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Dangerous thresholds crossed in
Moscow
By Stephen Blank
Last
week's terrorist operation in a Moscow theater and the
Russian military operation to rescue the hostages
combine to shed a disturbing light upon the course of
Russia's Chechen war. This light shines equally upon the
Chechens and the Russian government and military,
because both parties have opened the door to military
possibilities that have immense repercussions.
Consequently, the implications of the Chechen operation
and the Russian counter-terrorist action must be viewed
with concern.
The Chechen terrorist seizure
of a Moscow theater on October 23-24 clearly
represented the Chechens' despair over the course of the war.
But this operation was strategically ill-conceived from the
outset. There are many reasons for saying this. First,
the operation seemingly confirmed the constant Russian
charges that the war is just another operation in the
global campaign against international terrorism. Second,
although the terrorists, like al-Qaeda, sought to carry
out a spectacular operation, in fact the size of the
threat they posed also gave Moscow no choice but to
respond forcefully. Third, this operation once again
suggested that Muslim terrorism has indeed hijacked the
Chechens' long-standing campaign for independence and
self-rule. Thus it diverted attention away from the real
issue that lies at the heart of this war, namely,
Russian misrule in Chechnya.
That misrule,
combined with the Chechens' determination to be free
constitutes the root issue of the two Chechen wars since
1994. By making terrorism and not Russian misrule the
issue, the operation played into Russian hands.
Finally, this operation also raises the question
of whether there is indeed anyone with whom Moscow could
negotiate authoritatively even if it wanted to. Chechen
President Aslan Maskhadov's authority over various
Chechen guerrillas, though often claimed, could not have
benefited even from a successful Chechen operation, let
alone a failure. Either Maskhadov is a rather weak
figure who cannot deliver a solution or exercise genuine
command, or, if Maskhadov truly supported this
operation, as some evidence suggests, then he validates
Moscow's refusal to negotiate with him because he too
supports terrorism. Thus the authors of this operation
have much to answer for; they have decisively set back
the cause of Chechen independence while seemingly making
Moscow's case for its suppression.
None of these
considerations, however, exonerates Moscow. As this
author and many others have long asserted, this war's
roots lie in Russian misrule and readiness to
countenance a war against Chechnya for domestic
political reasons. Even though President Vladimir Putin
now claims to have given his troops new orders by which
to conduct new operations this is the same chauvinistic
boasting that led to war in 1999. There still is no
concept of victory other than the elimination of
Chechnya as a socio-political entity. Yet, despite the
liberation of the theater and the substantial political
or propaganda victory that Russia will now harvest, the
fact remains that the Russian army cannot and will not
bring this war to any sort of victorious conclusion.
Moreover, Russian conduct in this war has
reached a level of unparalleled brutality in
contemporary warfare, outpacing even Serb atrocities in
Kosovo. The Russian army is almost as much a mob as it
is a professional armed force, in which desertions due
to brutality are now commonplace. These phenomena are on
daily view in Chechnya, where corruption and
mistreatment of the population, in collaboration with
selected Chechen warlords, long ago reached a level that
no professional army should tolerate.
Thus this
army cannot achieve a victory, and Chechnya, as well as
Russia, are obliged to live with continuing war and its
likely spread through further terrorist operations into
Russia proper.
Putin's threats to use even
weapons of mass destruction anywhere on the globe
against terrorists threatening use of such weapons in
the future can only alarm, not impress. And these
threats oblige us to ponder several disturbing strategic
consequences of this operation. First, we now see that
all of Russia, and especially Moscow, can now be
targeted by these or other terrorist groups. Such
targeting is possible due to the second consequence
revealed by this operation: the malfeasance of the
Russian intelligence forces who allowed these people to
get to Moscow, obtain weapons and explosives, rehearse
their operation and carry it out.
Ideally these
agencies must become the subject of a tough-minded
after-action report lest there be a repeat of this
crisis. Given the well-known corruption and incompetence
of the FSB (the intelligence service, successor to the
KGB), it is of utmost importance to see how the
aftermath of this operation affects it and whether it
can be reformed and made truly effective.
Also,
a review of the options available to Russia's special
forces during the siege must be undertaken. Evidently
the usual rule of making the saving of innocent lives
the first priority was not high upon the government's
list. In this respect, the operation reminded one of too
many earlier events in Russian history where it was
clear that neither the armed forces nor the government
either cared too much about their subjects' lives or
were serious about inter-agency coordination of military
operations. The lack of accountability or sense of
responsibility that were hallmarks of the old regime
have evidently not yet been eradicated. The absence of
medical personnel and the continuing stonewalling as to
the nature of the gas used is quite revealing in this
context.
Finally, and perhaps most important, is
the need to reflect upon the consequences of the use of
chemical weapons or something resembling them in the
counter-terrorist operation. We do not yet know the
exact nature of the gas used; reports suggest either a
derivative of Valium or LSD. Whatever it was, however,
it was used in doses that were lethal to large numbers
of people, rather than merely incapacitating. Therefore
a dangerous threshold has been crossed.
Terrorists who are seeking to use chemical,
biological or nuclear weapons will consider themselves
now justified by Russia's action. Therefore subsequent
terrorist attacks, and not only in Russia, may well
resort to the use of such weapons, since that threshold
has been crossed with impunity. This consideration
heightens the risk we face in future terrorist
operations anywhere in the world. Russia has unwittingly
opened the door to threat scenarios of higher and
greater risk. By showing that it regards the use of
chemical weapons as a justified aspect of projected
military operations, it encourages others to emulate it.
This operation suggests that as long as plausible
justification for their use can be manufactured,
chemical weapons can be used with impunity.
Moscow has also inadvertently raised questions
about its reliability in regard to conventions banning
the use and development of chemical weapons and other
arms control and proliferation accords. By using this
weapon, Russia showed that it retains large stocks of
usable chemical weapons despite repeated pledges to
clean them up. Moscow alternates between promises to do
so and appeals for more Western subsidies to do so. This
operation suggests that research on chemical weapons
continues and that their use is contemplated in military
operations.
Moscow's operation, admittedly
formed and carried out under the urgent threat of mass
casualties, will in the end probably harden Chechen
determination to continue fighting. The
counter-terrorist operation was necessary, as no
government would have tolerated or accepted the kinds of
demands posed by the Chechens. But there is no end in
sight to the Chechen war, and the execution of the
Russian operation can only raise disturbing questions
and trigger no little anxiety for the future.
Stephen Blank is a professor
at the Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College,
Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. The views expressed
here do not represent those of the US Army, Defense
Department or the US government.
(©2002 Asia Times
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