Chechens Are Not Afghans (And Other Revelations)
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But still, there is no doubt that the mujahideen followed the Red Army back to Moscow after the war. The slaughter at Beslan, the apartment bombings in Moscow–there have been any number of terrorist acts perpetrated on Russian soil by people who fought against the Red Army in Afghanistan [bold mine-DL]. ~Michael Goldfarb
The Chechens weren’t fighting against the Red Army in Afghanistan. This is why I tend not to read The Weekly Standard’s blog very often, because it is just full of nonsense. It may come as some surprise to Goldfarb, but Chechnya belonged to the Soviet Union, Chechens were Soviets and it is more likely that there were ethnically Chechen conscripts in the Red Army fighting on the Soviet side than Chechens fighting alongside the mujahideen in Afghanistan. Foreign mujahideen fighting with the Afghans were overwhelmingly Arab and Pakistani. Indeed, until the Chechen wars opened Chechnya to the influence of jihadis, Chechen separatism was principally a case of post-Soviet ethnonationalism and backlash fueled by long-standing resentment against the mass slaughter and relocation of Chechens that Stalin had carried out decades before. The radical Islamicisation of the Chechen cause, typified by the rise of the bloody terrorist Shamil Basayev (ethnically Chechen, born in Chechnya) as one of the leaders of the Chechens (whose adopted name was meant to invoke Shamil, the major guerrilla leader against Tsarist Russia from the 19th century), has not stopped many of Goldfarb’s confreres and others making excuses for Chechen terrorism. But to say that the Chechen terrorism of the late 1990s and early 2000s was some kind of blowback for the war in Afghanistan (or even more incredibly that withdrawal from Afghanistan is what invited Chechen terrorism) reflects just staggering ignorance. There have been individuals, such as Khattab, who had fought in Afghanistan and who also fought with the Chechens, but the terrorist acts Goldfarb refers to were carried out by Chechens.
P.S. Another rather obvious point is that Chechen terrorism is a vicious part of the rebellion against Russian control of Chechnya and a response (not a legitimate one, but a response all the same) to the well-known brutal policies that Moscow has used to repress the rebellion there. Russian brutality in Chechnya does offer a model for pacifying an insurgency, but it requires tactics that Americans would not and should not contemplate.
Update: Goldfarb also writes in this post:
And there’s no doubt that the shift in Chechnya from nationalist to religious-based opposition to Russian rule was heavily influenced by the success of the jihadists in Afghanistan.
Actually, it was heavily influenced by the influx of Saudi money and Arab volunteers. You can argue that the radicalisation of the Chechen cause in some sense parallels the response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, but you can’t argue that the radicalised native Chechens who committed these atrocities were “people who fought against the Red Army in Afghanistan.” If anything, Beslan, the hostage-taking at the Moscow theater and the apartment bombings are all evidence of the terrible cost of persisting in a policy of occupation. Indeed, the Soviet experience after withdrawing from Afghanistan might have provided a model for Russian policy towards Chechnya. The lesson seems clear: refusal to yield control of territory will result in terrorist acts, while withdrawal has no particularly noticeable after-effects for the state that withdraws that happen because of the withdrawal.
Second Update: Goldfarb responds:
Thanks for the geography lesson, Dan. But I was vaguely aware of this fact. I was referring to people who fought in Afghanistan, like say Abu Omar al-Saif, and later took their jihad to Chechnya.
Well, it seemed as if you needed it, Mike. As I acknowledged, there were some Arabs who had previously fought in Afghanistan and then fought alongside the Chechens. But that isn’t the same as committing acts of terrorism on Russian soil, which is what Goldfarb said they had done, when on the whole these were the acts carried out by Basayev and ethnic Chechens. There are individual exceptions to this rule (mostly on the financing end), but the implication of Goldfarb’s original post was that these attacks were the result of withdrawing from Afghanistan (hence the title “they follow you home”), when they are, in fact, a result of continuing to control Chechnya. Had there been no Chechen war, and no brutal repression of Chechnya, none of those attacks would have happened in any case. In other words, the mujahideen who had fought in Afghanistan would have had absolutely no interest in striking at targets in Moscow or anywhere else in Russia but for an entirely new, different conflict involving Russia and a Muslim population. Goldfarb has found a coincidence and thinks he has discovered something significant. There is no reason to think that Basayev would not have employed terrorist tactics had no mujahideen from the war in Afghanistan ever set foot in Chechnya. The example Goldfarb cites is simply evidence that jihadis tend to go wherever Muslims are fighting and not that “they follow you home.”
