Vladimir Takes On Another Job

Vladimir Putin, who rose to prominence and power as a result of his bare chested, not to say bare knuckled, approach to peace imposition during the Second Chechen War, has appointed himself jefe grande of the Russian government's special commission on the economic and social development of the North Caucasus Region--which includes in its remit Chechnya as well as the several other provinces currently experiencing insurgency with combined nationalist and political Islamist goals.  Putin's announcement on 1 December indicates that he is now personally going to undertake the mission of "clarifying and putting to order the situation in the North Caucasus" which he previously assigned to others.

The assorted former KGB personnel Putin tabbed for the duty have not demonstrated any convincing degree of success.  The lack of their ability to "clarify and put to order" is shown in the recent statement by the Russian Deputy Prosecutor-General, Ivan Sydoruk, that insurgent violence has doubled this year over last in the North Caucasus Federal District.  On the same day (8 December), President Dimitry Medvedev echoed the theme, improving on it by averring that any local officials who said the situation had improved were lying.

While any downtown street in Juarez is much more deadly than the totality of the North Caucasus, the Russian authorities have allowed that some two hundred local cops and Federal Security Bureau personnel have been killed by insurgents this year.  Another five hundred or so have been wounded.

Not that the violence has run one way.  The Deputy Prosecutor-General stated that more than three hundred insurgents have been "neutralized," which number included sixteen "leaders" officially pronounced as "killed."  By official figures, an impressive number of weapons and explosive materials fell into government hands this year so far.

The fighting has not diminished since the words outpouring from Official Russia twelve days ago.  Even though the weather conditions have been somewhere between foul and rotten, the insurgents have gone along planting IED's and conducting ambushes and hit-and-run raids on police facilities.  The FSB and interior ministry forces have not taken the time off having conducted a number of nocturnal raids on the homes of suspected "militants."

And, so the war lurches along.  Neither side seems capable of hitting a knock out blow.  Given the size of the several distinct districts comprising the North Caucasus, there seems little probability that the Russian government can do so--unless it is willing to undertake a massive escalation and accept the consequences both domestic and international of doing so.  Given the internal divisions which characterize the several separate insurgent groups, the probability of these developing sufficient organizational coherence to go beyond the very low level of combat and terror operations seen the past two years can be assessed as low to non-existent.

Even though the war is as low level in its intensity as can be imagined, the continuation of the several insurgencies in the North Caucasus does represent a real threat to the political and social cohesion of Russia.  The insurgencies directly attack a systemic weak point of the Russian polity and society.

That weak point is nationalism.  Today no less than during the long years of the Communist regime and before it that of the Czars, Russia is bedeviled by what Lenin termed "the Nationalities Question."  In truth, Russia has never even made a pretense of being a "melting pot."  It has been and remains a stew of different nationalities, different ethnic groups, different languages, different confessions of faith.

In this stewpot the Slavs have dominated.  Have ruled.  Have conquered.  And reconquered.  But the Slavs have never hit on a way of creating a Russian society and polity in which national identities merge into a single, greater whole.  The results of conquest have never been consolidated, never assimilated, never unified.

The power of nationalism--both Russian, which is to say, Slav, and non-Russian, which is to say everyone else--was brought into high relief earlier this month in the "football" riots in Moscow.  These outbreaks had much less to do with soccer hooligans than with offended nationalism.  As Medvedev and Putin both made clear in their post-riot press encounters, the government fears these were the harbingers of more and worse to come. As is expectable in Russia, the immediate, default, response was a demand for more robust police action.

The Soviet Union was able to keep the nationalities question from being raised violently by constant, effective repression.  Subsequently, the Russian government has been unwilling or unable to do the same.  So far.  And, by now, the resort to Soviet style methods might be both too late and unacceptable in the no longer bi-polar world.

By taking over the de facto top slot in the North Caucasus affair, Putin apparently is acknowledging that the Soviet methods cannot or should not be used.  Rather, by focusing on economic matters, he is going to attempt to bribe his way to success.  It will be interesting to see if money can succeed where force has not as this approach to counterinsurgency has never been made in a systematic and long-term way.

One rather suspects it will fail.  Nationalism is too potent a force in the lives of people to be countered by mere money.  Worse, when the nationalism has inflamed not only minorities but the dominant Slavs, the use of bribery in the North Caucasus region is likely to outrage those who are not in on the cash cow's flow.  This means the Slavs.

So far, the appeal of outsiders who are proponents of violent political Islam have not had a major influence on the course of the nationalists in the North Caucasus.  This does not mean the situation will continue.  An increasing number of foreign fighters has been reported in the region.  Even though these seem to be trigger pullers and not leadership cadre, the increased pressure on jihadi in Afghanistan, the FATA, and the Central Asian Republics, particularly Tajikistan, hints at a greater influx of more determined global insurgents over the next few months and years.

Putin has undertaken a Labor of Hercules with his self-assigned new post.  He must funnel money in a way which undercuts the nationalists while not infuriating his Slavic Russian base.  At the same time his security forces must keep effective pressure on the insurgent hard core so as to gain the initiative and erode insurgent political will and combat efficiency.  While that is in progress, Putin's government and military must interdict the movement of outsiders into the North Caucasus theater of operations.

As if that is not enough to overload the Putin plate, he must nip incipient insurgent movements within other minorities who resent on an increasing basis the privileges presumably enjoyed by the Slavs.  Then, he has to deal with the increasing ethnic and regional divisions which exist in the Russian armed forces fueled by the regionally based system of conscription.

Well, Vlad of the Bare Chest reportedly enjoyed being characterized as an "Alpha male" in one of the WikiLeaks leaked dispatches.  The challenges he faces in the North Caucasus are such that only the most alpha of alpha males would think of tackling them.

It couldn't happen to a more deserving guy.