i

RUSSIA'S INVASION OF CHECHNYA:

A PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT

Stephen J. Blank

and

Earl H. Tilford, Jr.

January 13, 1995
ii

*******

The views expressed in this report are those of the authors

and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of

the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the

U.S. Government. This report is approved for public release;

distribution is unlimited.

*******

Comments pertaining to this report are invited and should be

forwarded to: Director, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army

War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA 17013-5050. Comments also may

be conveyed directly to the authors by calling commercial (717)

245-4085 or DSN 242-4085.
iii

FOREWORD

On December 11, 1994, Russia invaded the secessionist

republic of Chechnya in the North Caucasus. The aim was to

suppress the republic's government, led by General Dzhokar

Dudayev, compel it to accept Moscow's authority, and to force it

to renounce its bid for independence and sovereignty. This

invasion, which quickly turned into a military quagmire for

Russia's troops, triggered a firestorm of domestic opposition,

even within the higher levels of the Ministry of Defense. As a

result, the invasion has the most profound and troubling possible

consequences for the stability of the Russian government, Russian

democracy, and the future political- military relationship.

This special report, based on what is already known,

attempts to assess the discernible consequences of this invasion

and provide a framework within which future developments can be

assessed. It is offered as a contribution to the debate on this

timely issue.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

Colonel, U.S. Army

Acting Director

Strategic Studies Institute
iv

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF THE AUTHORS

STEPHEN J. BLANK has been an Associate Professor of

Russian/Soviet Affairs at the Strategic Studies Institute since

1989. Prior to this appointment, Dr. Blank was Associate

Professor for Soviet Studies at the Center for Aerospace

Doctrine, Research, and Education of Air University at Maxwell

Air Force Base. Dr. Blank's M.A. and Ph.D. are in Russian history

from the University of Chicago. He has published numerous

articles on Soviet/Russian military and foreign policies, notably

in the Third World, and is the author of a recent study of the

Soviet Commissariat of Nationalities and editor of a book on the

future of the Soviet military.

DR. Earl H. Tilford, Jr. is the Senior Research Professor and

Director of Research at the Strategic Studies Institute, U.S.

Army War College. He earned his B.A. and M.A. in history at the

University of Alabama and his Ph.D. in American and European

military history at George Washington University. Dr. Tilford's

most recent book, Crosswinds: The Air Force's Setup in Vietnam,

was published by Texas A&M University Press in 1993. He is also

the author of more than three dozen articles and chapters in

various anthologies. Dr. Tilford served in the U.S. Air Force

from 1969 to 1989 where he worked on the official history of Air

Force operations in Vietnam and was the editor of Air University

Review.
v

SUMMARY

In December 1994, Russian forces invaded the rebellious

province of Chechnya. They aimed to unseat General Dzhokar

Dudayev, who had proclaimed Chechnya's independence from Russia.

The invasion culminated a series of failed coups against Dudayev

that had been orchestrated by the office of Russian President

Boris Yeltsin. However, this invasion has quickly degenerated

into a military-political quagmire. Generals, soldiers, and even

Deputy Defense Ministers have attacked the invasion, and

tactical, operational, and military incompetence has been rife.

Civilian control over the military has broken down, and the armed

forces' poor cohesion and limited reliability have become clear

to everyone. Furthermore, the government's reporting has been

exposed as official lying by the media with the result of

mounting public disaffection.

Worse yet, the integrity of the Yeltsin government and of

Russia is at risk due to the invasion. Russian prestige has been

dealt a blow abroad. As a result, in Moscow, scapegoating has

already begun between the government and the military while the

reputation and stability of the government and the armed forces

have been severely impaired. All this is already clear from an

initial, preliminary assessment of the invasion.
1

RUSSIA'S INVASION OF CHECHNYA:

A PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT

Introduction.

When Russia's armed forces invaded Chechnya on December 11,

1994, they thought that it would only be a brief, decisive

operation to bring the rebellious republic to heel.

Unfortunately, they grossly miscalculated and have thereby put

the stability of the Russian government itself at risk while

inadvertently exposing the many shortcomings of the Russian armed

forces. The invasion also revealed the absence of viable

institutional or civilian control over the armed forces, as well

as the government's readiness to use them to quell domestic

unrest. These factors make for an exceedingly dangerous situation

in Russia. And the invasion has also raised deeply troubling

questions for Russia's international relations. All this is clear

even from the first few weeks of the invasion. The invasion's

repercussions will, therefore, be profound, and probably

long-lasting in their ultimate effects. This essay accordingly

represents an effort to assess these consequences on the basis of

what is already known.

Chechnya, which had declared its independence from Russia in

1991, had become an increasingly painful and troublesome issue in

Russian politics. Russia's determination to overthrow the

government of General Dzhokar Dudayev is only the most recent

manifestation of the acute disorder that pervades the entire

Caucasus and Transcaucasia as well. While the ultimate outcome

and repercussions of this invasion remain to be seen, already it

has illuminated obvious and often ominous trends.

