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The Second Chechen War and its Implications for Democratic Peace Theory

Jacques Courbe

Columbia University

Saturday August 15th, 2015

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1. Introduction

This paper analyzes the Second Chechen War, examining whether it fits Mansfeld and

Snyder’s theory that weakly institutionalized semi-democracies have specific characteristics that

cause them to be more likely to initiate war. Mansfeld and Snyder’s theory was originally

conceived to apply to inter-state conflicts. Despite the fact that Chechnya was de jure part of the

Russian Federation during both the First and Second Chechen War, the de facto sovereignty of

the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria [Chechnya], established in the conclusion of the First Chechen

War, allows for an analysis of the conflict using Mansfeld and Snyder’s theory.1 I provide some

evidence for Mansfeld and Snyder’s theory and account of the conflict, using new evidence

primarily from secondary sources written after Mansfeld and Snyder’s original study, in

conjunction with a qualitative historical methodology and multi-level analytic framework to fill

in the gaps of previous explanations of the conflict. My analysis departs from the previous

literature on the conflict by marrying international, domestic, and individual-level explanations

of the war’s causes.

The Second Chechen War deserves attention for a number of reasons. First, the conflict

caused the deaths of thousands of individuals, was the site of hundreds of human rights

violations, and the situation in Chechnya is still unstable.2 Second, Putin is widely seen to have

used the war to take and consolidate his domestic power in Russia. Third, the war has parallels to

the subsequent Russian conflicts in Georgia and Ukraine; the analysis in this paper could provide

inspiration for other researchers to explain the Georgian and Ukrainian conflicts in similar terms.

1 Mansfield, Edward D., and Jack L. Snyder. Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go to War. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2005. Print. pg 258; Smith, Hanna. "Democratization and War: The Chechen Wars' Contribution to Failing Democratization in Russia." Demokratizatsiya (2014): 627-45. EBSCO HOST. Web. 6 May 2015. pg 6372 Van Herpen, Marcel. Putin's Wars: The Rise of Russia's New Imperialism. New York: Rowman

and Littlefield, 2014. Print. pg 165

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Fourth, following Mansfeld and Snyder, the propensity for conflict of weakly institutionalized,

democratizing states calls into question the United States’ policy of democracy promotion abroad

as a strategy for promoting world-wide democratic peace.3 As I find some evidence for Mansfeld

and Snyder’s theory, the implications of their theory also apply to this study.4 Fifth, Hanna Smith

of the Aleksanteri Institute has expanded on Mansfeld and Snyder’s theory, proposing the

existence of “a vicious circle in which the process of democratization led to military adventures,

which in turn reduced the level of democracy in Russia”5—such dynamics may grip other

democratizing states that become involved in war.

On the other hand, it could be argued that the unique nature of the Russian Federation,

which allows for relatively autonomous governance of each of the Republics within it, reduces

the applicability of my findings outside the Russian context. However, if China finds itself on a

road to democratization in the near future, it could fall victim to similar dynamics as

democratizing Russia, possibly leading to costly wars within its numerous autonomous zones,

which, like Chechnya, are populated primarily by ethnic minorities. In-depth analysis of the

dynamics that produced the Second Chechen War could provide international actors with

valuable insight that would be used to combat the risk of similar conflicts erupting in a

democratizing China.

That being said, some limitations exist despite all attempts to maintain unbiased rigor.

Most significantly, the author cannot read Russian, limiting his ability to review primary sources

that haven’t been translated into English. This problem is compounded by the fact that many

authors who write about the conflict in English have evident anti-Russian or anti-Putin biases,

3 Mansfeld and Snyder, 2814 For an in-depth treatment of the implications of Snyder and Mansfeld’s Theory, see Mansfeld and Snyder, 274-2835 Smith, 627

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which may affect their narratives regarding the conflict. As well, many of the authors who write

about the conflict cite one another, and cite the same primary sources. This is probably due to

many of the authors’ lack of Russian language skills, but the issue remains: there is a sort of

narrative echo in many of the sources. Additionally, Mansfeld and Snyder’s theory is geared

towards domestic political explanations of the outbreak of war, which raises the possibility of

skewing the research towards explanations at the domestic political level of analysis. I attempt to

mitigate the risk of unduly prioritizing domestic political explanations by including international,

ideological, and individual levels of analysis.

Theoretical Framework and Hypothesis

In order to explain the causes of the Second Chechen War, I employ a multi-level

analytical approach to the conflict6, underscoring the importance of the international geopolitical

situation at the start of the conflict, the domestic politics in Russia, the ideology present in

Russian politics at the time, and the individual characteristics of Vladimir Putin, who would

become the face of the war and ride its popularity to the Russian Presidency. The multi-level

analytical framework is useful for the purpose of this paper because it allows a more complete

analysis of the causes of the war and shows that it is difficult to claim that the war was caused

solely by factors related to the political situation in Russia at the time.

Mansfeld and Snyder’s theory, expounded in Electing to Fight, provides a framework that

will help guide my domestic-level analysis. Essentially, Mansfeld and Snyder propose a

typological theory7 that holds “that countries undergoing incomplete democratization with weak

6 I borrow this study’s multi-level analytical framework from Larson, Deborah Welch. Origins of Containment: A Psychological Explanation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1985. Print.; A succinct summarization of the use of such a framework can be found on pages 326-3327 George, Alexander L., and Andrew Bennett. Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2005. Print. pg 235

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institutions are more likely than other states to become involved in war.”8 Thus, for the purpose

of this study’s adaptation of Mansfeld and Snyder’s theory to case study analysis, the incomplete

democratization of Russian politics is the independent variable, and the outbreak of war is the

dependent variable. More specifically, Mansfeld and Snyder propose that:

the politics of democratizing states that initiate war are likely to exhibit some or all of the following characteristics: exclusionary nationalism, pressure-group politics, logrolling

among elite factions, weak brokerage of political bargains by the ruling elite, contradictory and unconvincing signaling in foreign affairs, the use of

aggressive foreign policies by declining elite gambling for domestic political resurrection, the use of media dominance to promote nationalist ideology, and nationalist bidding wars between old elites and rising mass groups.”9

For them, these “politics” are, in essence, the pathways through which the independent variable

(regime type) leads to the dependent variable (war). Analysis of the decision-making process that

led to the Second Chechen War will reveal which of these mechanisms existed, and which, if

any, were causal. For example, upon cursory analysis, it appears that incumbent political and

economic elites, threatened by the possibility of losing power in the 1999 legislative and 2000

presidential elections, resorted to the causal mechanisms outlined in the paragraph above—

especially ‘gambling for domestic political resurrection’ using war—to ensure electoral victory.

Additionally, Mansfeld and Snyder hypothesize that “incomplete democratization where

institutions are weak is especially likely to lead to war when powerful elites feel threatened by

the prospect of a democratic transition,” and that their theory “mainly applies to states already

involved in enduring rivalries whose nationalist and militarist institutions and ideologies were

forged in earlier phases of democratization.”10 As will be seen, during the decision-making

process that led to the Second Chechen War, incumbent elites were deeply concerned by the

prospect of electoral loss. Also, Chechnya and Russia have a difficult history can easily be

8 Mansfeld and Snyder, 67 9 Ibid.10 Mansfeld and Snyder, 67

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classified as an ‘enduring rivalry.’ Specifically, the First Chechen War played an important role

in rekindling the rivalry between the two countries, as well as in cementing the nationalist and

militarist ideologies that would fuel the Second War.

Because Mansfeld and Snyder make mainly probabilistic claims regarding regime

change and war, it is unlikely that any findings of this case study will completely impugn their

theory. Rather, this study should be seen as skirting the line between a disciplined-configurative

case study and a theory-testing case study. A disciplined configurative study “uses established

theories to explain a case” and “may use a case to exemplify a theory for pedagogical purposes.”11

In line with such goals, I adapt Mansfeld and Snyder’s theory to case study analysis,

demonstrating a more rigorous method (multi-level analysis) of appraising the theory’s

explanatory power for specific cases. As a theory testing case study, this study assesses the

validity of Mansfeld and Snyder’s claim that the Second Chechen war exemplifies the patterns

that lead newly-democratizing states to go to war. This case is a most-likely test of the theory.

