The suicide bomber attack on the Chechen Parliament in Grozny Tuesday morning cast further doubt on the Russian leadership’s declarations that the strategic North Caucasus region, Russia’s soft underbelly, is stabilizing. More trouble is in stock for Moscow and her South Caucasus neighbors (Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan), as the violence in Chechnya, Daghestan and elsewhere escalates. According to Al-Jazeera, six people were killed and 10 were wounded Tuesday morning during an assault on Chechnya’s parliament, a symbol of Russia-backed power. Chechnya is ruled by 34 year-old Ramzan Kadyrov, a pro-Kremlin …
Yesterday, a series of bombings in Moscow subway stations killed 39 and injured more than 70. The bombings, conducted by two female suicide bombers, are undoubtedly a horrible tragedy for the families of the victims. What followed, however, was a decision by transit companies across the United States to ramp up security from more officers, tighter physical security at transit stations and bomb sniffing dogs. While these types of attacks may lead Americans to think that the U.S. needs to change its counter-terrorism strategy—the U.S. already has an effective means …
Diplomacy and development have been major administration priorities as illustrated by the State Department’s first ever Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR) intended to provide the short-, medium-, and long-term blueprint for our diplomatic and development efforts. On December 14, 2009, Secretary Clinton gave democracy its due in a lecture at Georgetown University which stressed the parallels between democracy promotion and human rights: Our human rights agenda for the 21st century is to make human rights a realist, and the first step is to see human rights in a broad …
Last week the Kremlin formally announced its decade-long anti-terror operation in Chechnya over. In practical terms, it translates into puling out the federal forces and repealing stringent restrictions related to freedom of movement for civilians in Chechnya. This measure aroused little enthusiasm in Russia, though. In point of fact, the internal conditions in Chechnya and the North Caucasus at large are continuing highly explosive. Actually, peace in Chechnya has been reached owing to massive infusions of cash by Moscow into the breakaway republic’s political and economic infrastructure. The Kremlin managed …