 Russia's decision to invade Chechnya underscores the end of

the Caucasus' isolation from world politics. No longer is the

area merely Moscow's gateway to influence in the Near and Middle

East. Rather the fate of the entire regional state system in the

Caucasus and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)--the

bedrock issue of all the many contentions in which Russia is

involved--is deeply entwined with further progress in European

security, especially around the Black Sea and Balkans.1

 The

crises in the Caucasus: ethnic wars in Nagorno-Karabakh and

between Georgia and Abkhazia, the unrest throughout the North

Caucasus most violently displayed by this invasion, and Russian
2

efforts to regain a regional hegemony reflect and contribute to

the pervasive regional chaos that now threatens to engulf all of

Russia as well. Accordingly Caucasian events also materially

affect Europe's security and this is reflected in Europe's

expanded security agenda.2

A second conclusion relates to this one. By deciding to

invade Chechnya, President Boris Yeltsin has made the stability

of the Russian government and the integrity of the Russian state

the center of gravity of the war. Whatever happens in Groznyi is

of relatively small consequence compared to the fact that Yeltsin

has exposed his regime's failure to create either a "rule of law

state," (not to mention democracy), a reliable policy process,

and a way to control Russia's armed forces. Accordingly, the

chaos pervading the entire Caucasus could easily spread to

Russia.

The fundamental problem across the CIS remains, therefore,

the creation of effective states which have a legitimate monopoly

on the use of force. Neither the states in the Caucasus, the

rebellious provinces there, nor Russia have produced a

Machtordnung (an order based on power) uniting force with

legitimacy. Hence there is no order; instead we find a Hobbesian

war of all against all where Russia or free-booting forces

operating in Russia's name are constantly tempted to intervene.3

Though violence is regionally prevalent, it has failed to

generate a principle of order anywhere from Russia south.

Accordingly a third conclusion suggests itself, namely that

for the first time in its modern history, Russia has nothing to

offer the Asian peoples with whom it is engaged. In the past

Russia built an empire by combining force with ideas, ideologies,

and institutions that attracted at least some Asian elites who

were then coopted. Today Russia has nothing to offer these people

other than force. No attractive legitimating ideology accompanies

Russia's direct force, therefore that force cannot suffice to

create any viable regional order across Eurasia. For this reason,

perhaps the most dangerous aspect of this cycle of constant

strife is that it has now spread to Russian territory proper and

has manifested itself as a major threat to Yeltsin's government.

Russia's overall Chechen policy has had a corrosive impact on

Russian constitutional and internal security.
3

Chechnya has also become a major embarrassment for Moscow on

the international stage because, on the one hand, Russia now

appears to be indecisive and weak, and on the other hand it

appears as an overbearing, brutal bully. Incompetence mixed with

brutality is a pitiful combination. Where that corrosion will

stop nobody knows. Indeed this inability to visualize an outcome

or resolution to the use of military power, a conflict

termination strategy in other words, is a major aspect of the

profound strategic failure represented in Chechnya.

The Threat to the Russian State.

The greatest danger to Russia in its Chechen invasion lies

in the fact that Yeltsin has put not only Defense Minister Pavel

Grachev's authority on the line by this operation, but he also

has put his own power and that of the Russian state at risk.4

 The

issue in Chechnya is not merely preventing other regional

formations from following its example, leading to a breakup of

Russia itself; rather the Russian state's own cohesion is what is

now at stake. The fact that an invasion occurred testifies to the

absence of any existing state of law in Russia. Yeltsin can

indeed call out troops without accounting to anyone or any

agency. Furthermore that force will remain not the final argument

of Russian authorities, but the first argument. Parliamentarians

like Yegor Gaidar are right to worry that this operation heralds

the government's reliance on "national patriots."5 But the

malaise goes deeper than that.

It is clear that Russian democracy has failed since Russia's

current government exists in a vacuum of social-political forces

and answers to nobody. Though one may call Russia a democracy,

Yeltsin and his government are not operating under any rule of

law nor is institutional stability in sight. Indeed, the CIA has

suggested that coherent, legitimate political leadership in

Moscow is in danger.6 In 1993, in a remark worthy of his Tsarist

predecessors, Yeltsin observed that he only answers to his

conscience. Today the Tsarist model still pervades defense

decision making. Indeed, Yeltsin's power and authority reside

neither in law nor other structures, but in his own person.7

 Much

as in Tsarist times, key figures in the government despise each

other and are constantly intriguing one against the other. Not

surprisingly this fact suits Yeltsin since he can play one off

against the other. This condition is a pervasive, recurrent
4

feature of the Tsarist bureaucratic structure which has

resurfaced in the post-Soviet period. As Otto Latsis, a member of

the consultative presidential committee remarked, "The problem is

not so much that decision-making procedures have been breached,

but that there are no procedures at all."8

However, the absence of viable, regular, and coherent

political institutions makes it almost certain that failure in

Chechnya will threaten the power of the president, just as failed

wars challenged the power of every Tsar who waged them. Yeltsin

and Grachev alone are on the firing line especially now, when

television viewers can see the truth on a daily basis and Russian

society is no longer easily manipulated by propaganda or amenable

to Tsarist-like rule.

The Chechen War and Its Immediate Consequences.

It is hard to believe that the Russian army has found it so

difficult to overwhelm and defeat the Chechen rebels. Whether or

not Russian forces occupy Groznyi and install a puppet

government, the consequences of the invasion will eclipse local

events in Chechnya in importance. Those consequences have already

undermined Russia's domestic constitution and government and they

will weaken its international position as well.