Mansfeld and Snyder claim that the case fits the theory, and, in fact, Russia at the time of the

Second Chechen War had all the characteristics that Mansfeld and Snyder hypothesize would

make them likely to go to war for domestic political reasons.

The main theoretical weakness of Mansfeld and Snyder’s theory relates to the inclusion

of “enduring rivalries” as a condition that makes weakly-institutionalized incompletely-

democratized states more likely to engage in war. An “enduring rivalry” could point to

longstanding geopolitical conflict between two states, which would suggest that Mansfeld and

Snyder’s theory unwittingly or surreptitiously includes a geopolitical component. The author

must emphasize that even though the Second Chechen War was initiated by Russia—a weakly

institutionalized state undergoing an incomplete democratic transition—this fact is not sufficient

11 George and Bennett, 75

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to claim that the war was actually caused by the political dynamics in that state. In order to prove

that it was in fact the independent variable that caused the dependent variable, one must

demonstrate that the politics of democratizing Russia actually contained the characteristics

outlined in the preceding paragraph, and that these characteristics caused the outbreak of war, to

the exclusion of other factors. For example, it is difficult to ascertain whether the Second

Chechen War was already going to break out because of geopolitical causes, and was

subsequently used for the political purposes of embattled incumbent elites in the context of

incomplete democratization, or whether the politics of incomplete democratization actually

caused the war to break out. Using a multi-level analytical framework in order to ascertain if it

was solely the weakly institutionalized and partially democratic politics of Russia that caused the

war, I find that geopolitical calculations clearly could have influenced Russian decision-making

in the lead up to the war.

The distinction between whether the war was caused by the domestic politics of Russia or

caused by geopolitical factors and subsequently used for domestic political purposes is not

merely academic; it has important implications for democracy promotion policy. For example, if

after review of other cases cited by Mansfeld and Snyder using the multi-level analytical

approach of this paper, researchers find that those cases also include geopolitical causes, it may

be reasonable to believe that only newly democratizing states that have long-standing “rivalries”

and/or geopolitical conflicts with other states should be targeted for “careful sequencing of the

steps toward democracy.”12

2. Background

Establishing that Russia ’ s Political System Fits into Mansfeld and Snyder ’ s Theory

12 Mansfeld and Snyder, 68

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To begin with, it is necessary to firmly classify the Russian federation as a weakly

institutionalized state undergoing an incomplete democratic transition during the period leading

up to the Second Chechen War. Mansfeld and Snyder adapted the Polity III dataset developed by

Jaggers and Gurr in order to classify states into three groups: autocracies, anocracies, and

democracies. Following this classification system, states are further evaluated on the democratic-

ness of three institutional measures: competitiveness of political participation, openness of

executive recruitment, and extent of constraints on the chief executive.13 I classify data from the

Polity IV dataset—which includes data for the years leading up to the Second Chechen War—

using Mansfeld and Snyder’s classification system. In the period between the First and Second

Chechen Wars, Mansfeld and Snyder would classify Russia as anocratic overall, as in a period of

incomplete democratic transition, as anocratic on the measure of political participation,

democratic on the measure of the openness of executive recruitment, and anocratic on the

measure of the extent of constraints on the chief executive.14 Russia would be considered an

anocracy in the interwar period, but this classification may be misleading. Basically, I employ

anocracy to mean a state that has both democratic and autocratic features, without considering

other factors.

13 Ibid, 7514 The author came to this conclusion by using Mansfeld and Snyder’s coding rules found on pages 72-80 and comparing them to the data found in the Polity IV data set: "Polity IV: Regime Authority Characteristics and Transitions Dataset." Center for Systemic Peace. Center for Systemic Peace, n.d. Web. 7 May 2015. <http://www.systemicpeace.org/inscrdata.html>. ; The term “anocracy” has different definitions depending on the source. Some definitions emphasize the characteristics of a state related to its political stability and monopoly of the use of force within its borders, regardless of the state’s status as a democracy or autocracy. Other definitions, such as that espoused by the Polity IV data set, define autocracy as a political regime that includes an incoherent mix of democratic and autocratic features. I will use the second definition, for the sake of maintaining terminological continuity with Mansfeld and Snyder’s study and the Polity IV dataset.

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A crucial part of Mansfeld and Snyder’s theory is that weakly institutionalized states

undergoing an incomplete democratization process are more likely to go to war. The Polity IV

dataset drops the measure of the strength of domestic institutions that Mansfeld and Snyder used,

so it is necessary to approximate the measure using narrative, as opposed to quantitative

measures. The measure Mansfeld and Snyder used “increases if a regime has more clearly

established rules regulating political competition and if it enjoys a more centralized grip on the

reins of domestic power. Under these conditions, the regime should be better able to manage the

rivalry of elite factions and minimize the adverse consequence of interest-group logrolling.”15

According to the Polity IV Country Report 2010: Russia, the Russian presidency was

significantly weakened under Yeltsin:

In order to overcome the objections of the Communist-led Duma to executive branch proposals for political and economic reform, President Yeltsin was forced to

appeal to influential interest groups in Russian society: regional governors, economic oligarchs, and military and bureaucratic officials, for support and loyalty. In the process of establishing these informal political arrangements, Yeltsin effectively undermined the

rule of law and, subsequently, devalued and weakened the power of the executive branch.16

This report suggests a low value of concentration of domestic political institutions, where the

president was personally responsible for negotiating with elite factions, instead of using domestic

political institutions.

It appears that Russia’s economic oligarchs played a substantial, non-institutionalized role

in Russian politics through their influence on Boris Yeltsin. Indeed, David E. Hoffman, a

prominent journalist, wrote an entire book regarding the influence of economic oligarchs on

Russian politics during the Post-Soviet democratization efforts.17 All serious analysts of the

15 Mansfeld and Snyder, 8816 Polity IV Country Report 2010: Russia. Rep. Center for Systemic Peace, n.d. Web. pg 317 Hoffman, David E. The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia. New York: Public Affairs, 2001. Print.

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Second Chechen War note that many decisions were influenced by Boris Berezovsky, one of the

most influential oligarchs, who was considered a “kingmaker.”18 Additionally, all make reference

to “the Family,” a group of advisors and oligarchs who helped Yeltsin rule. In the prelude to the

Second Chechen War, the oligarchs and the Family would have controlled substantial power,

considering Yeltsin was reeling from a series of heart attacks and his alcoholism.19 Nonetheless,

as president, Yeltsin retained the last word on decisions taken by the Russian government.

The political system established in the Russian Constitution of 1993 may explain why

oligarchs gravitated toward the president for political support. The Russian constitution was

primarily negotiated in an intense power-struggle between Yeltsin and the existing State Duma;

Yeltsin won, “establish[ing] a super presidential model.”20 The popularly elected President21 is

Commander and Chief of the armed forces, has ultimate control over the foreign policy of the

Russian Federation,22 has broad legislative powers,23 can issue binding legislative decrees as long

they do not contradict the constitution or existing federal laws,24 can declare martial law and

declare state of emergencies, “in the case of aggression against the Russian Federation or the

direct threat thereof,”25 and has broad appointment powers.26

In 1997, commentators were already worried that the legislative powers granted to the

President could thwart democracy and that the President’s mix of non-legislative powers,

especially those related to appointment, would breed “executive-legislative conflict,” noting the

18 Ibid, 46319 Hoffman, 37520 Smith, 63121 Metcalf, Lee K. "Presidential Power in the Russian Constitution." Transnational Law & Policy

(1996-1997): 125-45. Hein Online. Web. pg 13422 Metcalf, 13823 Ibid, 13524 Ibid.25 Ibid, 13526 Ibid, 136

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instability of similar institutional designs in Chile, Peru, and Weimar Germany.27 However, at the

time it appeared that a relatively well-defined division of labor existed between the president and

prime minister, “where the prime minister ‘is directly responsible for economic management,

while the President oversees foreign and security policy, provides strategic direction, and

enforces the loyalty of regional governments to central government.”28 The norms of democratic

political contestation, party politics, and interest-group lobbying; however, had still not taken

hold,29 and economic oligarchs held substantial, if not determinative, political sway in the

Kremlin.

