THE BLOODY end to the siege in North Ossetia, the confusion caught on camera and broadcast across the world, has been the most vivid, the most graphic episode in the long, brutal history of struggle between Chechnya and Russia. But the fighting will continue, other horrors and outrages will surely follow.

Most Western European observers argue that there can be no military solution to the Russo-Chechen conflict, and argue that political dialogue between Moscow and the secessionist insurgents is essential. The similarities between the wars in Chechnya and the conflicts linked to the end of imperialism in Asia and Africa dispose many Europeans to see “decolonisation” as the just and indeed the only solution in this case too.

Analogies with European empire are useful in certain respects. The Chechens were the core of the most famous Islamic resistance movement against 19th-century tsarist imperialism. In comparison even to most of the other truculent Muslim peoples of the North Caucasus, the Russians found the Chechens immensely difficult to subdue. The Chechens’ relatively egalitarian society, which was also much more devotedly Islamic than most of its Muslim neighbours, did not give Russia’s rulers much chance to cultivate local elite collaborators. Then as now, successful empire often depended on finding and cultivating such elites.

In geopolitical terms, however, Chechnya, situated in the northeast Caucasus, was a safe backwater in tsarist eyes. Unlike the northwest Caucasus, whose Muslim population were “encouraged” to flee to the Ottoman Empire after tsarist rule was established in the 1860s, Chechnya was out of the range both of Ottoman armies and of the European fleets which had dominated the Black Sea during the Crimean War and could easily do so again. Given the absence of any strategic threat, there was no urgent need to remove the Chechens from their homeland. So the Chechens lived on past the 1917 Revolution to be the core of resistance to Soviet rule in the North Caucasus. Finally they were deported en masse by Stalin in the Second World War, roughly half the Chechen population dying in the process. After Stalin’s death, however, the remaining Chechens were allowed back to reclaim their homeland, significant parts of which had been colonised by Russians in the meantime.

This bloody past explains why Chechen nationalism runs so very deep and is so bound up with hostility to Russia. But history did not make the wars of the 1990s inevitable. Greater wisdom by political elites in Russia and Chechnya might have avoided the conflict. Moreover, the brutal behaviour of Russian forces — their morale, discipline and operational effectiveness undermined by severe budget cuts — has greatly exacerbated hatreds. And when the conflict did erupt, the Chechen resistance could draw on powerful historical hatreds and memories.

It might seem logical for the Russians to cut their losses in Chechnya and depart. Ordinary Russians do not think of Chechnya as part of core Russian territory in the way that they do see Siberia as Russian. Whereas “losing” Ukraine and Belarus when the Soviet Union collapsed was genuinely traumatic, most Russians loathe Chechens and at one level would be happy to see the Russian Army leave. Nor is there much likelihood of Chechen independence creating precedents that other regions of the Russian Federation might seek to follow. An independent Chechnya would probably be such a mess that it would be the best possible propaganda against secession.

However, Vladimir Putin cannot cut and run. He was elected President on a ticket of restoring order there; his legitimacy and personal credibility still depend on fighting the Chechens. Furthermore, his ties to and support from the securicrats in the Army and the old KGB make withdrawal difficult. But even if Russian leaders were minded to grant Chechen independence they would have to be confident that Chechnya would not become an anarchic base from which terrorists could strike into Russian territory.

At present no Russian government could believe this. When the first Chechen war ended in 1995 the Russians granted Chechnya what amounted to de facto independence. The former resistance leaders became its leaders and Chechnya became a haven from which terrorists operated, blowing up blocks of flats in Russian cities and seeking to undermine political stability and inter-ethnic peace in the neighbouring republics. In Daghestan, a potential cauldron of inter-ethnic mayhem, the actions of Islamic bands based in Chechnya were (and are) especially dangerous. Nor was it only Russian interests that suffered. The gang who kidnapped and murdered British workers in Chechnya during this period had “protection” from leaders in the Chechen regime.

Decolonisation is far easier for maritime than land empires. The British, for example, could afford to take a relaxed attitude to decades of mayhem in post-independence Burma, since Burma is rather far from Kent. Ireland is the best British post-imperial comparison to Chechnya. In 1922, London escaped from its very expensive efforts to repress the IRA by doing a deal with the more moderate elements in the republican movement. The Irish Free State was established in the South which crushed IRA radicals, established law and order in the 26 counties and tolerated the partition of the island. For all the subsequent problems in Anglo-Irish relations, a sensible Russian Government would jump at the possibility of doing a similar deal with the Chechens.

But in such a tribal society, where there is no authority, where there is a flourishing tradition of banditry, and where Islamist radicalism has rooted itself, there is no Chechen leadership which could make and sustain such a deal. The Russo-Chechen conflict is therefore likely to continue and escalate — probably into an era when biological weapons of mass destruction become available to terrorists.

Dominic Lieven is Professor of Russian Government at the London School of Economics

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