the incumbent president was ousted by the Kremlin and replaced by a former KGB general named Murat Zyazikov. Zyazikov presided over a fair approximation of a reign of terror. Russian and Ossetian death squads roamed the countryside. Young Ingushtians were declared fair game in an always open season.

The result was (stand by for shock and surprise) the emergence of an Ingushtian insurgency. It was powered in equal measure by an Islamist strain of Islam and a deep loathing of the Russians.

The Russians responded in the tried, true, and counterproductive fashion of sending more troops with more bullets and greater latitude to use the latter against anyone who might be Ingushtian. The Russians, particularly those of the Federal Security Service, went to work with a whoop and wild abandon.

The result?

(Stand by for yet one more shock.) The insurgency went more or less underground. For the next few years the insurgents recruited, organised, received arms and training. At the same time the Islamist motivations were stoked as recruits were indoctrinated in the nuances of martyrdom and similar prerequisites for jihad.

Last October the results of recruitment, travel to such Islamist jihadist training and operational areas as Iran, Iraq,Afghanistan, and the FATA as well as the improvements in arms, tactics, and willingness for martyrdom became obvious. On 18 October the insurgents showed one time KGB heavy Zyazikov to have been way too top spin in his reports to the Kremlin.

Approximately fifty Russian troops were killed when a very well coordinated ambush was pulled on their convoy. The Kremlin and the locals took an old page from the Soviet playbook. They lied, alleging that only two men died as a result of a minor skirmish with disaffected Muslims.

Only the last two words approached accuracy. Vladimir Putin punted General Zyazikov out the door and sent in yet more troops. This proves that even Vladimir The Bare Chested can make mistakes--no, blunders.

How big a blunder has become increasingly evident during 2009. The insurgents have been (almost literally) decimating the official government of the Republic.

True, Vladimir working through his front guy, Dimitri Medvedev, appointed a new president. The new man, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, was speedily approved of by the local parliament and the major political parties of Ingushtia.

The former paratroop general (what's the matter, can't the Kremlin find anyone other than retreaded brasshats to make president of Ingushtia?) was not given a thumbs-up by the insurgents. They showed their disapproval of the new guy at the top on 22 June with a suicide type attack on Yevkurov which narrowly failed to kill the man. The severely injured president was in a coma for weeks but survived. Well, paratroops are noted for being tough even if not particularly brilliant nor subtle.

A few days back Yevkorov recovered sufficiently to say he was staying on the job and was quite committed to ending the unrest and corruption. The still rather unwell appearing man stated that he did not want "revenge" but he would continue the policies of repression albeit perhaps a little "tougher."

While the Kremlin designated Maximum Leader was getting the best of medical care in a Moscow hospital, the insurgents had not been resting on their laurels. The number and skill of attacks increased much to the dismay and displeasure of the Kremlin. At the center, Russian senior level leaders were casting around for the causes of the "spike" in violence--or, lacking that, at least a scapegoat.

The designated fall guy was the Kremlin's own man. Specifically the Regional President responsible for the North Caucasus region, Ramzan Kadyrov. This worthy is a thug. As long as the lid was on in Chechnya, Ingushtia and other regional republics, old Ramzan was a good thug. But, with the lid popping off in Ingushtia, he had become a bad thug.

The hatchetman appointed for the job of offing the bad thug was General Gennady Zaitsev, the commander of the hot shot, mucho elite counter-terrorist group, the Alpha unit, started by KGB chief Yuri Andropov a generation back. Zaitsev as much as said it was time to give Kadyrov a bullet in the back of the neck.

Finding the right man to sacrifice and the correct dude to do the job may be satisfying to Putin, Medvedev and Co., but it means squat in the game of Beat The Islamist Insurgent. Ritual victims are exercises in myth; insurgencies are real world.

The Islamist jihadists grew ever more active. Ever more willing to kill without particular discrimination. They were matched by the "security forces," which seemed bent on matching the insurgents in bloodlust.

The Islamist jihadists were willing to die as well. Provided only that the "martyrdom seeker" could bring enough victims with him. Suicide bombings of police stations have their place. So also does the ongoing campaign of selective assassination of government officials.

In total the efforts of the insurgents demonstrate a high level of competence as well as the type of dedication one has grown to expect from true Islamist jihadists. In total the efforts of both the Russian and Ingushtian government to end the insurgency have shown both a strikingly low level of proficiency and a willingness to operate on a business-as-usual basis tolerating corruption, inefficiency, and contempt for the locals.

The Kremlin, specifically, President Medvedev has taken action in the wake of the suicide bombing. In keeping with all past Russian behavior, he has appointed a "battle hardened" general to take charge of the situation. To, in Medvedev's pithy phrase, "clarify what happened."

It is going to take more than one general, no matter how "battle hardened" to "clarify" and "put in order" the situations in Ingushtia, Chechnya, and other Islamist jihadist anterooms to Paradise in the North Caucasus. Even if President Medvedev is unacquainted with the results of blending Islamist jihadism with nationalism as was the case in Afghanistan, the man behind the throne, Vladimir (Bare Chested Man On Horseback) Putin must be aware. After all he was in the KGB.

Since the Russian memory is apparently short as the Bear got its hairy rear end kicked hard in Afghanistan only twenty years ago, the men of the Russian Army, Federal Security Service (KGB under a nicer name) and the Kremlin must have to relearn the lesson that Islamist jihadism plus nationalism makes for a very hard opponent to defeat. Given that the Russians place even more faith in coercion as the sovereign remedy for all political ills than do the Israelis (or before they got the message in Iraq, the Americans) it is unlikely in the extreme that the new jihad in the Caucasus will be over quickly or, from the Russian perspective, succesfully.

Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of guys.