This section demonstrates that the Russian Federation can clearly be classified as a

weakly institutionalized state undergoing an incomplete democratic transition during the period

leading up to the Second Chechen War, and shows that the Second Chechen War can be

considered a most-likely test case of Mansfeld and Snyder’s theory. The next section gives

background for the war and demonstrates the existence of an ‘enduring rivalry’ between

Chechnya and the Russian Federation

The First Chechen War: Problems with Federalism, Chechen Independence, and Islamist

Militants

The conflict between centralized Russian authority and regional autonomy for the

Chechen Republic originates during the Soviet period of Russian History. Gail W. Lapidus

argues that, after Russia’s conquest of the Chechens in the 19th-century Caucasian War, “the

emergence of a Chechen national movement was the structural legacy of Soviet nationality

policy with its built-in contradiction between the principle of ethnoterritorial federalism and the

27 Ibid, 13728 Ibid, 13929 Polity IV Country Report: Russia, 3

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actual repression of national aspirations.”30 Despite and perhaps even because of the brutal

Soviet-era attempts to consolidate rule in Chechnya, the Chechens retained solidarity based on

“strong clan structures and group identity,” markedly differentiating the Republic from the rest of

the regions composing the Russian Federation31. In 1993, “a Western survey of Muslim republics

of the Russian Federation […] reported that the highest levels of religious belief and practice are

found among Chechens,” pointing towards a high degree of cultural and social specificity that

differentiated the Republic from others in the Russian Federation.32 As Valery Tishkov puts it:

“in Chechnya this defiance against the existing order took the form of organized resistance, for

two reasons: the ethnic solidarity of the population, and its large-scale access to arms.”33

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the Russian Federation was surprised by the

“sudden and traumatic loss of empire, provoking exaggerated—indeed obsessive—fears of the

possible disintegration of Russia itself and contributing over time to a shift within the Russian

political elite from liberal democratic orientations to increasingly statist and neo-imperial ones.”34

The collapse provoked the renegotiation of the power balance between the central government

and the 88 constituent Republics of the Russian Federation, which was finalized in 1992 with the

Russian Federation Treaty. Eighty-six of the Republics accepted the treaty, the recalcitrant

Tatarstan signed a separate treaty in 1994 without military struggle. In 1994, Chechnya was the

only republic that failed to enter into a specific agreement.

The failure to negotiate a treaty defining Russo-Chechen relations began in 1991. The

Chechens, firmly anti-communist, could no longer support, “the hyper centralization and

30 Lapidus, Gail W. "Contested Sovereignty: The Tragedy of Chechnya." International Security 23.1 (1998): 5. Web. pg. 931 For more information on attempts at subjecting Chechnya to Soviet rule, see Lapidus, page 932 Lapidus, 1033 Tishkov, Valery. "Political Anthropology of the Second Chechen War." Security Dialogue, 1997 vol 28 (4): 425-437. pg 42934 Lapidus, 13

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inefficiency of the political and economic system directed from Moscow, and the secrecy and

hypocrisy of political life.”35 Sensing the weakness of the central authorities, Chechnya began a

tumultuous process of contestation against Soviet authorities. Led by Dzhokhar Dudaev,

Chechen forces had the goal of “self-dissolution of the current structure of the Supreme Soviet of

the Checheno-Ingush Republic, carrying out new elections and the creation of a sovereign

national state.”36 The struggle culminated in independent Chechen elections on October 27,

which brought Dudaev to power. His first act was to declare Chechen sovereignty, which divided

the pre-existing autonomous republic into the Chechen Republic and the Republic of Ingushetia.

On November 2, the Russian parliament declared the Chechen elections illegal. The Russian side

attempted a military intervention, but it failed due to political clashes between Gorbachev and

Yeltsin. By the summer of 1992, the Russian military had abandoned Chechnya, along with the

arms it had in the territory. These weapons “were dispersed throughout the population.”37

A protracted negotiation process between Moscow and Grozny resulted in the First

Chechen War. Lapidus concludes:

an erratic and weakly institutionalized political process in both capitals resulted in a highly personalized and subjective style of decision making that gave exceptional

weight to the views and actions of two authoritarian presidents and their immediate entourages. The successful effort by political figures around Yeltsin to turn him against Dudaev and to delegitimate Dudaev's rule effectively blocked the prospect for high-level negotiations between the two presidents to seek a political solution.38

In a trend also noted by other commentators, the Russian government’s more liberal elements

were forced out of power in favor of hawkish, nationalist, and authoritarian advisors during the

prelude to war.39 Furthermore, the entire Caucasus region was becoming more geopolitically

35 Evangelista, Matthew. The Chechen Wars: Will Russia Go the Way of the Soviet Union? Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2002. Print. pg 1636 Evangelista, 1737 Evangelista, 2138 Lapidus, 1539 Ibid, 17

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important as Western plans to tap the substantial oil and natural gas reserves in the Caspian basin

“were portrayed as a threat to Russian influence.”40 On December 11, 1994, Russian military

forces intervened in Chechnya, waging a war “indiscriminately directed against the population

and the infrastructure of the Chechen republic.”41

On August 31, 1996, the Khasavyurt cease-fire agreement was signed, one of the

outcomes of a negotiation between Chechen and Russian authorities that also resulted in the

removal of Russian forces from Chechnya, elections in Chechnya that chose Aslan Maskhadov

as President in early 1997, and a May 1997 agreement, “On Peace and the Principles of Mutual

Relations between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.”42 The status of

Chechnya was still uncertain. The Chechens considered the peace agreement a recognition of

Chechen independence and the government made significant efforts to demonstrate its status as

an independent state, while the Russians still considered the Republic a part of the Russian

Constitution.43 In 1998, there had still been no progress on the underlying conflict between

Chechnya and the Russian Federation as well as no definitive international recognition of

Chechnya. Furthermore, the war left Chechnya with a number of problems that would give a

pretext for the Russian intervention in the Second Chechen War:

With wartime political cohesion dissolving, and the armed and radicalized “freedom fighters” now a powerful political force, political fragmentation and conflict

within the elite limit the ability of the Maskhadov leadership to reach compromises with Moscow. Moreover, the perceived failure of the Russian side to deliver on past promises has weakened the position of Maskhadov himself, and encouraged the turn toward Islam as a basis of social order and cohesion and an instrument of state building. With prospects for economic recovery increasingly remote, a significant part of the population has left the republic in search of employment elsewhere; for

40 Ibid, 1741 Ibid, 2042 Lapidus, 2343 Ibid, 46; Tishkov, 431

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many who remain in Chechnya, criminal activities and hostage-taking have become a way of life.44

3. Substantive Analysis

The Security Explanations of the Second Chechen War

Mansfeld and Snyder claim that the Second Chechen War supports their theory; however,

their analysis is cursory,45 leaving space in the literature for more detailed explanation of the

conflict. They specifically claim that “gambling for resurrection, nationalist bidding wars, and

the resort to nationalist prestige strategies in order to govern amid the political stalemate of a

weakly institutionalized semi-democracy” occurred during the First and Second Chechen Wars

and claim that “Prime Minister Vladimir Putin mounted a second offensive against the still

turbulent Chechen rebels in 1999 to try to gain sufficient popularity to succeed Yeltsin as

president.”46 In contrast, Bruce Robert Ware, an expert on the North Caucasus, argues that the

Russian decision to intervene in Chechnya in 1999 was primarily motivated by geopolitical

concern regarding Chechnya’s status as “a base for internationally supported irredentist attacks

aimed at the violent separation of the North Caucasian republics from the Russian Federation and

the imposition of Wahhabite Islamist fundamentalism upon their unwilling inhabitants.”47

Ware claims that the immediate causes of Russian intervention in Chechnya were “two

irredentist invasions of the Russian Republic of Dagestan from bases in Chechnya that were

supported by international Islamist organisations and prosecuted by Islamist radicals from

Dagestan and Chechnya, along with a spectrum of fighters from throughout the Islamic world,”

44 Lapidus, 4645 Mansfeld and Snyder’s summary of the conflict can be found on page 257-25846 Mansfeld and Snyder, 25847 Ware, Bruce Robert. "A Multitude of Evils: Mythology and Political Failure in Chechnya." Chechnya: From past to Future. Ed. Richard Sakwa. London: Anthem, 2005. N. pag. Print. pg. 84

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one invasion started on 2 August, 1999 the other on 5 September, 1999.48 He points out that

previous invasions by radical Chechen forces into the Russian territory were accompanied by

near-genocidal atrocities committed by Islamic fundamentalists who desired to create an Islamic

Caliphate.49 Additionally, Ware claims that Chechnya was practically a failed state at the time

when Russia intervened, and that no state with the capacity to act would accept a failed state on

its border.50 Further, he argues that Putin had attempted to negotiate the crisis with Maskhadov,

but Maskhadov refused to arrest Shamil Basaev, who had organized the invasions of Dagestan

referred to above. In short, Ware argues that “it is difficult to see that Putin had any choice other

than a military return to Chechnya,”51 also claiming that “War could have been prevented only by

an act of political transcendence involving an alliance of Russian and Chechen moderates against

the Islamists and hardliners.”52

Clearly, Ware oversimplifies the decision-making process that led to the Second Chechen

War and discounts options that important figures in the Russian government seriously

considered. Vyacheslav Mikhailov, who was the Russia Minister for Regional and Nationalities

Policy, proposed an alternative to full-scale war, which Lajos F. Szaszdi, an expert on the

Second Chechen War, summarizes: “Mikhailov argued in favor of reducing the sizeable levels of

Russian military forces concentrated in the region and instead to give emphasis to implementing

more successfully federal development and reform program in the North Caucasus.”53

Additionally, Emil Pain, a professor at the National Research University, makes a powerful case

for an alternative to full-scale intervention. He claims that “in moving deep into the interior of

48 Ware, 8149 Ibid, 8250 Ibid, 8851 Ware, 8552 Ibid, 8753 Szászdi, Lajos F. Russian Civil-military Relations and the Origins of the Second Chechen War. Lanham: Catholic University of America, 2008. Print. pg 314

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Chechnya the Russian army is moving Russia further away from solving the Chechen

problem.”54 He proposes the alternative of a “sanitary boundary,” that would have “better

protect[ed] Russian regions from terrorist forays than would a total seizure of Chechnya.”55

Instead of full-scale invasion, the Russian government could have implemented a less militarized

plan called “One Chechnya, Two Systems,” which was considered during the First Chechen

War.56 The plan would have involved invading Chechnya from its northern border with Russia

down to the Terek River, and establishing a “welfare zone” that would be policed by Russia.

Residents would have been given the choice to live in the lawless zone south of the Terek River,

or move to the Russian zone. Ware argues that, “it is difficult to understand why Putin did not

have a moral obligation to [invade Chechnya] in order to protect Russian citizens.”57 In fact, if

the rationale for full invasion was to protect Russian citizens, the Russian security forces did an

abysmal job: they refused to admit Russian citizens from the Chechen territory into Russia for

protection.58 Nonetheless, Ware makes a compelling argument that the Russian government

needed to do something about the security situation in Chechnya.

In the year before the start of the Second Chechen War, Chechnya had devolved into a

state of near chaos. Chechnya, which had gained de facto independence in the First Chechen

War, was struggling to maintain security within its borders, and had become a hotbed for

organized crime and separatist Islamist organizations. Because of the vacuum of political power,

Islam was becoming more politicized in Chechnya, and radicals from around the Middle East

gravitated towards the region, giving rise to Islamist warlords such as Shamil Basaev.59 In

54 Pain, Emil. "The Second Chechen War: The Information Component." Trans. Robert R. Love. Military Review (2000): 59-69. Web.55 Ibid.56 Pain, "The Second Chechen War: The Information Component" n.p.57 Ware, 8558 Evangelista, 7059 Ibid, 57-58

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November 1998 then-Prime Minister Evgenii Primakov stated that, “‘funds had been allocated

from the federal budget to improve social conditions in Chechnya’ […] but there was little to

show for it.”60 Evangelista writes that, “In early 1999, a number of Russian observers became

alarmed at the deteriorating situation in Chechnya and the Yeltsin administration’s apparent

complacency.”61 The next section will analyze the Russian response to these developments, as

well as the domestic politics and decision-making that led to the Second Chechen War. Particular

attention is paid to what motivations may have led to the Russian decision to pursue a full-scale

invasion instead of a more limited cordon sanitaire.

The Decision-Making Process that Led to the Second Chechen War

In March 1999, General Gennady Nikolaevich Shpigun, the Russian Interior Ministry’s

special representative in Chechnya, was kidnapped while deplaning in Chechnya. The Russian

Government, embarrassed by the kidnapping, began devising plans to fortify the border with

Chechnya.62 Marcel Van Herpen and Lajos Szaszdi disagree about the sequence of decisions that

led to the Second Chechen War. Van Herpen writes that in late March 1999, “a meeting of the

‘power ministers’ was held in which Sergey Stepashin, at that time still minister of the interior,

Igor Sergeyev, minister of defense, Anatoly Kvashnin, head of the General Staff of the Russian

Armed Forces, and Vladimir Putin, director of the FSB, participated.”63 At that meeting, he

claims that the group adopted a plan to occupy the territory of Chechnya north of the Terek River

and establish a cordon sanitaire.64 Then, in May 1999, “this moderate plan would be changed and

another, more radical plan adopted. This was a plan to reconquer the whole Chechen republic

60 Ibid, 5661 Evangelista, 5862 Van Herpen, 174 ; Szaszdi, Russian Civil-Military Relations, 7463 Van Herpen, 17464 Ibid.

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and bring it back into the Russian Federation […] It is unclear how far these changes were

affected by developments on the ground in Chechnya.”65 In contrast, Szaszdi writes:

If the March decision to intervene was motivated by the kidnapping of Shpigun, and the July decision to expand the limited operation against Chechnya was the result of

the Kosovo Crisis, a full-scale invasion of the Chechen Republic would have been promoted by the events in Dagestan, by Kosovo, and possibly also by the forthcoming Russian elections66

I will return to the influence of the Kosovo Crisis in a later section. For the time being, it is

enough to point out that scholars do not agree on the exact decision-making sequence, which

makes it difficult to ascertain what events influenced the decision to engage in full-scale

invasion. What is clear, though, is that the Russians considered a more moderate approach to the

conflict, the cordon sanitaire, but dropped it in favor of full-scale invasion. The next sections

will demonstrate that it is much more difficult than Mansfeld and Snyder claimed to ascertain

that Putin started the full-scale war solely for the purpose of winning the elections.

Political Challenges Facing the Yeltsin Administration

President Yeltsin was extremely unpopular in March 1999 because of the failed and

generally unpopular First Chechen War, the Ruble crash in 1998, and allegations of corruption

related to the Mabetex affair.67 Yeltsin was in the last stretch of his second term, and would have

to leave office. Nonetheless, in May 1999, the State Duma voted to start a process of

impeachment, but the impeachment failed to pass with the requisite two-thirds vote. However,

Yeltsin’s first war in Chechnya was still unpopular, and the State Duma fell just a few votes short

of impeaching him for having started it on false pretexts. Lending credence to Mansfeld and

65 Ibid.66 Szaszdi, Russian Civil Military Relations, 32667 Van Herpen, 173 “Mabetex was a construction company that was said to have paid $15 million in kickbacks to Yeltsin, his two daughters, and senior Kremlin officials, in order to receive a renovation contract for the Kremlin buildings.”

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Snyder’s claims, it appeared that Yelstin and the Family needed to ensure that a friendly

President would come to power after Yeltsin, in order for them to be safe from corruption

charges.68

Adding to their urgency, Fatherland-All Russia, a new party headed by Yevgeny

Primakov and Yury Luzhkov, the two most popular leaders in Russia who both also had a strong

political base, seemed to pose a viable alternative to any successor Yeltsin chose.69 Szaszdi

considers the possibility that the decision to fully invade Chechnya was related to the upcoming

State Duma and Presidential elections: “The decision to invade would have shown Yeltsin—or a

chosen successor—as a strong leader. It might have been thought that a second invasion of

Chechnya would assure the President—or his political heir—the support of the Russian people in

opinion polls and in elections.”70 It must be emphasized that Szaszdi claims it is only a possibility

that domestic politics related to the upcoming election contributed to Putin’s decision to take a

strong stand on Chechnya. However, if it is the case that the elections contributed to the decision

for full-scale intervention, it appears that Mansfeld and Snyder’s claim that Yeltsin, Putin, and

the Family were ‘gambling for resurrection’ using the Second Chechen War makes sense.

It appears Yeltsin and the Family removed Prime Minister Stepashin from his position

and replaced him with Putin because of “unwarlike comments with regards to the Dagestan crisis

made in the three days before his dismissal.”71 Stepashin said “nobody wants to make the same

mistakes twice,” siding with Mihkailov, the Minister for Regional and Nationalities policy.72

Yeltsin sacked Stepashin, who “was unequivocally opposed to a full-scale invasion of the

68 Van Herpen, 173 ; Dawisha, Karen. Putin's Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia? New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014. Print. pg 20369 Van Herpen, 173 ; Dawisha, 20370 Szaszdi, Russian Civil Military Relations, 28171 Ibid, 32672 Ibid.

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Chechen Republic” and appointed Putin Prime Minister, in order to make Putin the face of the

war, claiming Putin was the strong man Russia needed.73 Yeltsin, speaking about his May 1999

appointment of Putin, said that “Stepashin was soft […] Putin, on the contrary, had the will and

the resolve. I knew he did. But intuition told me that is would be premature to bring Putin into

the political ring at that moment. He had to appear later….It was a very difficult situation. It was

too early to put Putin in. Someone else had to fill the gap. I needed someone to serve as a

decoy.”74 These comments seem to suggest that in May 1999, Yeltsin had already decided to

make Putin the face of the war.

A full-scale war would effectively outbid the rising Fatherland-All Russia party in a

“nationalist bidding war,” one of the causal mechanisms that Mansfeld and Snyder claimed led to

the war.75 However, none of the other parties really participated in the “nationalist bidding war,”76

which calls into question whether the decision to engage in full-scale war was caused by the

political dynamics of weakly-institutionalized, newly-democratizing state.

That being said, full scale invasion appears to have successfully “resurrected” the

political prospects of Yeltsin and the Family, lending credence to Mansfeld and Snyder’s

explanation of the conflict.77 When Yeltsin had Putin replace Stepashin as Prime Minister, and

Putin engaged in the full invasion of Chechnya, Putin’s popularity rose substantially. According

to this line of reasoning, then, the decision to engage in full-scale invasion of Chechnya could

have been afflicted by a self-interest bias: as previously stated, full-scale invasion would not

have been the most effective way to deal with Chechen terrorism, but the Family may have

gambled that it would effectively rally public opinion behind their chosen successor. In

73 Szaszdi, Russian Civil Military Relations, 31874 Ibid, 328 75 Mansfeld and Snyder, 25876 Smith, 63277 Mansfeld and Snyder, 258

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following with the explanation that the war was started for the purpose of ensuring a smooth

transfer of power, Yeltsin stepped down as President after their successful results in the 1999

State Duma elections, and made Putin acting president, giving Putin a more powerful platform

off of which to wage the war and build more popularity. Putin did win the upcoming 2000

presidential elections before the popularity of the war waned (when the Russian public realized

the effort was doomed to repeat the same failures as the First Chechen War), as Mansfeld and

Snyder claim.78 Also lending credence to this explanation, Putin, after winning the 2000

presidential election, granted Yeltsin immunity for his corruption charges.79 However, even

though everything worked fortuitously for Yeltsin and the Family, it is impossible to claim for

certain that the decision for full-scale invasion was undertaken purely for electoral reasons, as

will be seen in the following sections.

This section claims that it cannot be proved for certain that the war was caused solely by

domestic political causes (a “nationalist bidding war” or a gamble for political resurrection, as

Mansfeld and Snyder claim80). However, it still appears that the war was used for domestic

political purposes—namely, ensuring Yeltsin had a safe way out of politics and securing a

transfer of power to Putin. The next section gives further evidence for the latter contention.

Elections - Deeply Influenced by the Media and the War

Mansfeld and Snyder claim that attempts to control the media are a common political tool

that political and economic elites in weakly institutionalized anocratic states use to maintain

78 Mansfeld and Snyder, 25879 Traynor, Ian. "Business as Usual for Kremlin Cronies as Putin Era Begins." The Guardian. N.p., 5 Jan. 2000. Web. 7 May 2015. <http://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/jan/05/russia.iantraynor>.80 Mansfeld and Snyder, 258

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power.81 Both Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) reports on the State

Duma elections of 1999 and on the presidential elections of 2000 express concern over the

independence of the media. Speaking of the State Duma, the OSCE reports that:

Television was the main stage on which the media war played itself out. The worst offenders were the state-controlled television channels. However, it should be

noted that only 51% of ORT shares are still owned by the state. According to ORT, the channel has not received any funding from the state since 1991. All investments have been made by private shareholders, of which the most prominent is Boris Berezovsky.82

Boris Berezovsky was a member of the Family, and helped the administration take control of the

media. He also deeply influenced the independent media. NTV was a television station that

engaged in the most negative reporting of the First Chechen War:83

NTV, the main independent TV channel, managed to maintain a level of journalistic ethics during its news programs but was considered sympathetic to Fatherland-All

Russia in its analytical programs. NTV, however, was placed under substantial financial pressure by the authorities. During the election campaign, it was reported that, after investigations

by the Tax Department and having to pay large tax arrears, the media conglomerate Media Most had to sell a certain percentage of its shares to Gazprom in order to alleviate its financial problems.84

The government was putting pressure on the media to remain uncritical of Putin.85 In any case,

Putin’s newly established Unity party came in second, only about a percentage point short of the

Communist Party, and handily defeated Fatherland-All Russia by about 10 percentage points.86

The OSCE summarizes the role of the media as follows: “The rapid acquisition of independent

media as well as major stakes in state controlled media by a few powerful individuals with

considerable political influence not only had a significant impact on the media environment but

81 Mansfeld and Snyder, 6782 OSCE Report on Russian Federation's 1999 State Duma Elections. Rep. OSCE, n.d. Web. pg 1683 Hoffman, 17284 OSCE Report on Russian Federation's 1999 State Duma Elections, 1685 Hoffman, 17286 OSCE Report on Russian Federation's 1999 State Duma Elections, 18; Gazprom was the state natural gas company

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ultimately exerted important influence over the electorate itself.”87 The OSCE notes similar

dynamics in the Presidential election which made Putin president: “Analysts have suggested that

the venomous campaign wars, especially those waged by Kremlin-controlled media outlets, had

accomplished their task: to filter out the most serious competition that might emerge from

Fatherland-All Russia in contention for the presidency.”88

This section demonstrates that Yeltsin, Putin and the Family clamped down on the media

during the elections, in order to ensure Putin remained popular throughout the election period.

