Word: chechenization
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Wednesday's decision by Moscow to set up "filtration points" and detain every Chechen man between the age of 10 and 60 on the basis that he may be a rebel fighter may be a sign that Russia has already lost this war politically. And it is in the conduct of politics, rather than the deployment of air power and artillery, that counterinsurgency wars are won or lost...
...Moscow has defined this war as an attempt to weed out a hard core of militant separatist guerrillas from within the wider Chechen population, and destroy it. Russia blames those militants for terrorist attacks in Russia and attempts to foment a separatist rebellion in neighboring Dagestan, as well as for the atmosphere of chaos and criminality that has prevailed in Chechnya over the past three years. But Moscow's methods in the field have been those of conventional warfare, bringing overwhelming force to bear in order to capture territory. And the art of guerrilla warfare is not to hold territory...
...falloff in Russian confidence may have been inevitable, since the early successes of the war came in the absence of much Chechen resistance. That allowed Moscow to project the idea of a "clean" war in which Russian casualties are kept to a minimum and the militants are routed by cannon and air power. "But in the end, Putin faces the same problems as his predecessors in the last war," says Meier. "You can pursue the strategy of bombing and shelling from a distance only so far. It hasn't worked in Grozny." It's now clear that the capital...
...mess has heightened the infighting among the Russian military command. The army blamed the troops of its traditional rival, the Interior Ministry, for the lapses that led to last weekend's Chechen successes. That, together with a cacophony of mixed signals from the Kremlin over how to conduct the campaign, will further sap the already diminished morale of the Russian forces. And Russia's economic woes continue to have an impact on the situation. Says Meier, "There are still stories appearing in the media every week of Russian officers in Chechnya selling weapons to the enemy...
...wasn't supposed to happen this way. Russian generals were boasting before Christmas that the Chechen capital, Grozny, would fall in a matter of days; on Monday, though, they were forced to admit that rebels had broken through Russian lines over the weekend, recapturing a number of villages around the capital and inflicting heavy casualties on Moscow's forces. Fierce fighting for control of the towns of Argun and Shali continued Monday even as Russian troops appeared to be regrouping and rearming for a renewed assault on Grozny. Russian public confidence in a quick and clean victory, which translated into...