Word: civilian
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...history of counterinsurgency warfare suggests that defeating the Chechen guerrilla forces requires a political strategy to win over the bulk of Chechnya's civilian population. Following Mao Zedong's analogy that guerrillas are fish and a sympathetic civilian population is the water in which they swim, the art of counterinsurgency is to poison the water by turning civilians against the guerrillas. And Russia had reason for optimism going into the campaign. "Many Chechens are opposed to the Islamic militants like Shamil Basayev and Khattab, who the Russians claim to be targeting," says Meier. "Even more may have been prepared...
...behind-the-scenes maneuvers - and no one in their right mind would ever want the military to share all its secrets. Sometimes, however, the public's right to know and the military's need for privacy meet at a fractious crossroads. Such is the case with Gary Harris, a civilian employee at Utah's Tooele chemical weapons plant, who appeared Tuesday at the National Press Club, claiming he was forced by Army officials to falsify environmental records during the course of his work in order to hide health and safety flaws in the plant's weapons-incineration process. Harris says...
...front where Putin will have to act most carefully is the war in Chechnya. A shuffle last week in the top Russian combat generals suggests panic over the need for a hasty resolution of the conflict before the March elections. Unfortunately, high civilian death tolls and unannounced deaths of Russian soldiers have not been perceived as impediments to this goal. In his vigilant efforts to secure his office, Putin is staking his reputation on a misguided war. We hope that Putin will demonstrate enough vision as a leader to sow the beginnings of justice and cooperation instead of personally reaping...
...part of how soldiers view the military also lies in perceptions - and often misperceptions - of how rosy things are in the civilian world. "The Army and Navy Times are filled with stories of people who figured they'd get out and land an $80,000-per-year tech job but then found out everyone's not doing as well as they thought," notes TIME military correspondent Mark Thompson. Thompson says the feelings that the military discourages entrepreneurship may also be a little misguided. "If you go out in the field there are 26-year-olds operating hundreds of millions...
...popularity of the Chechnya campaign has made Putin the hot favorite in presidential elections scheduled for March, but the specter of mounting Russian casualties in a Caucasian quagmire could eat away at his support. Still, suspending the assault - out of a sudden concern for the city's civilian population after six weeks of indiscriminate bombing - doesn't necessarily eliminate the risk. Russian generals have already conceded that Chechen forces are actively harassing their troops deep inside areas over which Moscow has ostensibly established control. Which means that right now there's no politically safe way forward - or back...