The military campaign unleashed in Chechnya in September 1999 was portrayed by the Russian leadership as a limited and carefully targeted counter-terrorist operation aimed at eliminating the threat to Russia posed by "international terrorism." In a 14 November article in the New York Times, then Prime Minister Putin sought to deflect American criticism of Russian actions and to win acquiescence, if not sympathy, by likening Russias effort in Chechnya to U.S. anti-terrorist actions. The Russian military, he insisted, had chosen "accurately targeted strikes on specifically identified terrorist bases" to avoid direct attacks on Chechen communities.

But the radical discrepancy between the initial rationale and the actual conduct of the campaign makes it clear that what we are seeing is in fact a deliberate resumption of the 1994-96 war by the Russian Government--and a unilateral abrogation of the agreements that terminated it--now pursued with even greater determination and brutality, with even less regard for civilian casualties, and with a more sophisticated military and public relations strategy.

Not only is there a massive chasm between the professed aims of the campaign and its actual conduct; there appears to be a major disconnect between the real problems of the region and the Russian Government's response. Indeed, the attempt at military subjugation and occupation of Chechnya by Russian forces is likely to exacerbate rather than solve the deeper problems of the Northern Caucasus.

This analysis focuses on three broad issues: (a) the challenge facing Moscow in Chechnya more broadly, and in particular why the opportunity for a political solution of the conflict afforded by the Khasaviurt and other peace agreements was squandered; (b) the assumptions that appear to underlie the actions of the Russian Government and why some of these assumptions appear to be questionable; and (c) the prospects for a political resolution of the conflict and for establishing longer-term peace and stability in the region.

Reprinted in Central Asia and the Caucasus, no. 4, August 2000.

Chapter in Chechnya: The International Community and Strategies for Peace and Stability, edited by Lena Jonson and Murad Esenov.

The proliferation of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons is now the single most serious security concern for governments around the world. Peter R. Lavoy, Scott D. Sagan, and James J. Wirtz compare how military threats, strategic cultures, and organizations shape the way leaders intend to employ these armaments. They reveal the many frightening ways that emerging military powers and terrorist groups are planning the unthinkable by preparing to use chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons in future conflicts.

Distinguished specialists consider several states and organizations that have this weaponry: Iraq, Iran, India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel, as well as the Aum Shinrikyo cult. The contributors expose plans for using unconventional weapons, highlighting the revolutionary effects these arsenals might have on international politics and regional disputes.

The Global Diffusion of the Internet Project was initiated in 1997 to study the diffusion and absorption of the Internet to, and within, many diverse countries. This research has resulted in an ongoing series of reports and articles that have developed an analytic framework for evaluating the Internet within countries and applied it to more than 25 countries. (See http://mosaic.unomaha.edu/gdi.html for links to some of these reports and articles.)

The current report applies the analytic framework to compare and contrast the Internet experiences of Turkey and Pakistan, through mid-2000. Although historically these countries have not been closely related, there are significant parallels between the two that make them well suited for a comparative study of the absorption of the Internet. Turkey and Pakistan are among the largest non-Arab Muslim countries in the world. In contrast to most of their Arab counterparts, their governments were founded as secular, parliamentary democracies. Both countries have had stormy political histories, however, with periodic coups and authoritarian governments. Each country has firmly entrenched bureaucracies with closed and, to varying degrees, corrupt processes.

Their economies have been similarly troubled, with periods of relative hopefulness punctuated by stagnation and decline. Both countries have suffered from erratic growth rates, high inflation, and high deficits. For most of their histories, their economies were rather closed and autarkic.

In recent decades, each country has taken substantial steps to move toward a more open, market-oriented economy and made expansion of the telecommunications infrastructure a high priority. Each country has sought, less successfully than had been hoped, to attract foreign investment and integrate itself more fully with the global economy.

Each country has a number of national security concerns. Turkey and Pakistan both have histories of serious domestic terrorism and persistent conflict with a non-Muslim neighbor.

In spite of the macro-similarities, there are numerous differences between the two countries. Pakistan is considerably poorer and less developed than Turkey; it has had more coups and assassinations, deeper economic troughs, greater heterogeneity within its population, and more endemic corruption.