The first consequence of this war is a demonstrable absence

of any viable system of civilian control over the military. In

defiance of the 1992 Law on Defense, the army was used on the

Russian population without any recourse to Parliament. Indeed the

government denied it was going to invade Chechnya and, in

September 1994, Yeltsin said that "under no circumstances" would

there be an invasion.9

 This 1992 law is obviously most

inconvenient for the government which has submitted draft laws on

defense and peacemaking that reserve to Yeltsin alone the power

to call out the army for any contingency without recourse to

Parliament for permission, funding, or authorization. As the

Duma's overall evaluation of the new draft Law on Defense

observes, the provisions on the armed forces' structure and

objectives are never really confirmed by legislation "and they

are left hostage in their entirety to executive structures of

government."10

As for the legal justification of the invasion, it too is
5

cloudy at best. Chechnya refused to sign the Federation Treaty of

1992 that regulates relationships among Russia's republics and

the central government. But that treaty stipulates that a state

of emergency may be declared in a republic only with the local

government's agreement. Yet even if the emergency is contained

within only one republic, e.g. Chechnya, the local government

must inform the President of Russia and the Supreme Soviet

(presumably today that would mean the Federation Council and the

Duma) of the Russian Federation and act according to federal laws

during the state of emergency.11 The 1993 Russian constitution

also states that the President may impose a state of emergency on

his own if he immediately notifies the Federation Council and

State Duma. While the presidential decision enters into force

immediately, it only remains in force for three days until and

unless the Federation council extends the state of emergency.12

But Yeltsin did not declare any state of emergency before the

invasion or communicate with the Parliament's two houses. So the

invasion is illegal even by Russia's legal standards. Chechnya's

refusal to sign the treaty put it outside the law, but what can

we say of the Russian government that broke the treaty without

accounting for its actions to any institution?

Essentially this invasion manifests a return to a

quasi-Tsarist way of governing. As was the case under the Tsarist

and Soviet systems, the Kremlin is not accountable to anyone.

Furthermore, its defense decision-making process is characterized

by a small group of unaccountable men making secret and

calamitous decisions. Their decisions are justified by either

resorting to the old Soviet "big lie" technique or by outright

repression and phony accusations against the independent media.13

Such practices are too easily invoked in Russia to reassure

advocates of democracy there.

As part of this formula of nonaccountability and resort to

mendacious propaganda we also find the disturbing possibility

that officials deliberately may be misleading or misinforming

Yeltsin. In his speech to the nation on December 27, 1994,

Yeltsin claimed the opposition press was motivated by political

ambition and Chechen bribes. Furthermore, he maintained that

Russia was ready to move over to the administrative

reconstitution of a new Chechen government in Groznyi. None of

this was true. Worse yet, after he announced that Russia would

stop the terror bombing of Groznyi, it continued for several days
6

without letup. Deliberate screening of information and deception

of the autocrat were other hallmarks of Tsarist rule. And the

deliberate use of misinformation on the population was, of

course, another such hallmark. In this war there have been

numerous instances of such official lying that have been exposed

by the independent media, much to the government's discomfiture.

The danger is that in the present context of institutional

incoherence and fragility, such misinformation (if not

disinformation of and by one's own government) can only lead to

further loss of control by Yeltsin and the top military command.

This could lead to even greater strategic catastrophes.

Even before this invasion it had become clear that Boris

Yeltsin would not allow any other civilian to control the

military, seemingly out of fear that a rival might develop his

own power base. But it was also clear that the armed forces, like

the government, were factionalized. The Minister of Defense

depends completely on Yeltsin for his job, and must support his

decisions and carry them out even more zealously than would

otherwise be the case. At the same time the President and the

Minister of Defense have become a law unto themselves in that no

other institution is allowed to oversee defense policy.14 In other

words, in defense policy, Yeltsin's personal decree or whim has

become law. But since law has no legitimacy where force and

caprice rule, parliamentary opponents quickly labelled this war

as illegitimate. Furthermore, the media's reporting demolished

the flimsy lies behind which Chechen policy had been conducted.

This is one key reason for the attacks on the media even before

the war. These physical and rhetorical attacks suggest the

Kremlin's inner circle is unwilling to be held accountable for

its actions, an unwillingness that can only strengthen

antidemocratic tendencies within the government. In part, this

explains why the Ministry of Interior (MVD) forces took up

preventive positions in Moscow and arrested Chechens there now.

(If they were criminals before the invasion, why not arrest them

then?)

That refusal to answer for the presidency's actions might

also be a motive for invading at this time according to Pavel

Felgengauer, the defense correspondent of Segodnya, and Russia's

most prominent defense reporter. According to Felgengauer the

invasion came at this time to forestall any parliamentary

investigation of the previous five failed coups undertaken by the
7

government in Chechnya. These coups (discussed below) were

directly traceable to Yeltsin's office and the Intelligence

Service (FSK), and employed regular troops from the armed forces.

Any investigation would undoubtedly have produced a major

scandal.15

The invasion's second consequence flows from the first.

Absent civilian control over the military and laws binding on

everyone, key members of the armed forces can then plausibly

argue against this or any other operation, especially a domestic

one, on the grounds of conscience as well as on professional

ones. Thus two deputy ministers of defense, General Boris Gromov

and General Georgii Kondrat'ev; the Deputy CINC of the Army, Col.

General Edvard Vorob'ev; and one of the commanding officers in

the field, General Viktor Babichev, all attacked the operation or

refused to participate.