Finally, I should also add that saying that ”the mujahideen followed the Red Army back to Moscow after the war” is a statement that invites derision and misinterpretation, since the vast majority of mujahideen in Afghanistan were Afghans or Pashtuns from the Pakistani side, who stayed right where they were when the war was over, which suggests that the vast majority of insurgents and terrorists in Iraq would either stay in Iraq or return to their home countries. A handful of die-hard jihadis who bounce from one firefight to the next would move on to the next conflict, and conceivably they might even target Western interests, but you can’t make decisions about a war policy based on what some handful of the most fanatical people will or will not do; given the depth of their fanaticism, they aren’t going to stop fighting and plotting attacks under any circumstances. U.S. foreign policy cannot be dependent on the what the Al-Saifs and Khattabs of the world might theoretically do ten or fifteen years in the future. It certainly makes no sense to use their example as part of an argument for prolonging a conflict that we know to have a radicalising effect. To state the obvious, for every Al-Saif that may be killed through the continuation of a war there are a dozen more ready to take his place because of the ongoing war.
Had Goldfarb said what he can actually support–that there were a handful of Arab mujahideen who later went to Chechnya–there would have been nothing objectionable in it, but then it also wouldn’t support the notion that “they follow you home.”
Filed under: Russia, foreign policy, politics
12 Responses to “Chechens Are Not Afghans (And Other Revelations)”
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[...] That bit of Goldfarbian idiocy below was prompted by reaction to this bit of Max Boot foolishness: Just as Islamist militants were emboldened by the Soviet Union’s retreat from Afghanistan in 1989, so they would be encouraged by our premature departure from Iraq. [...]
Thanks for taking the time to calmly refute the factual errors in that post, Daniel.
Everything in it is so over-the-top, so militantly and deliberately ignorant, that I can’t even focus on any given error. It all makes me think about more cosmic issues, like the fallen nature of man.
More specifically: if someone like Goldfarb, who presumably has a college education, has access to the Internet, and works at one of the most influential magazines in the world can squint hard enough to make all them bad furriners look the same…
… can you imagine what kinds of wild rumors about American intentions are widely believed among Iraqis?
Churchill was eighth in a class of 150 at Sandhurst, which ain’t bad for a young man who is said to have been rather ungainly. McCain, on the other hand, finished dead last in a larger class at Annapolis.
The ill-fated George Armstrong Custer graduated dead last in his class at West Point, so perhaps that comparison is more apt for McCain.
It’s a feat of sorts to study the absolute least one can without being sent down, but is that a skill we require of the POTUS?
Grumpy Old Man: “McCain, on the other hand, finished dead last in a larger class at Annapolis.”
Incorrect – And in fairness to McCain, I will correct you –
He graduated 894th out of 899 :)
Well, in that case. never mind.
There are a couple of very minor quibbles I might have with your response, Daniel, but on the whole I’m ver grateful you’ve dealt with this foolishness. My own study of the evolution of terror tactics in Chechnya and in Iraq has led me basically to the same conclusion–foreing occupations and low-intensity warfare in Muslim countries tend to become favorite training grounds for jihadis. As much as the Weekly Standard crowd loves to emphasize the fact that so many of the Iraqi insurgents are foreigners, they consistently refuse to acknowledge that the US campaign there has provided invaluable training and experience to thousands of Muslim terrorists and guerillas, which was at one time being provided by the Russians in Chechnya or elsewhere in the Transcaucasus-Balkans-Pick-Your-Hellhole. Whether it is even possible to “win” Iraq, international terror networks will emerge immeasurably stronger from this fiasco, and there is nothing at this point that can be done to lessen the damage, beyond shortening our stay.
I would welcome your thoughts on what I could improve with this argument. If there are loose ends that I could tie up to make it better, please feel free to tell me.
What a coincidence, I was just pointing out how idiotic Goldfarb is when it comes to the source of terrorism in Iraq!
Daniel, of course your argument is broadly correct. Goldfarb adds in his update: “It doesn’t strike me as particularly “ignorant” to wonder if the Russians might not have been better served by killing the guy in Afghanistan when they had the chance, rather than in Dagestan in 2005–but hey, terrorists don’t follow you home, right?”
This is indeed ignorant, suggesting that the USSR’s objectives in Afghanistan were somehow related to tracking down and killing terrorists. It further implies that the task for the US in Iraq, in order that “they don’t follow us home” is to kill a number of terrorists “while we have the chance”. What, from a list? And then we can pack up and go home?
