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Both Russia and the United States are engaged in a fierce competition over oil resources in the Caspian region. Bulent Gokay of the Turkish Journal of International Relations (Alternatives) astutely noted that in the post-September 11th world, "the map of terrorist sanctuaries and targets in the Middle East and Central Asia is also, to an extraordinary degree, a map of the world's principal energy sources in the 21st century."
In Eurasia, the US administration sees its military might as a trump card in its never-ending quest for unchallenged political hegemony and resource-control. The Washington-based American Petroleum Institute, the voice of the major US oil companies, called the Caspian region, "the area of greatest resource potential outside of the Middle East." US Vice President Dick Cheney, speaking of the Caspian Sea basin in 1998, when he was still employed by the oil industry, commented, "I cannot think of a time when we have had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian."
One can also safely claim that disputes over oil were at the heart of Russia's earlier decision to go to war against Chechnya in December 1994. Chief amongst Russian concerns and Western interests is the oil pipeline that runs from the oilfields of Azerbaijan through Dagestan and Chechnya, to the Russian port of Novorossiisk. The Baku-Novorossiisk pipeline has become crucial due to the discovery and planned development of major oilfields on the Azerbaijani shore on the Caspian. These fields are estimated to contain some 3.5 billion barrels of oil, comparable to the North Sea. Russia therefore has important geo-economic reasons for establishing firm control over the Caucasus, reasons essentially related to Russia's concerns over the control of the Caspian's oil resources.
Russia's concerns over Chechnya also grew as a result of the US-NATO war against Serbia and the subsequent NATO occupation of Kosovo. In this light, Russia's invasion of Chechnya in 1999 was meant to be a warning to the United States and NATO, and to any other nations likely to rebel against Russia in the post-Soviet space, that Russia was still a military force to be reckoned with.
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Historical and Political Dynamics of the Conflict
A salient feature of politics in the Northern Caucasus has been the primacy of religious identification, coupled with a spirit of rebellion and a capacity for prolonged resistance against overwhelming odds. Throughout the decades, Islam has worked as a unifying force for the people of the Northern Caucasus in their struggle against Russian 'infidel'influence.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the region has been characterized by an increase in religiosity and an upsurge in the prominence of more fundamentalist Islamism. Not only has the region witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of mosques since the 1980s, but interestingly, even in the last days of the former Soviet Union, Dagestan and Chechnya produced more pilgrims for the annual Hajj than the rest of the USSR combined.6 Current events in the region should therefore be viewed in the context of the centuries of heavy-handed and often genocidal Russian policies aimed at the subjugation of the Muslims of the Caucasus, and as the ultimate result of underlying tensions exacerbated by failed Russian socio-economic policies.
Understanding the dynamics of the conflict in Chechnya is crucial to understanding Caucasian politics. The conflict in Chechnya is the central theme around which other regional struggles manifest.
Chechnya is a small nation situated in the Caucasus within the southern border of the Russian Federation. First known in the Middle Ages, the Chechens are a distinct ethno-linguistic group who called themselves the Nokhchi. Religiously and culturally distinct from the Russians and Cossacks, they have resisted Russian rule since the colonial wars of the late 18th century. This national feeling of distinctness was sustained by the presence of two Muslim Sufi orders, the Naqshbandiya and the Quadiriya -- both of which advocated reform and resistance to oppression.7 Moreover, Shari`ah law offered a historically respected legal and social code that was much sought after in Chechnya. Islam has since remained the primary source of identification for the Chechens, and the main mobilizing force for their resistance of Russian tyranny.8 Hence, the quest for an independent Islamic republic was the motivating factor behind many Chechen uprisings.
The Russian conquest of the North Caucasus, an Ottoman protectorate, began at the end of the 18th century. The first concerted efforts by Muslim North Caucasian nations to repel the Russian advance were led by a Chechen, Mansur Ushurma, a Naqshbandi Sufi sheikh, between 1785 and 1791. His jihad achieved remarkable military successes at a time when Russia was at the height of its power.9 He greatly raised Islamic awareness, teaching his followers steadfastness in the face of the Russian enemy. In fact, the Islamization of the Northwestern Caucasus was the most durable work of Sheikh Mansur.
Sheikh Mansur's jihad came to an end, however, in the aftermath of the Ottoman's 1791 loss of Anapa, their Black Sea fortress, leading to the capture of the Sheikh, who died in Russian captivity in 1794.
In 1816, General Alexei Yermolov was appointed chief administrator of Georgia and the Caucasus. His autocratic and deliberately cruel rule shaped the future of Russian-Chechen relations. In 1818 he wrote to Tsar Alexander II that he would find no peace as long as a single Chechen remained alive because by their example they could inspire a rebellious spirit and love of freedom among even the most faithful subjects of the Empire. His advent marked a policy of systematic extermination and expulsion in the North Caucasus. In the process of the Russian conquest, tens of thousands of Chechen noncombatants died, agricultural land was denied to Chechens to starve them into submission, and more than a million people were expelled from their homelands, settling in Turkey and elsewhere in the Middle East.12
Yermolov's policies paved the way for the emergence of the three imams who spearheaded Chechen resistance during the Caucasus War (1817-64). The three were Kazi Mullah, Gamzat-Bek, and Shamil. The latter was perhaps the most outstanding political and military leader ever to emerge in the North Caucasus.13
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