Hi,
Your position is in fact close to mine. Indeed, the Ireland example is a much closer parallel (due to geographical proximity) than, say, the relation of France to Algeria (except that at least there is water separating the English from Ireland). Chechnya was of course originally acquired by the Russian Empire in an imperialistic way (almost as an afterthought, as far as I know, the main geopolitical targets at that time being Georgia and the Ottoman Empire).
That said, my opinion is that, clearly, _something_ drastic had to be done in 1999 -- not because of separatism, as I have said, but because Chechnya, or rather certain elements based on its territory, was destabilizing and terrorizing the whole region. What that something should have been I don't have the answer to. I am not a military strategist, but I tend to think that the decision to send forces into southern Chechnya was a big mistake -- it would have been better to set up a cordon along the north bank of the Terek, which has a generally pro-Russian population.
I can think of no realistic scenario for Chechnya which does not involve massive brutality, tragically. Basically what has happened is the replacement of one set of horrific brutalities (perpetrated by Chechens upon the surrounding populations) for another (perpetrated by federal forces and pro-Moscow Chechens upon the Chechen population).
Daniel Davies <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Chris, you make a number of good points, but I don't think you're taking
your opponents' position seriously enough. It's always been a pet theory of
mine that almost all difficult questions relating to imperialism can be
enlightened by considering the degree to which they are analogous to the
ur-example of a capitalist imperialist expansion; the English conquest of
Ireland. (the paucity of the "I" section of the index to Hardt & Negri's
book is a main reason why I never bought it). If you look at the Chechen
War through this prism, the answers to your questions become clearer. It is
very much a matter for dispute whether the territory that Russia wanted to
"hold onto" was theirs in the first place (rather like parts of the
territory occupied by a country which calls itself the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Northern Ireland), and similarly, the two sides on the
Chechen conflict seem to be discinclined to agree on whether or not it
is/was a civil war
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