By Nandan Unnikrishnan
On 1 September 2004, a group of 32 terrorists took hostage School Number One (SNO) in the North Ossetian town of Beslan, holding over 1,000 people who had gathered to celebrate the first day of the academic term as prisoners. The hostage crisis ended two days later when security forces launched an operation to free the hostages. The possibly botched up raid left 326 dead, including 159 children, and some 540 wounded.
This storming ended a terror-packed 10 days that saw two other terrorist attacks. On 24 August, two planes that took off from Moscow’s Domodedovo airport exploded mid-air. One crashed near Tula and the other near Rostov leaving 90 people dead. Similarly, on 30 August, a suicide bomber attack in central Moscow left 10 dead and 51 wounded. All of these were claimed by Chechen terrorist warlord Shamil Basayev.
Beslan was undoubtedly the worst terrorist strike in Russia. The death of children greatly amplified the tragic outcome amongst the populace in the country. It would have been no surprise if this tragedy was followed by a slew of security reforms and enabling legislation—the usual way states respond to such events. For example, the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the United States saw a major overhaul of intelligence services and the passing to the Patriot Act.
Similarly, in Russia, President Vladimir Putin immediately called for reform of the Ministry of the Interior (MVD) and the Federal Security Service (FSB). These were duly carried out within a year. Putin also called for a thorough revamp of all policies related to the North Caucasus. But what distinguishes the post-Beslan reaction of the Russian state is the host of political reforms that were proposed to promote the “power vertical”, i.e., centralised control of the country by Moscow. Amongst the proposed reforms were appointment of regional governors by the President, shifting to fully proportional representation to the Duma (Parliament) and others.
A historical overview would be required to provide the context to understand why Beslan evoked these security and political reforms.
On the cusp of the 21st century, Russia had been weakened by decade-long reforms, mostly incomplete, to change the country from a socialist state to a market-driven one. The mismanaged privatisation programme, inconsistent economic reforms, and endemic corruption drove the country to a default on its sovereign debt in 1998. The economic crisis fed multiple crises in other areas, including unpaid salaries to vast numbers and the restive Russian regions challenging the crumbling federal edifice of the state.
Post-Soviet Russia was at its weakest in 1999, which was acknowledged in that year’s National Security Concept that virtually described a state that was losing its ability to rule effectively. The challenges to Moscow’s authority in the Northern Caucasus only made matters worse.
Little surprise then that restoring the “vertical of power” becomes the single most powerful impetus in state policies. Internal security was identified as the main task to tackle, which would also reduce external threats to the Russian state.
Coincidentally, this is the time a little-known former KGB Lt. Colonel, Vladimir Putin, makes his entry into the top echelons of power. He is appointed as the Prime Minister in August 1999 and subsequently agrees to contest the Presidential Elections. Thus, it is under his stewardship that these policies are implemented—central among them being dealing with problem in the North Caucasus.
The Chechen incursions into Dagestan and several terrorist incidents in Russia are the trigger for the second Chechen War. Riding the wave of popular sentiment supportive of restoring central control over the unruly southern regions, Putin outstripped challengers and ascended to the pinnacle of power—the Russian presidency—in March 2000.
Since then, political, economic, and social policies of the Russian state are formulated and implemented with the primary objective of addressing internal weaknesses, and, thus, reducing scope for external interventions in Russia. The Russian establishment is unlikely to forget that the secessionist movements of North Caucasus were funded from abroad, mainly the Middle East, or that the Taliban was quick to recognise the short-lived breakaway Chechen Republic of Ichkeria
This single-minded focus on state security also strengthened the understanding that it was perceived internal weakness that led to adversaries pushing at Russian national interests, be it the events around Kosovo, which the Russians saw as a breakdown of the 1989 consensus on the limitation on the use of force in international affairs and a violation of the UN Charter or the subsequent NATO push eastwards.
From here onwards, it did not take long for the Russian establishment to coalesce around the thought that the internal and external threats to security couldn’t be “managed” or “contained” and that they could only be dealt with by pushing back.
Internally, this could partially explain why the state displayed a hard edge in its reactions to the terrorist incidents at Moscow’s Dubrovka theatre or Beslan. Both resulted in casualties after the security forces decided to forcibly free the hostages. The relative peace from terrorism since and the taming of the Chechen problem in the eyes of the Russian political elite probably justifies the hard tactics in dealing with internal security threats.
Externally, this pushback is, perhaps, best exemplified by this quote from Dmitri Simes, the President of the Center for National Interest, a Washington-based public policy think tank:
“In 2008, Russia invaded Georgia, but only after Georgian forces had attacked South Ossetia which was protected by Russian peacekeepers. In 2014, Russia used force to annex Crimea and to support separatists in Donbass, but only after a pro-Western rebellion in Kiev that removed from power the corrupt, but legitimately elected, President Viktor Yanukovych. In each case—with President Mikheil Saakashvili in Georgia and the new Ukrainian government—Russia found itself confronted by hostile forces eager to join NATO, intent on exploiting their membership as a protective shield against Moscow.”
In 2015, Russia went a step further and intervened in Syria ostensibly to combat terrorism as represented by the ISIS (Islamic State) but also, undoubtedly, to declare that Russia was back as global power that would protect its core interests with whatever means necessary.
The motivation of dealing with threats before they reach its borders also governed Russia’s policy towards Afghanistan for the past few years. While it has no intention of putting boots on the ground in Afghanistan, Moscow lost no time in developing closer ties with Pakistan and the Taliban once it became clear that the US was contemplating withdrawal.
These processes got strengthened once the US-Taliban talks in Doha commenced. To India’s chagrin, Moscow once again displayed a cold-blooded realism about India’s leverage in Afghanistan but keeping Delhi informed about the discussions in various formats that India was not participating in. It must be noted here that all the participants in these formats—the US, China, Pakistan, and the Taliban—seemed comfortable with this arrangement. The fact is that from being kept away from developments in Afghanistan, today Russia is a major player in the region.
The lessons for India from Russia’s story of overcoming internal and external weakness is simple: Build your internal capacities—politically, socially, economically, militarily and security wise—and, in time, combined with realistic international partnerships, India will be able to deal with any challenges it faces.
Nandan Unnikrishnan is a Distinguished Fellow at Observer Research Foundation.
Cover Image Credit: Aaron Bird, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons