The Yeltsin Regime
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The Russia You Never Met
The Russia You Never Met MATT BIVENS AND JONAS BERNSTEIN fter staggering to reelection in summer 1996, President Boris Yeltsin A announced what had long been obvious: that he had a bad heart and needed surgery. Then he disappeared from view, leaving his prime minister, Viktor Cher- nomyrdin, and his chief of staff, Anatoly Chubais, to mind the Kremlin. For the next few months, Russians would tune in the morning news to learn if the presi- dent was still alive. Evenings they would tune in Chubais and Chernomyrdin to hear about a national emergency—no one was paying their taxes. Summer turned to autumn, but as Yeltsin’s by-pass operation approached, strange things began to happen. Chubais and Chernomyrdin suddenly announced the creation of a new body, the Cheka, to help the government collect taxes. In Lenin’s day, the Cheka was the secret police force—the forerunner of the KGB— that, among other things, forcibly wrested food and money from the peasantry and drove some of them into collective farms or concentration camps. Chubais made no apologies, saying that he had chosen such a historically weighted name to communicate the seriousness of the tax emergency.1 Western governments nod- ded their collective heads in solemn agreement. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank both confirmed that Russia was experiencing a tax collec- tion emergency and insisted that serious steps be taken.2 Never mind that the Russian government had been granting enormous tax breaks to the politically connected, including billions to Chernomyrdin’s favorite, Gazprom, the natural gas monopoly,3 and around $1 billion to Chubais’s favorite, Uneximbank,4 never mind the horrendous corruption that had been bleeding the treasury dry for years, or the nihilistic and pointless (and expensive) destruction of Chechnya. -
The Siloviki in Russian Politics
The Siloviki in Russian Politics Andrei Soldatov and Michael Rochlitz Who holds power and makes political decisions in contemporary Russia? A brief survey of available literature in any well-stocked bookshop in the US or Europe will quickly lead one to the answer: Putin and the “siloviki” (see e.g. LeVine 2009; Soldatov and Borogan 2010; Harding 2011; Felshtinsky and Pribylovsky 2012; Lucas 2012, 2014 or Dawisha 2014). Sila in Russian means force, and the siloviki are the members of Russia’s so called “force ministries”—those state agencies that are authorized to use violence to respond to threats to national security. These armed agents are often portrayed—by journalists and scholars alike—as Russia’s true rulers. A conventional wisdom has emerged about their rise to dominance, which goes roughly as follows. After taking office in 2000, Putin reconsolidated the security services and then gradually placed his former associates from the KGB and FSB in key positions across the country (Petrov 2002; Kryshtanovskaya and White 2003, 2009). Over the years, this group managed to disable almost all competing sources of power and control. United by a common identity, a shared worldview, and a deep personal loyalty to Putin, the siloviki constitute a cohesive corporation, which has entrenched itself at the heart of Russian politics. Accountable to no one but the president himself, they are the driving force behind increasingly authoritarian policies at home (Illarionov 2009; Roxburgh 2013; Kasparov 2015), an aggressive foreign policy (Lucas 2014), and high levels of state predation and corruption (Dawisha 2014). While this interpretation contains elements of truth, we argue that it provides only a partial and sometimes misleading and exaggerated picture of the siloviki’s actual role. -
ON the EFFECTIVE USE of PROXY WARFARE by Andrew Lewis Peek Baltimore, Maryland May 2021 © 2021 Andrew Peek All Rights Reserved
ON THE EFFECTIVE USE OF PROXY WARFARE by Andrew Lewis Peek A dissertation submitted to Johns Hopkins University in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Baltimore, Maryland May 2021 2021 Andrew Peek All rights reserved Abstract This dissertation asks a simple question: how are states most effectively conducting proxy warfare in the modern international system? It answers this question by conducting a comparative study of the sponsorship of proxy forces. It uses process tracing to examine five cases of proxy warfare and predicts that the differentiation in support for each proxy impacts their utility. In particular, it proposes that increasing the principal-agent distance between sponsors and proxies might correlate with strategic effectiveness. That is, the less directly a proxy is supported and controlled by a sponsor, the more effective the proxy becomes. Strategic effectiveness here is conceptualized as consisting of two key parts: a proxy’s operational capability and a sponsor’s plausible deniability. These should be in inverse relation to each other: the greater and more overt a sponsor’s support is to a proxy, the more capable – better armed, better trained – its proxies should be on the battlefield. However, this close support to such proxies should also make the sponsor’s influence less deniable, and thus incur strategic costs against both it and the proxy. These costs primarily consist of external balancing by rival states, the same way such states would balance against conventional aggression. Conversely, the more deniable such support is – the more indirect and less overt – the less balancing occurs. -