This provides further evidence for the contention that Yeltsin, Putin, and the Family may have

been trying to use the war for electoral purposes, but does not provide evidence for the

contention that the war was actually caused by the dynamics of weakly-institutionalized newly-

democratizing states.

The Role of Ideology - Neo-Eurasianism 89

87 OSCE Report on Russian Federation's 1999 State Duma Elections, 388 OSCE Final Report on Russian Federation's Presidential Election 2000. Rep. OSCE, n.d. Web.pg 25

89 I include ideology as a separate level of analysis for the sake of organization and clarity. Ideology plays a role in all the other levels of analysis. The international level of analysis is mainly influenced by the Neo-Eurasianist strategic culture of the Russian Federation. The domestic level of analysis is influenced by ideology through the Russian government’s strategic framing of the war in terms of a fight against terrorism when attempting to enlist public support. Finally, the individual level of analysis is penetrated by ideology, because Putin was a more

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Szaszdi argues that the nationalist ideology of Russia played an important role in the

decision-making process that led to the Second Chechen War. Szaszdi writes “In its most simple

form, Neo-Eurasianism is an expression of Russian national identity in the post-Soviet era. Neo-

Eurasianism encompasses the notions of Russian self-identity and a sense of awareness of the

uniqueness of Russian culture and civilization together with views of Russian nationalism and,

characteristically, an association to the concept or idea of Eurasia as a distinct mental and

geopolitical postulate.”90 This section will address Neo-Eurasianism and its implications for the

Second Chechen War.

In the context of Mansfeld and Snyder’s theory, the role of nationalist ideologies in

building domestic popular support for a war is key. I apply Theda Skocpol’s conceptualization of

ideology in “Cultural Idioms and Political Ideologies” to explain how Yeltsin, Putin, and the

Family used a specific nationalist ideology to build support for the war. Skocpol distinguishes

cultural idioms from ideology:

“I prefer to reserve the term “ideology” for ideational systems deployed as self-conscious political arguments by identifiable political actors. Ideologies in this sense are developed

and deployed by particular groups or alliances engaged in temporally specific political conflicts or attempts to justify the use of state power. Cultural idioms have a longer-term, more anonymous and less partisan existence than ideologies.”91

Hence, in the Russian context, the “cultural idioms” related to Russian exceptionalism (which

Szaszdi asserts is based on its unique position geographically and culturally between the West

ardent Neo-Eurasianist than his predecessor to the prime ministership, who was sacked in favor of Putin.90 Szaszdi, Lajos F. "Russian Civil-Military Relations in 1999: Origins of the Second Chechen War." Order No. 3191603 The Catholic University of America, 2005. Ann Arbor: ProQuest. Web. 17 July 2015. pg 1291 Skocpol, Theda. "Cultural Idioms and Political Ideologies in the Revolutionary Reconstruction of State Power: A Rejoinder to Sewell." The Journal of Modern History 57.1 (1985): 86-96. JSTOR. Web. 02 Apr. 2015. pg 91

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and Asia92), would have been deployed as a nationalist ideology in order to justify the use of

state power in the Second Chechen War.

The Russian government adapted the cultural idioms related to Russian nationalism to a

public that was weary of the situation in Chechnya. At the end of the First Chechen War, the

majority of the Russian population supported withdrawal from Chechnya.93 If Yeltsin and the

Family were to use the war to win support for a successor using a second intervention in

Chechnya, they would need a new justification.94 Instead of playing to the fear of Russia’s

dissolution, “an invention” used by Yeltsin and the Family to justify the First Chechen War,95 the

Second Chechen War was framed as an anti-terrorist operation. Emil Pain notes that the attacks

by Islamic militants in Dagestan, as well as the September apartment bombings that shocked

Russia, built support behind such a goal.96 In Securitizing Russia, Bacon et al. argue that the new

ideological framework of securitization allowed Russia to achieve some typically Neo-

Eurasianist goals on the home front, especially by helping Putin centralize the Russian state.97

However, it appears that Putin engaged in a sort of bait-and-switch:

A consistent and nearly imperceptible shift in the military's campaign goals has played a major role in winning public support for the second Chechen war. In the beginning

(August-September 1999) the goal was to repel Chechen aggression, a goal that Russian society entirely accepted. In October Russian authorities sought a "sanitary boundary" as the primary military objective. This boundary would

92 Szaszdi, “Russian Civil-Military Relations in 1999,” 2693 Pain, “The Second Chechen War: The information component,” n.p.94 Although this could be seen as a strategic framing of the conflict, as opposed to an ideological framing of the conflict, Skocpol’s definition specifically posits that ideologies, ‘are developed and deployed by particular groups or alliances engaged in temporally specific political conflicts or attempts to justify the use of state power’ (Skocpol 91); thus, the deployment of a new rationale (anti-terrorism) to justify the use of state power in Chechnya during a specific temporal period can be soundly classified as ideological within the theoretical framework of this paper.95 Pain, “The Second Chechen War: The information component,” n.p.96 Pain, Emil. “The Chechen War in the Context of Contemporary Russian Politics" Chechnya: From past to Future. Ed. Richard Sakwa. London: Anthem, 2005. N. pag. Print. pg 7197 Bacon, Edwin, Bettina Renz, and Julian Cooper. Securitising Russia: The Domestic Politics of Putin. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2006. Print.

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protect Russian regions from incursions by Chechen terrorists, and the people fully supported this goal. By November the authorities had quietly discarded the boundary idea and replaced it with the goal of "total destruction of the terrorists." […] Nonetheless, the public has so far accepted the new goal nearly without objection. Finally, speaking to soldiers on 1 January 2000 in Chechnya, Putin announced that the primary goal was now to "preserve the integrity of Russia" -exactly the goal in the previous war. The Russian public has not noticed this substitution in the goals.98

It appears that Putin, in the short term, built public support for a specific use of state power

against Chechnya by appealing to the consciously deployed, ideological justification of

suppressing Chechen terrorism. Again, this suggests that the war was used for domestic political

purposes, rather than caused by them. Once support for the war on the part of the population was

clear, he substituted the goal of eradicating terrorists to preserving the territorial integrity of the

Russian Federation, a hallmark of Neo-Eurasian strategic culture.

Indeed, Neo-Eurasianism has important elements of a strategic culture, and these

elements help explain why certain geopolitical developments would have motivated Russia to

intervene in Chechnya. Szaszdi, noting the specific foreign policy implications of the ideology,

says: “Neo-Eurasianism in general would regard the frontiers of the former Soviet Union as

Russia’s “geo-strategic” borders, even though these are acknowledged as not being the Russian

Federation’s “legal” borderlines.”99 Szaszdi points out that Neo-Eurasian ideology justifies

military action for the following purposes:

to preserve the ‘great power status’ of the Russian Federation; to safeguard Russian populations living in the countries of the former Soviet Union or ‘near abroad;’ to forestall regional volatile crises and unstable security situations from widening to

neighboring areas and inside Russia itself; to defend the ‘geopolitical interests’ of the Russian state, including the safety of its borders in Russia’s southern flank and thwarting attempts of Islamic fundamentalism to extend its militant influence; to fulfill the wishes at military intervention of a ‘nationalist public opinion.’100

98 Pain, “The Second Chechen War: The Information Component” n.p.99 Szaszdi, Russian Civil-Military Relations, 14100 Szaszdi, “Russian Civil-Military Relations in 1999,” 27

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Szaszdi, in essence, demonstrates that the ideology of Neo-Eurasianism would have made the

war in Chechnya appear necessary to Russian actors for reasons other than domestic politics. The

next section will demonstrate how the Kosovo Crisis, which took place in ‘Russia’s geo-strategic

borders’ could have influenced the Russian decision to engage in a full-scale invasion of

Chechnya in 1999, showing that geopolitical concerns (other than the security situation in

Chechnya) could have motivated the Russian decision to go to war in Chechnya.