This phenomenon not only underscores the pervasive lack of

respect for Grachev and Yeltsin among the military, it also

highlights the essential unreliability of the army when it comes

to quelling domestic unrest.16 Efforts to impose such repression

elsewhere could conceivably break the state apart. Those who

argued that the army supported Yeltsin in 1993 overlooked the

fact that when called on to defend the state against rebels the

army either temporized or refused. Instead it only attacked the

rebels after the latter rashly and forcefully attacked the army

and the people. Arguably the army was not defending only Yeltsin,

but rather itself, a fact not lost on Yeltsin.17 The Chechen

operation, or other similar and especially concurrent ones,

could, if protracted, lead to massive military disobedience on

the scale of February 1917, especially since commanders and

troops are visibly unhappy with this war.

These trends therefore demonstrate an absence of unity of

command at the top, a fact that casts doubt on the merit of using

the army for any strategic operation. This is not only a question

of domestic but also of foreign missions, and it makes the use of

the army anywhere a most problematic affair. Given Yeltsin's and

Grachev's widespread loss of status, it is hardly clear that they

can compel full compliance to orders for any particular military

operation. The fact that the terror bombing of Groznyi continued

for two days after Yeltsin said that it would stop suggests that

local commanders conceivably disregarded that order. If so, that
8

would be another indication of the dangers of lack of control

over the armed forces. Consequently, the army's performance in

Chechnya has exposed its shortcomings in command and control to

the world.

Yet, at the same time, Yeltsin and Grachev (and the others

involved in the plan) have demonstrated their fidelity to the

tenets of the 1993 defense doctrine stating the army can and will

be used to quell domestic unrest.18 Since Grachev wants the

doctrine accepted as a legally binding document upon state

institutions (as was the case in Soviet times), the government is

playing for the highest stakes with dubious cards. A

fundamentally illegitimate and lawless regime (only 46 percent of

voters approved the existing constitution which, in any case, has

been superseded by this action) effectively has announced that

although it lacks control over commanders and soldiers, it will

call out troops at home and, in so doing, perhaps violate its own

Federation Treaty and Constitution. Although the Chechen

government had defied Moscow for three years and thus the threat

to Russia dates from 1991, Moscow only called out the troops now

after the five failed coup attempts. This suggests that little or

no long-range planning went into the operation. Rather, it was

ordered in a state of some panic or urgency for reasons going

beyond any Chechen threat.

The implications of this are enormous. The regime is liable

to call out troops at home with little or no consideration as to

consequences and for reasons having to do as much with covering

up its own failures as with the potential "threat" posed by the

insurgents. The determination to employ military force at home

also reflects a broader process at work. Already by late 1993,

the MVD had mounted tens of costly operations in the North

Caucasus and Moscow, and was becoming the preferred instrument

for quelling and pacifying internal unrest once the army had

initially suppressed the local fighting.19

At the same time, the armed forces' tactical and operational

deficiencies have been exposed for little reason. Naturally this

greatly embarrasses the Russian Army and the government.

Observers of the military had long known that draftees were

increasingly deficient in health, physical training, education,

character (probably about one-third being criminals), and morale.

Significant numbers of Russian troops surrendering, the
9

widespread evidence of a breakdown of logistics, poor training,

troops being transported in sealed cars with no briefing

concerning conditions at the front, or not being given sufficient

food, and the widespread desire not to fight in this war all

point to severe limitations on the army's reliability and

competence. Indeed, Ingushetia's President, Ruslan Aushev, told

the Russian Federation Council and a news conference on December

15, 1994, that soldiers in the columns crossing Ingushetia had

often urged protesters to disable military vehicles and shown

them how to do it.20 On the other hand the demoralization of the

armed forces also showed up in incidents of brutality towards

Muslim servicemen (a Bashkir) and Ingush civilians, all of whom

were murdered in killings that were reported by a number of Duma

members.21

Russia may still consider itself a superpower, but its army

was not up to this effort. Given the extent of Russian interests

abroad, it is unlikely that these forces could adequately defend

them all. Just as the army is an instrument of questionable

utility at home, under some circumstances it might not be much

better abroad. Therefore this invasion, like the crisis of the

military economy at home, highlights the fact that the

instruments of power at Russia's disposal are not commensurate

with Russia's strategic claims and interests. Inasmuch as the

government shows too easily a willingness to deploy these

unreliable armed forces, this insolvency (to use Walter

Lippmann's term) can only raise the greatest fears for Russia and

its neighbors.

This incommensurability also pertains to the war's economic

aspect. By December 23, 1994, the government had already spent

400 billion rubles on the war and was forced to propose a still

larger outlay for Chechnya's peacetime reconstruction if and when

that occurs.22 By the end of 1994, officials were estimating that

the costs of rebuilding Chechnya would reach 3.5 trillion rubles

and there is no source for the money. And the costs associated

with sending and maintaining 40,000 troops there is included in

that figure, making the total cost at the start of 1995 at least

$1 billion (U.S.).23 These expenditures will break the budget and

explode the fiction that Russia could somehow conform to the

International Monetary Fund's dictates and continue receiving

subsidies. Instead, inflation and defense spending will grow

together. Indeed, one cynical view is that Grachev urged the
10

invasion precisely to increase defense spending. He and the

military were certainly bitter about the government's and Duma's

failure to heed their exorbitant budget demands. That their

budget requirements would destroy the economy seemed largely

inconsequential to the military.24 Thus, not only does the war

call into question the vitality of the army and the health of

Russian democracy, but it also further strains Russia's economy.

