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. 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. The fact that an invasion occurred testifies to the absence of any existing state of law in Russia.