The Kosovo War and Its Effect on Russian Decision-Making Related to the Second Chechen

War

Parallel to the domestic political developments, NATO intervened against Serbia in

Kosovo, much to Russia’s consternation. For Russia, which felt belittled by the Post-Soviet

international system, this intervention in a former Soviet satellite state was highly unwelcome

and seen as hypocritical.101 The Russians made a small intervention in Kosovo, which was met

with NATO vacillation.102 Chechnya and Kosovo had many parallels: both had desired to splinter

off and declare independence from their previously existing states during the collapse of the

Soviet Union, both were home to Islamic militants, both were nominally part of Russia and

Serbia, respectively, and both were geopolitically important to Russia and Serbia, respectively.103

Lajos F. Szászdi emphasizes and provides evidence for the claim that international

context of Western intervention in Kosovo contributed to the decision to start the war. He claims

that “the Russian leadership appeared to have seen a clear analogy between the case of Kosovo

and that of Chechnya. With the influence of the United States and NATO encroaching into

101 Szaszdi, Russian Civil-Military Relations, 294102 Szaszdi, Russian Civil-Military Relations, 294103 Ibid, 213

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Russia’s traditional domain in the Caucasus, the Kremlin would have judged in 1999 in the

aftermath of the Kosovo conflict an invasion of Chechnya as quite expedient.”104 For Szászdi, the

linkage between the Kosovo conflict, where Russia failed to effectively intervene, and the

Chechen situation comes from the ideology of Neo-Eurasianism; for Neo-Eurasianists in the

Russian government at the time, the United States’ intervention in Kosovo against Milosevic, a

Russian ally, would have been perceived as an encroachment on Russia’s geo-strategic borders,

inducing Russia to act in an analogous situation within its own borders under international law

for the purpose of demonstrating resolve:105 “NATO’s intervention and the desire to demonstrate

that Russia could conduct its own punitive military operations against its own Kosovos, as the

Serbs did, would have led seemingly to agreement in civil-military relations in the decision to

push for an expansion of the limited military operation against Chechnya.”106 Emil Pain asserts

that Putin’s war posture in Chechnya would be highly attractive to a Russian public eager to

regain a greater world status: “NATO’s military operation in Kosovo also played a distinct role in

shifting Russian public opinion. Many thought that if, for the sake of political objectives, NATO

was allowed to bomb civilian targets and kill innocent people in a non-member country, then

surely Russia has every right to do the same in its own territory.”107

The parallels between the Chechen situation and Russia’s failure to intervene

meaningfully in the conflict in Kosovo would have given Russia the impetus to demonstrate that

it could deal with ‘its own Kosovos’ (Chechnya) within its border, in an act of defiance towards

NATO. Further, an intervention in Chechnya would invite NATO criticism, which would be seen

as hypocritical by the international community, considering they had illegally intervened in

104 Ibid, 345105 Ibid, 295106 Ibid, 334107 Pain, “The Chechen War in the Context of Contemporary Russian Politics,” 70

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Serbia.108 Furthermore, Chechnya contained an important gas-pipeline that was being targeted by

organized crime in Chechnya and was closed by Maskhadov in March 1999.109 NATO was

expanding its influence into the trans-caucasus region and building a pipeline with Azerbaijan

that would rival the Russian pipeline through Chechnya, adding to the geopolitical stakes.110 A

full intervention into Chechnya (beyond just the cordon sanitaire) would not only be a slap in the

face to NATO, but it would also allow Russia to take control of the pipeline through Chechnya,

and would be extremely popular to a Russian public that was being targeted by terrorist attacks

attributed to Chechens. This analysis suggests that not only domestic political factors, but also

geopolitical factors related to Russia’s desire to check NATO expansion into Russia’s geo-

strategic borders, motivated the war in Chechnya.

The Individual Level - Why did Yeltsin and the Family Choose Putin?

Yeltsin and the Family were having trouble finding a successor who would be sure to win

and was trusted enough to shield the Family from legal troubles. As previously stated, Stepashin

was opposed to a strong intervention in Chechnya, but Putin was relatively unknown to the

Russian public at the time. He was director of the FSB, but that position is not particularly

public, reflected by the fact that there are no public opinion polls on the position. Szaszdi

speculates that “perhaps what most appealed to President Yeltsin in Putin was his reputation as

someone who would obey and execute order from a higher authority.”111 Putin also had

connections with regional governors from previous governmental experience, which would be

108 Ibid.109 Evangelista, 59110 Szaszdi, “Russian Civil-Military Relations in 1999,” 42111 Szaszdi, Russian Civil-Military Relations, 326

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useful for Yeltsin and the Family, who wanted desperately to undermine Fatherland - All

Russia’s political base.112

But what is also essential is that Putin subscribed more staunchly to Neo-Eurasianism

than Stepashin did at the time. After Stepashin left the prime ministership, he affiliated with

Yabloko, a liberal party that firmly opposed the full-scale invasion of Chechnya.113 Putin’s

personal experiences may have contributed to his Neo-Eurasianism. Putin was a KGB agent

stationed near the Berlin Wall in East Germany when the wall fell:

“as jubilant citizens took sledgehammers to the Berlin Wall, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, an officer in the Dresden station of the K.G.B., fed a raging furnace with

the documentary evidence of Soviet espionage activities in East Germany. Putin was grateful for his Dresden posting. […] Now the happy days were ending. The Wall had been breached, and Putin was shoveling top-secret files into the fire so quickly, he recalled in a book-length interview, that ‘the furnace burst.’ This was early in November, 1989. Later, angry Germans threatened to break into the K.G.B. compound. Putin’s superiors called Moscow for reinforcements, but, he says, ‘Moscow was silent.’ The state was failing even its most resolute foot soldiers.”114 Putin’s experience of the fall of the Berlin Wall probably gave him an obsession with the

territorial integrity and power of Russia. When asked to explain his motives to invade Chechnya,

he said: “I was convinced that if we didn't stop the extremists right away, we’d be facing a second

Yugoslavia on the entire territory of the Russian Federation—the Yugoslavization of Russia.”115

Putin appeared to be a subscriber to Neo-Eurasianism who would actually go to war based on the

ideology.

Although this section is cursory, it suggests that Putin’s specific life experiences and

personality traits made the Second Chechen War possible. Even though the President had control

over foreign policy, it seems that the Prime Minister would become the face of the war in order

112 Ibid, 327113 White, David. The Russian Democratic Party Yabloko: Opposition in a Managed Democracy.

Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006. Print. pg 111114 Remnick, David. "Patriot Games." The New Yorker. The New Yorker, 3 Mar. 2014. Web. 7 May 2015. 115 Szaszdi, Russian Civil-Military Relations, 329

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to build his popularity in order to succeed Yeltsin. If the war was indeed undertaken in order to

gain electoral favor, it is not clear that any politician would have gone along with the plan—the

Family’s plan would require a particular type of individual. Putin probably appeared to be just

the right man for the job.

3.6 Did Russia Manufacture a Casus Belli ?

All in-depth analyses of the Second Chechen War consider the possibility that Yeltsin

and the Family, including Putin,116 intentionally manufactured the two main casus belli of the

Second Chechen War.117 The first allegation is that Yeltsin and the Family met with Shamil

Basaev, asking him to organize and launch attacks from Chechnya into Dagestan.118 The second

allegation is that the September 1999 apartment bombings in Buikansk, Moscow, and

Volgodonsk, which were officially attributed to Chechen terrorists, and rallied Russian public

opinion in favor of an intervention in Chechnya, were in fact organized and carried out by

Russian FSB.119 As stated previously, Yeltsin, the Family, and other oligarchs were worried that

Primakov and Luszkhov’s political alliance had a good chance of winning the State Duma and

Presidential Elections.120 This worry was further exacerbated by the fact that “Primakov had

already threatened to sue all oligarchs who illegally had enriched themselves.”121 Yeltsin and the

Family were implicated in a scandal called the Malbetex affair, and losing power would have

meant they would face legal troubles.122 Van Herpen, as well as others, claims that manufacturing

these attacks would create the atmosphere necessary to ensure someone sympathetic to the

116 Van Herpen, 173117 Szaszdi, Russian Civil-Military Relations, 312; Van Herpen 177; Dawisha 212118 Van Herpen, 173119 Van Herpen, 177120 Ibid, 173121 Ibid.122 Ibid.