However, perhaps the most dismaying military and domestic

aspect of the war is that it shows the regime's utter strategic

incompetence, not only in facing the Chechen challenge but also

in assessing Russia's true options and capabilities. This failure

particularly relates to four issues: the reasons for resorting to

a large military operation, failure to assess the Chechen and

Russian forces realistically, failure to understand the media's

role, and, most importantly, the failure to see that there could

be no victory here. No one in the Kremlin apparently had an end

state in mind or conceived of a conflict resolution or

termination strategy. The planners were misled by the old Russian

belief that a mere show of force would quickly intimidate the

Muslims into submission.

Russian efforts to suppress Chechnya date to 1991 and even

then showed a dangerous proclivity to impose undemocratic and

unrealistic solutions in the North Caucasus.25 The general reasons

for intervening: to preserve Russian integrity, enhance Yeltsin's

and/or Grachev's stature, bolster the defense budget, overcome

internal political disaffection by a `splendid little war,' and

to suppress a rebellion that threatened internal security and

criminality, are all well known.

But we must ask why invade now with such sizable forces?

Indeed, some observers believed that before the summer and the

coups described below, progress towards a solution was taking

place.26 Sadly, the answer apparently is that Moscow invaded out

of pique. The current masters of the Kremlin would have done well

to read Lenin's Political Testament wherein he wrote, "in

general, spite plays the very worst role in politics." Before

November 1994, Russia mounted at least four covert operations

against Chechnya, all of which failed. These operations began in

mid-1992 and were intensified in the summer of 1994 when Yeltsin

signed an "instruction" releasing 150 billion rubles of state

funds for action against Chechnya. Reports from captured Russian
11

officers indicate that the "mechanism of intervention" included

organizing mass flights of criminals from prison, and recruiting

Chechen criminals from Russia. All these sources indicate that

overall authorship and supervision of the plot against Chechnya

came from Russia's Ministry of Nationalities, under Sergei

Shakhray, the Foreign Intelligence Service (Federativnyi Sluzhba

Kontrrazvedki- FSK), and Vladimir Lozovoy, head of the North

Ossetian and Ingushetian Interim Administration. This latter

organization reputedly operates under the direction of Sergei

Filatov, chief of Yeltsin's administration.27 This evidence

apparently confirms the claim that the FSK and MVD blindsided the

Ministry of Defense which was led to claim falsely that no

Russian troops were involved in these operations. This denial

took place despite the fact that the FSK had gained operational

control over the forces sent into Chechnya in the fall of 1994,

in the fifth and last covert operation before the current

attack.28

This evidence itself signifies a dangerous lack of

governmental control over regular and covert military forces and

operations. It also implicates Russia in the coup against the

Aliyev government in Azerbaijan in the fall of 1994, an operation

that started in the same way with a mass prison break followed by

an uprising. Inasmuch as previous coups in Baku also indicate the

heavy involvement of covert Russian forces, it appears that the

FSK has taken over the KGB's mission of coup-making abroad.29 The

resort to black operations--and their public failure--can only

undermine the authority of the FSK, Yeltsin, and the armed

forces. Moreover, to the degree that coups in both rebellious

provinces and sovereign states become identified as habitual

Russian modus operandi to secure Moscow's interests, Russia's

international position will also suffer as foreign suspicion of

its policies and goals increases.

Frustrated by the failure of their first four operations,

the MVD, FSK, and the government mounted a fifth one involving

supposed anti-Dudayev volunteers in November 1994. This, too,

ignominiously failed and Dudayev exposed to the world the

involvement of Russian troops. This public embarrassment

undoubtedly enraged Yeltsin, Grachev, and other leaders who were

shown to have been blindsided by the FSK, and not fully in

control of their own armed forces. Grachev, who had gone on

television to deny the involvement of Russian troops, must have
12

been particularly embarrassed. Even though Yeltsin and Grachev

subsequently made a pretense of negotiations while they were

massing troops, that was clearly a ruse. The Kremlin had decided

on war to avenge its failure.

And the inner circle all thought this splendid little war

would be a walkover. Grachev said that one paratroop regiment

would suffice to conquer Chechnya in two hours, a sign not only

of arrogance but of utter strategic incomprehension.30 They

believed that a single crushing blow was all that was needed. No

resistance was expected, nor did the planners count on the fact

that massing troops in the neighboring North Caucasian Muslim

republics would stimulate their active opposition as well.

Therefore, when significant opposition did come, it disoriented

the troops who had been screened from the media and were told

there would be no opposition; that they were only fighting a band

of criminals.

Nor did the planners count on the reluctance of commanders

to fire on unarmed civilians or on the corrosive effects on the

military of official lying during Russia's first "television

war." Free broadcasting from the war zone belied the hollow

claims made about a lack of Russian or civilian casualties and

brought into question the reasons for the war. Nor did Russian

audiences enjoy seeing their forces engage in the terror bombing

that ensued when the ground forces failed to advance over land.31

This media exposure, local resistance, and generals' refusal to

violate the constitution (in Babichev's case) by firing on

civilians, or support what they believed was a fiasco, along with

the incompetence of the troops, betrayed the hollowness of the

invasion plans.

Nor can one discern what objective could be gained by so

massive an operation. There is already talk of some sort of

Chechen referendum, which Russia will veto in the end or,

perhaps, some sort of negotiation about autonomy--a meaningless

concept in an utterly lawless state, especially when Yeltsin has

already named a new government of Russian puppets to take over

once the Russian army occupies Groznyi.32 In other words, Yeltsin

is now making up political objectives as he goes along. Strategic

failure has resulted in less than inspired improvisation.

