Russian Anti-Americanism and Islamic Terrorism in the North Caucasus

When Russian census taker Anastasia Fedotova came to the door of President Dmitry Medvedev, the president noticed the scarf the census takers were given. “What else do they give you,” Medvedev asked.

“A flashlight and a whistle,” Fedotova responded.

“Why do you need a whistle?” Medvedev asked the census taker.

“The whistle is for in case of danger,” she responded. “And the flashlight is in case the lights go out.”

It would be difficult to find a more apt description of Russia’s troubles today. Yet the danger for a census taker in Gorki, just outside of Moscow, is nothing compared to the increasingly lawless North Caucasus, where rampant corruption, migrating and gradually more brazen Islamic terrorism, and a conspiratorial anti-Americanism are combining to erase whatever bit of stability the region may have had left.

The Oct. 19 attack on the Chechen parliament building in Grozny was the exclamation point on the region’s now undeniable turn for the worse.

“We do have a very clear very pronounced trend of escalation–the number of attacks is growing,” said Pavel Baev, research professor at the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo. “Chechnya makes a special case. The escalation there is different from other escalations.”

Baev’s comments were made Oct. 21 at the joint conference of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and PONARS Eurasia, a global network of Eurasia scholars headquartered at George Washington University. The panel explored the “Rising Instability in the North Caucasus,” and included Baev; Mikhail Alexseev, professor of political science at San Diego State University; and Sergey Markedonov, visiting fellow at CSIS’s Russia and Eurasia Program. It was moderated by Andrew Kuchins, director and senior fellow of CSIS’s Russia and Eurasia Program.

What is the reason for the “new quality” of attacks, as Baev characterized it? The three usual suspects–the economic crisis, the Russian-Georgian war, and the change in presidency from Putin to Medvedev–simply don’t explain it. That leaves corruption, Baev said.

Corruption in Russia, Baev said, is simply a way of life. But the increased funding from the federal center only gives the corrupt powers more money to line their pockets. “You can no longer extinguish this” by throwing more money at the situation, Baev said.

Baev also said the role of Islam is a factor, as part of a self-perpetuating cycle. “Terrorism grows because of Islam and Islam grows because of terrorism,” he said.

Markedonov and Alexseev delved into the role of anti-Americanism in the region’s main terrorism battlefields–Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia, and Kabardino-Balkaria. Dokka Umarov, a top Islamist leader in the Caucasus Emirate–a network of breakaway Muslim insurgents–recently said that “Our brothers are fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and Palestine….Not only Russia, but also the USA, the UK, Israel and all those waging war against Islam and Muslims are our enemies.”

Alexseev said Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov claimed the center of support for the Islamist insurgency is in the United States, and Ingush President Yunus-bek Yevkurov said that British and American intelligence agencies are behind the influx of Islamic terrorists to the region. Kadyrov, a brutally repressive strongman, and Yevkurov are of course both Kremlin appointees, entrusted by Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to quell or crush the Islamist insurgencies in their territories by any means necessary.

This is “bureaucratic anti-Americanism,” Markedonov said. If Putin and Medvedev wanted their North Caucasus proxies to be pro-American, that’s what they’d be.

Markedonov said Yevkurov is a career Russian soldier and Kremlin puppet, nothing more. “What do you expect from him, statements from Hegel, maybe John Locke?” he quipped.

Alexseev said the anti-Americanism can be found even among midlevel bureaucrats in the far-flung Russian provinces. And it’s catching on. He pointed out that a VTsIOM public opinion poll conducted in 2008 asked respondents what the U.S. goals were in the North Caucasus. About 60 percent answered “military and strategic interests, and deployment of military bases.” Among residents of the North Caucasus, that answer was given by 66 percent of respondents. Those efforts are led by Kadyrov and Yevkurov, he said, though officials throughout the region join in.

Kuchins added that Kadyrov has never offered any evidence or sources for his anti-American conspiracy theories. “Maybe he missed that class in dictator school,” he said.

Alexseev said that the mythology of U.S. interference is necessary because the counterterrorism methods there–even where Kadyrov rules with an iron fist–have utterly failed. In the year leading up to April 2009, when Chechnya was officially under a counterterrorist operation, 52 police, FSB, and Russian army servicemen were killed and 150 wounded. Yet in the year after lifting the operation, terrorists there killed 97 and wounded 185.

This is despite the fact that Moscow spends six times the amount per capita on a resident of the North Caucasus than a resident of the rest of Russia. There is almost no foreign investment, Alexseev said, contributing to a “growing parochialism and a sense of isolation.” (One exception: Dagestan signed a trade agreement with Iran Oct. 5.)

Markedonov said that it is time to give up on the idea of “Chechenization” of the Caucasus, in which local entities have control over their financial resources and the administration of the territories is given to the local governments. He said the attack on the parliament building in Grozny shows that Kadyrov cannot claim to be even the most powerful Chechen–especially after Kadyrov’s home village of Tsentoroy was raided by insurgents.

Cynics used to be able to say that at least Kadyrov was effective, Markedonov said.

“But now his native settlement, which is guarded better than the Kremlin, was attacked,” he said.

Markedonov also echoed the doubts of Alexseev and Baev about increased taxpayer funding to the region, which will simply end up in the hands of the rebels.

“For what?” Markedonov asked rhetorically. “For stability? Where is the stability? Chechenization has failed.”