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Family would come into office: “Whatever option the Family would choose: a Bonapartist coup

d’état or “Operation Successor”—in both cases an appropriate climate would have to be created

in Russia: in the first case, to justify a state of emergency, in the second case to boost the

popularity of the Family’s presidential candidate.”123 If these allegations are true, it would appear

that Yeltsin, Putin, and the Family manufactured an attack on Russian soil and blamed it on

Chechen actors, gambling that a strong Russian response to the manufactured casus belli would

rally popular sentiment behind Putin and secure a smooth transfer of power.

There is a quite a bit of evidence of varying quality to support the claim that Russia

manufactured the casus belli of the war. For the sake of brevity, only the most incriminating

evidence will be presented. Regarding the Family’s alleged collusion with Shamil Basaev, the

evidence is based primarily on the French, Israeli, and Spanish intelligence agencies’ testimony:

“Stanford University’s Hoover Institution historian John Dunlop writes that both French and

Israeli intelligence monitored and verified [a meeting between Shamil Basaev and a man

‘resembling Kremlin Chief of Staff Voloshin’ in July 1999].”124 According to Boris Kagarlitsky,

coordinator of the Transnational Institute Global Crisis project sources, Voloshin cut a deal with

Shamil Basaev: “Basaev would come to power in Chechnya while Russian forces would suppress

the conflict, giving them ‘a small war, a border conflict, a big performance with fireworks’ that

could be exploited for political gain,” and French intelligence eavesdropped on the entire

conversation.125

Additional support for this explanation comes from a Russian General’s complaint that

Russian troops were ordered to withdraw from a border area at a time that it was rumored that

the area was under imminent threat, “allowing the Basaev forces complete access to two villages

123 Ibid, 174124 Dawisha, 200125 Ibid.

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the MVD had seized.”126 This claim is further supported by allegations that “Putin and

Berezovsky held at least five secret meetings in 1999 that appear to have been at least partially

taped by Spanish intelligence.”127 Specifically, CESID, the primary Spanish intelligence agency

at the time, claimed “that Putin was in Spain at the invitation of Berezovsky to ‘plan the

substitution of Yeltsin.’”128 It is hard to ignore evidence that comes directly from multiple states’

intelligence agencies, and is presented by John Dunlop, a reputed academic and expert on the

Chechen Wars.

An incident that occurred in the Russian city of Ryazan on September 22, 1999 raises the

most pressing questions regarding the authorship of the September 1999 apartment bombings.129

On that date, after five apartment bombings that caused 301 deaths, Russian FSB agents who

appeared Slavic, not Chechen, were apprehended by civilians while the agents were moving

sacks filled with hexogen, the explosive used in the other apartment bombings, into the basement

of an apartment building.130 On September 24, the FSB finally responded and claimed that it was

a training exercise, in essence a test of the vigilance of the population.131 However, even before

the operations occurred, as early as June, a Swedish paper reported that “the Kremlin and its

associates [considered staging] ‘terror bombings in Moscow which could be blamed on the

Chechens.”’132 Additionally, Gennady Seleznev, the Speaker of the Duma, had been informed

that the explosion would occur “three days before the explosion [in Vologodonsk] actually took

place.”133 Furthermore, the government destroyed the remains of the buildings targeted by the

126 Ibid. 127 Ibid, 205128 Ibid, 205129 Szaszdi, Russian Civil-Military Relations, 312; Van Herpen 177; Dawisha 212130 Dawisha, 212 131 Van Herpen, 176132 Ibid, 178 133 Ibid, 179

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bombings before any sort of proper investigation could take place.134 A State Duma investigation

into the bombings “was suspended because the government refused to cooperate with it.”135 Even

if it is hard to believe the atrocities the Russian government is alleged to have committed,

Szaszdi notes that “there are precedents […] of involvements by the Russian state security-

intelligence apparatus in the funding and support of clandestine wars and military operations.”136

Even if Yeltsin and the Family actually colluded with Shamil Basaev to destabilize

Chechnya or actually authored the September 1999 apartment bombings in Russia, it would not

prove that the war was caused by domestic politics. If the government pursued the war for the

geopolitical reasons outlined in previous sections, terrorizing the Russian population would have

been an effective way to build support for the war, despite the population’s widespread

opposition to the First Chechen War. In other words, even the contention that the Russian

government deliberately terrorized the Russian population would be consistent with the claim

that the war broke out for geopolitical causes and was used for domestic political purposes.

4. Conclusion

This paper employed a multi-level analysis of the Second Chechen War to evaluate

Mansfeld and Snyder’s claim that the Second Chechen War provides evidence for their theory.

The Second Chechen War provides some evidence that fits Mansfeld and Snyder’s theory that

weakly institutionalized, newly democratizing anocratic states have specific characteristics that

make them more war prone. However, this case study demonstrates the difficulty of proving that

a war was actually caused by the political dynamics of a newly democratizing state. Rather, after

134 Szaszdi, Russian Civil Military Relations, 314; For more information on the dubious authorship of the apartment bombings, see Dawisha, 212-220135 Dawisha, 216136 For more information on these manufactured wars, see Szaszdi, Russian Civil-Military Relations, 80

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my multi-level analysis of the Second Chechen War, it appears that the evidence could support

either the claim that the war was caused by a combination of electoral concerns and geopolitical

concerns, or the claim that the war was waged for geopolitical concerns, and the political and

economic elites used the war for electoral advantage.

The highest level of analysis is the international level; my analysis of this level focuses

on the security situation in Chechnya, which Ware considers to be the sole cause of the war.137 It

appears that indeed, the security situation required some sort of response, but it is not clear that

war was the best response, and it certainly wasn't the only possible response. The other major

occurrence on the international level is the 1999 Kosovo War, which commentators claim

sharpened the divide between NATO and Russia, giving Russia another geopolitical incentive to

take a strong stand regarding Chechnya. These two considerations make it unlikely that the war

was undertaken solely for domestic political purposes.

On the domestic level, my analysis is based on determining whether the causal

mechanisms Mansfeld and Snyder point out really caused the war. There was no nationalist

bidding war, and it cannot be ascertained for certain that the decision to fully invade Chechnya

was a gamble solely motivated by a desire to secure a transfer of power from Yeltsin to Putin.

However, the fact that the Russian Federation opted for full-scale invasion, which would not be

the most effective way to deal with their security concerns, suggests that the decision may have

been biased by the Kosovo War or the domestic political situation in Russia.

The individual level is not as rigorously theorized or analyzed as the other levels of

analysis, but it seems clear that Vladimir Putin’s personal characteristics played an important

role in making the war possible, as he had the will to start the war, which his predecessor did not.

137 Ware, 81

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Finally, I include an ideological level of analysis, which focuses on the character of

Russian nationalism. This level of analysis plays a role at all of the other levels: it explains why

Russia wanted to reassert control in Chechnya, why Russian elites would have connected the

events in Kosovo to the situation in Chechnya, and why the Russian public so enthusiastically

supported the war. It also partially explains why Putin would become the face of the war.

My disciplined configurative case study of the Second Chechen War shows that Mansfeld

and Snyder did not seriously grapple with the possibility that the war was motivated by

geopolitical concerns. This case study also demonstrates a new analytical framework for

adapting Mansfeld and Snyder’s theory to case study analysis, which would allow for more

cumulative scholarship related to appraising Mansfeld and Snyder’s theory through case study

analysis. Particularly, my more rigorous analytical framework demonstrates a method that

researchers can use to disentangle domestic political causes of war from geopolitical causes of

war for future case study research.

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