Consequently, more troops have had to be sent to Chechnya.
13

Finally, the possibility exists that other North Caucasian

Muslim forces will join with Chechnya against Russia and convert

the area into a true cauldron. This last consideration, directly

traceable to the strategic failure in Moscow, leads us to

consider the possibility that the Kremlin's actions could now

generate a real, not propaganda, Islamic threat. In effect,

Moscow could summon its own worst nightmare into being. While

earlier the area was seen as a source of many nasty conflicts, it

was not regarded as being in imminent danger of

"Lebanonization."33 Now Russia has given the many nationalities of

this area a reason to unite. Moreover, the Russians have revealed

themselves as brutal and incompetent; a lethal combination. For

these reasons, the invasion of Chechnya will make it much harder

to achieve a regional peace in the North Caucasus that is based

on compromise, mutual accommodation, and negotiations rather than

one based on force and Muscovite centralization.34 Thus the resort

to force majeure may trigger a series of long wars that will

further debilitate an already sick Russia.

While these are the immediately evident domestic

consequences of this invasion and suffice to explain its tragic

folly, they are not the only ones. Indeed, this action has

serious international repercussions. First, this war and the

brutality of Russia's terror bombing of innocent civilians risk

the good will which democratic Russia had been building in the

West. Even in the United States, which originally said this was

purely a Russian internal affair, protests by human rights groups

have begun to register. The same holds true in Europe and the

protests could lead to sanctions or raise other obstacles to

Russia's major foreign policy goals.35 The European Union's

refusal to let Turkey in, allegedly on human rights grounds

resulting from its Kurdish war, and U.S. aid reductions to Turkey

illustrate what might happen as a result of this tragic war.

Second, Russia's heavy-handed actions indicate its

supposedly neo-imperialist aims, undemocratic nature, and

reliance on covert operations to destabilize governments, as well

as its willingness to send in troops when all else fails. In

other words, Russia has gratuitously provided ammunition to all

those who regard Moscow as a threat and wish to wall it off from

influence in their region. More pointedly, since the use of

troops was a violation of the Vienna Document on Confidence and

Stability Building Measures of the Conference on Security and
14

Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) that said any concentration of over

40,000 troops must be communicated to the other signatories, and

the Budapest decisions of the CSCE that were signed five days

before the invasion, those violations could--and possibly will--

be held against Russia as an indication of its unreliability, and

as reasons for not revising the Conventional Forces in Europe

(CFE) treaty.

Revision of the treaty is a key Russian policy goal that has

now been endangered.36 Russia wants to gain permission to station

more troops, armored vehicles, and tanks in the North Caucasian

and northern flanks of Russia and this would necessitate revision

of the quotas that the treaty stipulates for Russia in those

flanks. If Russian claims to revise the CFE's flank quotas and

allow it to station more troops, tanks, and military vehicles are

rejected, Russia may renounce the CFE treaty and isolate itself

in Europe, thus provoking NATO's expansion. Or if Moscow accepts

the treaty it will have to accept conditions that limit its plans

for rebuilding the North Caucasian Military District into a major

front-line and versatile power base for military action in

Russia, the North Caucasus, Transcaucasia, and potentially the

Ukraine, which borders the district's western frontier. Assuming

that unrest continues throughout the area, acceptance of such

limitations puts a heavy burden on Russia's armed forces. That

burden's weight will be due to the fact that having started a

protracted war, Moscow will be unable to find other resources for

essential military construction. But if the Kremlin renounces the

treaty, Russian ambitions for a larger role in European security

will be blocked.

Third, although this invasion may seem to show that the

Russian armed forces are strategically and tactically

incompetent, Western analysts need to be cautious in assessing

the performance of Russian forces in Chechnya. It not advisable

to extrapolate too much from the seemingly poor performance of

Russian troops fighting in an unpopular war against their own

citizens. The tendency might be for the West to assume that a

seemingly substandard performance in Chechnya might mean Russian

forces could not adequately defend the nation's interest under

different circumstances elsewhere.

On the other hand, the way Moscow has handled the Chechen

situation could indicate that Russia is having an increasingly
15

difficult time creating and enforcing order in its Muslim

peripheries. If Russia has to rely on brute force to maintain

order it will alienate itself from the West and dig itself into a

geopolitical hole across Eurasia. Furthermore, Moscow's actions

in Chechnya will further destabilize the state system in this

already fragmented "arc of crisis."37

In time, democracy could have become the principle that

provided legitimacy to the force of state power throughout the

North Caucasus. But Moscow's actions may lead many to believe

that Russia has nothing to offer Asia but force. Unfortunately

for Moscow, many Asians may now feel that they do not have to be

intimidated by a Russia which has employed force both

illegitimately and with such seeming incompetence. Instead, those

in Asia and Europe who are so inclined may now be less reticent

to resist Russia, with unpredictable and potentially dangerous

results.

Precisely because the European security agenda is now

increasingly bound up with developments in the Caucasus, it will

be impossible, or at least highly unlikely that, in the event of

protracted war there or other such interventions, Europe can

remain aloof. As Lawrence Freedman recently wrote,

The tolerance of the European system to major uphevals

in Russia and/or the Ukraine should not be judged high.

Even smaller-scale ructions can become dangerous if

they start to threaten the equilibrium of a number of

countries. If there is an underlying tendency towards

instability, then the issue of intervention starts to

be seen in a different light. The interest in the

prevention of disorder takes on a higher value, because

there can be no less confidence that, left alone, most

conflicts will peter out as the belligerents become

exhausted.38

Conclusion.