The Second Chechen War: the Information Component
WARNING! The views expressed in FMSO publications and reports are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. The Second Chechen War: The Information Component by Emil Pain, Former Russian Ethno-national Relations Advisor Translated by Mr. Robert R. Love Foreign Military Studies Office, Fort Leavenworth, KS. This article appeared in The linked image cannot be displayed. The file may have been moved, renamed, or deleted. Verify that the link points to the correct file a Military Review July-August 2000 In December 1994 Russian authorities made their first attempt to crush Chechen separatism militarily. However, after two years of bloody combat the Russian army was forced to withdraw from the Chechen Republic. The obstinacy of the Russian authorities who had decided on a policy of victory in Chechnya resulted in the deaths of at least 30,000 Chechens and 5,000 Russian soldiers.1 This war, which caused an estimated $5.5 billion in economic damage, was largely the cause of Russia's national economic crisis in 1998, when the Russian government proved unable to service its huge debts.2 It seemed that after the 1994-1996 war Russian society and the federal government realized the ineffectiveness of using colonial approaches to resolve ethnopolitical issues.3 They also understood, it seemed, the impossibility of forcibly imposing their will upon even a small ethnoterritorial community if a significant portion of that community is prepared to take up arms to defend its interests. -
Chechnya. Calamity in the Caucasus' and Goltz, 'Azerbaijan Diary
H-Russia Mannteufel on Gall and Waal, 'Chechnya. Calamity in the Caucasus' and Goltz, 'Azerbaijan Diary. A Rogue Reporter's Adventures in an Oil-Rich, War-Torn, Post-Soviet-Republic' Review published on Wednesday, November 1, 2000 Carlotta Gall, Thomas de Waal. Chechnya. Calamity in the Caucasus. New York: New York University Press, 1998. xiv + 416 pp. $26.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8147-3132-1.Thomas Goltz. Azerbaijan Diary. A Rogue Reporter's Adventures in an Oil-Rich, War-Torn, Post-Soviet-Republic. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1998. xxx + 528 pp. $39.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-7656-0244-2. Reviewed by Ingo Mannteufel (Journal OSTEUROPA. Zeitschrift für Gegenwartsfragen des Ostens, Aachen, Germany) Published on H-Russia (November, 2000) The Caucasus in the 1990s from the Perspective of War Correspondents The Caucasus in the 1990s from the Perspective of War Correspondents Since the last years of the Soviet Union the region around the Caucasus mountains has become an area of violent ethnic conflicts. The Armenian-Azerbaijan War for Nagorno-Karabakh, the hostilities in Georgia (South-Ossetia, Abkhazia), the clashes between Ossetians and Ingush within the Russian Federation, and last but not least the two large-scale Russian-Chechen Wars have drawn the attention of the international public to this up to then unknown region at the edge of Europe. But it was precisely this dangerous atmosphere that attracted journalists from all over the world to report directly from this new hot spot. Thomas Goltz, an American journalist who worked in Turkey during the 1980s, was one of these journalists. -
Nowhere to Turn but Yeltsin
Nowhere to Turn But Yeltsin JOHN LLOYD he Russian intelligentsia, dispirited, shorn of influence, and broke, had a Tcolloquium in Literaturnava Gazeta in February on its relationship with power. Led off by the greatest of the surviving 1960s bards, Bulat Okudzhava-who said that Yeltsin had tumed away from a group that had represented his staunchest supporters when he was elected five years ago, and now "scorned" it because he and his cronies could not bear criticism-the colloquium was in the main a melancholic series of reflections. Most agreed with Okudzhava by lamenting the loss of a leader who had held out a promise of renewal, yet those who remained reluctantly loyal-and none were robust about being so-fell back on a recognition that speech was now free and that life under the Communists would be worse. Their collective posture was well summed up by the writer Andrei Bitov: The mark of a member of the intelligentsia, he said, was to stand for certain moral and intellectual values, and to have nothing to do with power. Those members of the intelligentsia who had expected more and tried to help Yeltsin achieve it have usually had their fingers burned. Some have resigned, some were sacked, a few cling on for the usual reason that to leave would be to hand their place to someone worse. The most famous defector was the former prisoner of conscience Sergei Kovalev, who served as Yeltsin's Human Rights Ombudsman, protested loudly and with great courage against the war in Chechnya (he spent many weeks under bombardment in Grozny, the Chechen capital), and finally resigned from the last of his official posts earlier this year. -
Great Game to 9/11