However, you go on to state that “these attacks … are, in fact, a result of continuing to control Chechnya. Had there been no Chechen war, and no brutal repression of Chechnya, none of those attacks would have happened in any case.” This is, as you know, a different proposition from arguing that the Soviets were foolish to invade Afghanistan, as it involves a movement for independence on Russian soil that did not result from a recent invasion. America has no violent native independence movements, but Russia, Serbia and many other nations do, of course.
How should Russia have responded to the demands for independence from a small Muslim region which harboured significant criminal activity? Your principled opposition to Kosovan independence stands in contrast to the suggestion that Russia should not have continued “to control Chechnya”. Should they have granted independence? Or are you arguing that it was the brutality of the Chechen war that was Russia’s mistake, and that the Chechens could have been handled better (and, by extension, the Kosovars) so that they would have accepted mere autonomy? Are comparisons between the two unwarranted?
You write: “The lesson seems clear: refusal to yield control of territory will result in terrorist acts, while withdrawal has no particularly noticeable after-effects…” Do you believe this applies when the territory in question is (arguably) your own?
I think I may have given the wrong impression in trying to state things that forcefully. My point was not too say that Russia should have given up Chechnya. I have written before that I think it is the Russians’ territory and it is their business what they do in it, so I would not argue for Chechen independence. What I wanted to stress is that the attacks were related to control of Chechnya and the policies they carried out there. I didn’t really want to suggest that the Russians ought to have let Chechnya become independent–all the same arguments against Kosovo independence apply to Chechnya with even more force–but that if you are occupying a territory of people who want to break away you are liable to have terrorism.
Withdrawal from that territory would probably lead to an end to terrorist attacks from *that* group, but it could encourage other separatists to follow the same path. When it is your own territory, issues of sovereignty are involved in a way that doesn’t apply with foreign deployments. One reason the Russians have been so adamant about Chechnya is that they don’t want other regions to get ideas about independence, so certainly the question of whether to abandon a territory is much less clear-cut when you have a large, multi-ethnic state with disaffected minority populations.
Thanks for the response, which lays out a more familiar Larison line. We’re all rooting for you in the back and forth with Goldfarb, but points like:
“If anything, Beslan, the hostage-taking at the Moscow theater and the apartment bombings are all evidence of the terrible cost of persisting in a policy of occupation. Indeed, the Soviet experience after withdrawing from Afghanistan might have provided a model for Russian policy towards Chechnya.”
…end up sound awfully like advocacy of Chechen independence.
What are nations like Russia, Serbia or indeed Turkey to do with their “disaffected minority populations”? (I believe you often regard Turkey from an Armenian perspective) I imagine the palaeo-con view is “I don’t know but that’s their own damn business”.
Sometimes the answer is independence, despite the encouragement to violence it may give others. From my British perspective I’m certainly glad we let Ireland go when we did.
I was engaged in a bit of hyperbole there to stress the point, and looking back on it I should have been more careful. Certainly, I wouldn’t counsel that the Russians leave Chechnya as they left Afghanistan, and would say, as you suggest, that it is their business. The point I wanted to emphasise is that the lesson of the post-Afghanistan experience is that the mujahideen gave up fighting the Soviets (or were limited to fighting their proxies in the north), and the conflict ended once the Soviets were no longer in their territory. Russia has more at stake in Chechnya, and so is much less willing to give up on it. Russian national pride after the collapse of the USSR might not allow them to give up on something that has been part of Russia about as long as the Southwest has been part of the U.S., and maybe that’s as it should be, but that does come at a price.
If someone asked for my advice, I might recommend a degree of regional autonomy with strict limits. Whatever arguments I have with official Turkish policies, Ankara has made some effort in recent years to accommodate legitimate Kurdish grievances and create some space for expressions of Kudish identity, provided that they do not cross over into agitation for independence, and that seems to be working in integrating Kurds more fully into Turkey. Greater decentralism when possible is my guiding rule, but I would add that nation-states need to be able to retain sovereignty over their territory and resist more extreme centrifugal tendencies that are encouraged by globalisation and the pull of ethnic nationalisms. Certainly, I think these states should endeavour to maintain full legal protections for their minorities, but how they go about that really is their concern.
The difference between perpetuating a foreign war that your government started and suppressing an insurrection within your own borders is a big one, and I regret if I minimised that difference in the course of making my argument.