Our analysis of the Chechnya invasion is that it is

indicative of the larger issue of Russia's seeming failure to

create a viable state. If that is the case, the implications may

go beyond the individual issues of Chechnya's attempted secession

and the general complexities of the ethnic conflict problem in
16

the CIS. The Chechnya invasion, and the way it is resolving, have

cast doubt on the ability of Boris Yeltsin and his colleagues to

create stable, lawful, and legitimate governing institutions in

Russia. The extent to which the civilian leadership can control

the army may also be in question. At the same time, the

government has shown too great a willingness to use military

force at home. Indeed, since 1989, Soviet and now Russian armed

forces have been used in Georgia, Azerbaijan (twice), the Baltic,

in Moscow (twice), throughout the Caucasus, and now again in

Chechnya to compel submission to Moscow. All these interventions

have failed, along with the covert operations that preceded them.

Accordingly, these failures have undermined not only Russia's

prestige and power abroad, but also threaten the foundations of

the post-Communist Russian state itself.

Even before the Chechen coups and the invasion, two Russian

analysts had already proclaimed that settling the minorities

issue in Russian society and managing the Soviet legacy are tasks

that must also include international institutions, not just the

ethnic minorities on the spot and the Moscow government.39

Aleksandr' Konovalov and Dimitri Evstatiev's argument for

including international institutions is based on the fact that

those institutions alone can provide an objectivity and criteria

for settlement that eludes Russia because of the common

perception that Russia is "the main heir of the imperial past and

the main source of totalitarian practice in inter-ethnic

relations."40 This invasion has, if anything, enhanced the

validity of this argument and heightened the urgency of

international diplomatic and political intervention.

By invading Chechnya despite the aforementioned strategic

vulnerabilities, the actions of Yeltsin and his colleagues

suggest that they may not be able to manage that Soviet legacy

and preserve peace in Eurasia. Similarly, by trampling on Russian

democracy's fragile efforts to establish legal controls on

government actions and on the armed forces, Yeltsin has seemingly

repudiated his own statements of December 6, 1994 in Budapest

that "it was too early to bury Russian democracy."

If that is, indeed, the case then Yeltsin may have, in the

words of the poet Mayakovsky, "stepped on the throat of his own

song" to become the gravedigger of the third Russian Revolution

(1905 and 1917 being the first two). If European intervention in
17

Russia due to proliferating violence, and/or the death of Russian

democracy come to pass, history will not soon forgive those who

have ignited the fire of war on their own territory without

having the means to put it out.

ENDNOTES

1. Daniel N. Nelson, "Creating Security in the Balkans," in

Regina Cowen Karp, ed., Central and Eastern Europe: The Challenge

of Transition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, For SIPRI, 1993,

p. 172.

2. Ian O. Lesser, "The Strategic Environment in the Balkans

and the Mediterranean," in F. Stephen Larrabee, ed., The Volatile

Powder Keg: Balkan Security After the Cold War, Washington:

American University Press, 1994, p. 168.

3. Gerard Holden, Russia After the Cold War: History and the

Nation in Post-Soviet Security Policies, Frankfurt Am Main,

Germany and Boulder, CO: Campus Verlag and Westview Press, 1994,

pp. 33-37.

4. Steven Erlanger, "Russia's Army Seen As Failing Chechnya

Test," New York Times, December 25, 1994, pp. A1, 10; "Why

Chechnya Matters," The Economist, December 17, 1994, p. 49.

5. Indeed, Pavel Felgengauer, Russia's most respected

defense columnist, wrote that one reason the army invaded now was

to forestall a Parliamentary investigation of the earlier efforts

to overthrow Dudayev's government. See Steven Erlanger, "Bad News

vs. Bad News for Yeltsin," New York Times, December 21, 1994, p.

A1.

6. Bill Gertz, "Chechnya Strife Signals Fragile Yeltsin

Control," Washington Times, January 4, 1995, p. 1.

7. This was clear from a collection of papers presented by

Felgengauer and other Russians (Vitaly Shlykov, Stepan Sulakshin,

and Aleksandr' Belkin) to the II Annual Conference on Russian

Defense Decision-Making, Monterrey, CA, November 15-16, 1994.

8. Sophie Shihab, "Who's Calling the Shots in Russia?"

Manchester Guardian Weekly, December 25, 1994, p. 11, from Le
18

Monde, December 16, 1994.

9. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Daily Report, December

22, 1994.

10. This is immediately apparent upon reading the Draft Laws

on Defense and on Peacemaking currently before the Duma. For

further comment on the former law, see Foreign Broadcast

Information Service, Central Eurasia, FBIS Report, (henceforth

FBIS-USR), 94-018-L, November 8, 1994.

11. Nicolai N. Petro, "Can Decentralization Solve Russia's

Ethnic Problems?," in Ian M. Cuthbertson and Jane Leibowitz,

eds., Minorities: The New Europe's Old Issue, New York: Institute

for East-West Studies, 1993, p. 189.

12. Moscow, Segodnya, in Russian, November 29, 1994, Foreign

Broadcast Information Service, Central Eurasia, Daily Report

(henceforth FBIS-SOV), 94-229, November 30, 1994, pp. 41-42.

13. Alan Cooperman, "Return of the Big Lie," U.S. News &

World Report, December 19, 1994, p. 44; James Rupert, "Moscow

Fights Losing Battle on Portrayals of Chechnya Campaign," The

Washington Post, December 24, 1994, p. A12.

14. This emerged clearly in the papers and discussion at the

November 15-16 conference in Monterrey, CA.

