A disturbing look into Russia's "victory" in Chechnya
USNews.com: Chechnya, a War That Is Gone but Not Forgotten
Chechnya slowly - kinda-sorta - rises from the ashes of conflict but does so in an all too familiar manner. Its new "government" is little more than a shell used by local warlords and "big men" to justify their own bases of power. I see signs of the same arising in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Palestinian Authority...the facade of government becomes little more than a hasty paint job slapped over criminals, tribal chiefs, militias, and warlords. In fact, Hezbollah's efforts to pull the mask of "legitimate government" over the face of their own actions is essentially the same.
This appears to me as a regression in the development of the State. The power of the State becomes a spoil of war to be captured like any other booty to be found on the battlefield. Institutions like the UN, designed to preserve the sanctity of nation-states, tend to reward such behavior, making it far more difficult to ensure, encourage, or compel good governance.
A snippet from the US News report on Chechnya:
Day-to-day security in swaths of Chechnya is left to locally recruited Kremlin-loyalist forces, who run things much as they please. This makes their de facto chief, Putin-appointed President Ramzan Kadyrov, perhaps the most important man in Chechnya. Kadyrov, 30, is the son of a prominent Islamic leader who in 1999 abandoned the rebels for the Russian side and served as Kremlin-installed local president before being assassinated in 2004.Hrmph.[...]
What does cause jitters in Moscow is that the bulk of the estimated 7,000 armed men associated with Kadyrov are themselves former rebel fighters enticed or coerced into switching sides. "Everyone knows the so-called pro-Moscow militias in Chechnya are in fact tribal military formations loyal only to their chiefs," said Moscow-based military affairs specialist Pavel Felgenhauer. "Basically, the rebels in Chechnya have entered a rest period and are getting training under the Russian flag."
5 comments:
Maybe the decline of the state will cause the powerful states to define their national interests less broadly because amorphous chaos is so hard to deal with?
Certainly a possibility of that...if they are willing to recognize the decline.
However, sometimes, the decline can lead to broader definitions of national interests because the problems seem larger and more numerous. People want to do more rather than less to fix problems. Look at the expansion of peacekeeping/peacemaking missions from NATO and the UN - along with the US. There's also the danger that globalization and the rise of the power of the Individual make it more likely that nations feel a need to reach outside their own borders in order to protect themselves (even if it's too a lesser extent than the aggressive GWOT).
Along the lines that you mention, though...look at Ethiopia. They wanted to reduce/remove the threat to themselves by hucking the ICU out of power in Somalia. That was it. No desire for nation-building or peace-making. Their national interests appear to have been narrowly defined.
i forgot to mention, btw, that Putin rising on Chechnya when it was such a bad play (IMHO) leads my narrative sensibility to wish for Chechnya to blow up and let him fall on the mess he created.
Regarding the failed states stuff, ive been wondering if its not reminiscent of the old battles on the frontier between civilized and "barbaric." Maybe we should watch out for new Mongol hordes. :)
Russia is another of those states that would be left taking a hard look at itself in the mirror if we cut our external energy dependence (although when I say "we" I mean all of the "real" West - Europe and North America...not that Canada's rampant energy consumption is keeping the Russians in furs and vodka or anything).
Regarding your comment on the Mongol hordes...I think you really nailed it and put it in terms that, for some reason, I really hadn't considered before. Gangs, international jihadists, drug rings, ethno-nationalist movements that fracture old nation-states...they are the new Huns, Goths, and Mongols...and the new borders of society have shifted as well. Unfortunately, globalization naturally leaves those borders undefended. And it takes a great deal of cooperation between nation-states to police those border. But those nation-states have to be on the same sheet of music first. We aren't even close to there yet.
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