15. "Les Troupes Russes Intensifient Leur Offensive sur

Grozny," Le Monde, December 22, 1994; Sophie Shihab, "Moscow Veut

'Liquider' la Rebellion Tchechene," Le Monde, December 22, 1994,

pp. 1, 5.

16. See Col. Serafim Yuskov's Open Letter to Yeltsin in

Nezavisimaya Gazeta, October 22, 1994, FBIS-SOV-94-205, October

24, 1994, pp. 19-20.<%0>

17. Boris Yeltsin, The Struggle for Russia, Catherine A.

Fitzpatrick, trans., New York: Times Books, Random House, 1994,

pp. 11-14, 258-277.

18. "Osnovnye Polozheniia Voennoi Doktriny Rossii,"

Rossisskie Vesti, November 19, 1993, pp. 3-8.
19

19. This is based on interviews with Finnish officials who

received it from the MVD Forces Commander, General Evgenii

Kulikov.

20. National Public Radio, "All Things Considered," January

3, 1995; RFE/RL Daily Report, December 20, 1994; Michael Specter,

"Rebels Beat Back a Russian Force," The New York Times, January

3, 1995, pp. A1, 8; James Rupert, "Chechens Repulse Fierce

Assault by Russian Troops," The Washington Post, January 3, 1995,

pp. A1, 12.

21. RFE/RL Daily Report, December 20, 1994.

22. John Lloyd, "Yeltsin Plea to Dudayev `Hostages' as Toll

Reaches 140," Financial Times, December 22, 1994, p. 3.

23. Steven Erlanger, "Russia's New Budget Raises Doubt on a

Stable Economy," The New York Times, December 28, 1994, p. A6;

Steve Liesman, "Chechnya Conflict May Take Fiscal Toll," Wall

Street Journal, December 30, 1994, p. A4.

24. Moscow, Ostankino Television First Channel, in Russian,

November 18, 1994, FBIS-SOV, 94-224, November 20, 1994, pp.

32-34; Erlanger, "Russia's Army," p. A10.

25. Marie Broxup, "After the Putsch," in Marie Broxup, ed.,

The North Caucasus Barrier: The Russian Advance to the Muslim

World, London: Jonathan Hurst and Co., 1992, pp. 219-240; Petro,

p. 194.

26. Petro, pp. 194-199.

27. James Sherr, "The Conflict in Chechnia," Jane's

Intelligence Review, December 1994, pp. 557-558.

28. Ibid.; S. Frederick Starr, "Chechnya: The U.S.

Interest," Wall Street Journal, December 22, 1994, p. A14.

29. Amur Mursaliyev, "Drugs Fuel Azeri Coups," Moscow News,

No. 49, December 9-15, 1994, p. 6; Thomas Goltz, "The Hidden

Russian Hand," Foreign Policy, No. 92, Fall 1993, pp. 92-116.
20

30. On November 28, 1994, Grachev told a news conference

that not only were there no Russian troops there but that a

commander who sent in tanks (and the same applies to armored

vehicles, Infantry Fighting Vehicles, and Armored Personnel

Carriers-BMPs and BTRs in Russian,) was inept. Moscow, Krasnaya

Zvezda, in Russian, November 29, 1994, FBIS-SOV, 94-229, November

29, 1994, p. 1. Amazingly enough, that is exactly what the

Russians did when they tried to take Groznyi by storm over the

end of 1994 and the start of 1995.

31. It should also be pointed out that terror bombing

reflected the unavailability of other troops who could be used in

the operation. As it was, the sending of two battalions of

Marines (Morskaya Pekhota [Naval Infantry] who are elite troops)

indicated the shortage of qualified troops in the theater. But on

a large scale this resort to terror bombing and the sending of

Marines reflects the fact that Moscow, despite having 3-4 million

men under uniform in the army, MVD, FSK, railroad troops, and

border troops, cannot put together sufficient packages of usable

military forces. This highlights the gap between resources and

interests alluded to above.

32. James Rupert, "Yeltsin Sets New Policy on Chechnya," The

Washington Post, December 27, 1994, pp. A1, 20.

33. Sergei Medvedev, "Current Trends and Security Risks in

Russia and the CIS," Perspectives (the Journal of the Institute

of International Relations, Prague), No. 3, Summer 1994, pp.

83-84.

34. Petro, pp. 194-204.

35. For example, see the scathing comments in Le Monde,

December 10 and 16, 1994, as reported in Foreign Broadcast

Information Service, Western Europe, (henceforth FBIS-WEU)

94-240, December 14, 1994, p. 23, and 94-243, December 19, 1994,

p. 33.

36. Mark Almond, "Chechnya: A Wake-Up Call for the West,"

Wall Street Journal, December 20, 1994, p. A8.

37. Holden, pp. 33-37.
21

38. Lawrence Freedman, "Introduction," in Lawrence Freedman,

ed., Military Intervention in European Conflicts, Oxford:

Blackwell Publishers, 1994, p. 9.

39. Alexander A. Konovalov and Dmitri Evstatiev, "The

Problem of Ethnic Minority Rights Protection in the Newly

Independent States," in Cuthbertson and Leibowitz, eds.,

Minorities: The New Europe's Old Issue, pp. 159-60.

40. Ibid.
U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE

Major General Richard A. Chilcoat

Commandant

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STRATEGIC STUDIES INSTITUTE

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Authors

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Dr. Earl H. Tilford, Jr.

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