Air Force Engaging the World Great Game to 9/11 A Concise History of Afghanistan’s International Relations Michael R. Rouland COVER Aerial view of a village in Farah Province, Afghanistan. Photo (2009) by MSst. Tracy L. DeMarco, USAF. Department of Defense. Great Game to 9/11 A Concise History of Afghanistan’s International Relations Michael R. Rouland Washington, D.C. 2014 ENGAGING THE WORLD The ENGAGING THE WORLD series focuses on U.S. involvement around the globe, primarily in the post-Cold War period. It includes peacekeeping and humanitarian missions as well as Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom—all missions in which the U.S. Air Force has been integrally involved. It will also document developments within the Air Force and the Department of Defense. GREAT GAME TO 9/11 GREAT GAME TO 9/11 was initially begun as an introduction for a larger work on U.S./coalition involvement in Afghanistan. It provides essential information for an understanding of how this isolated country has, over centuries, become a battleground for world powers. Although an overview, this study draws on primary- source material to present a detailed examination of U.S.-Afghan relations prior to Operation Enduring Freedom. Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Air Force, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. government. Cleared for public release. Contents INTRODUCTION The Razor’s Edge 1 ONE Origins of the Afghan State, the Great Game, and Afghan Nationalism 5 TWO Stasis and Modernization 15 THREE Early Relations with the United States 27 FOUR Afghanistan’s Soviet Shift and the U.S. -
Berezovsky-Judgment.Pdf
Neutral Citation Number: [2012] EWHC 2463 (Comm) Royal Courts of Justice Rolls Building, 7 Rolls Buildings, London EC4A 1NL Date: 31st August 2012 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE Case No: 2007 Folio 942 QUEEN’S BENCH DIVISION COMMERCIAL COURT IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE Claim Nos: HC08C03549; HC09C00494; CHANCERY DIVISION HC09C00711 Before: MRS JUSTICE GLOSTER, DBE - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Between: Boris Abramovich Berezovsky Claimant - and - Roman Arkadievich Abramovich Defendant Boris Abramovich Berezovsky Claimant - and - Hine & Others Defendants - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Laurence Rabinowitz Esq, QC, Richard Gillis Esq, QC, Roger Masefield Esq, Simon Colton Esq, Henry Forbes-Smith Esq, Sebastian Isaac Esq, Alexander Milner Esq, and Ms. Nehali Shah (instructed by Addleshaw Goddard LLP) for the Claimant Jonathan Sumption Esq, QC, Miss Helen Davies QC, Daniel Jowell Esq, QC, Andrew Henshaw Esq, Richard Eschwege Esq, Edward Harrison Esq and Craig Morrison Esq (instructed by Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP) for the Defendant Ali Malek Esq, QC, Ms. Sonia Tolaney QC, and Ms. Anne Jeavons (instructed by Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP) appeared for the Anisimov Defendants to the Chancery Actions David Mumford Esq (instructed by Macfarlanes LLP) appeared for the Salford Defendants to the Chancery Actions Jonathan Adkin Esq and Watson Pringle Esq (instructed by Signature Litigation LLP) appeared for the Family Defendants to the Chancery Actions Hearing dates: 3rd – 7th October 2011; 10th – 13th October 2011; 17th – 19th October 2011; 24th & 28th October 2011; 31st October – 4th November 2011; 7th – 10th November 2011; 14th - 18th November 2011; 21st – 23 November 2011; 28th November – 2nd December 2011; 5th December 2011; 19th & 20th December 2011; 17th – 19th January 2012. -
The North Caucasus Ways Forward for Russia and the European Union
Building Stability in the North Caucasus Ways Forward for Russia and the European Union SIPRI Policy Paper No. 16 Neil J. Melvin Stockholm International Peace Research Institute May 2007 © SIPRI, 2007 ISSN 1652-0432 (print) ISSN 1653-7548 (online) Printed in Sweden by CM Gruppen, Bromma Contents Preface iv Map of the North Caucasus vi Table A.1. Data on the North Caucasus and the Russian Federation vii 1. Introduction: instability in the North Caucasus 1 The structure of this Policy Paper 6 2. The roots of instability in the North Caucasus 7 Incorporation and pacification 7 The North Caucasus in the Soviet Union 9 World War II and Stalin 11 The post-Stalin era and perestroika 12 The North Caucasus in the Russian Federation 15 Nationalist mobilization 15 The failure of state building in the North Caucasus 17 Religious revival 18 The first Chechen war 21 3. The North Caucasus in the Putin era 24 Putin’s new course 24 Replacing local elites 26 The second Chechen war 28 Russia’s ‘war on terrorism’ 31 The role of the international community 35 4. Prospects for the North Caucasus 37 National–territorial issues 37 Islam and Islamism 40 Governance in the North Caucasus 43 Socio-economic issues 44 Russia’s security policies 45 The North Caucasus and the European Union 46 5. Recommendations 48 Recommendations for the Russian Federation 48 Recommendations for the European Union 54 About the author 59 Preface For most people, the notion of conflict in the North Caucasus—a region within the Russian Federation, as distinct from the independent states of the South Cau- casus—is synonymous with Chechnya. -
The Russian Military Faces “Creeping Disintegration”
The Russian Military Faces “Creeping Disintegration” DALE R. HERSPRING There were virtually no units which were combat ready in 1997. —Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev lthough often ignored by observers and pundits, the Russian military plays A one of the most important roles of any institution in that society. The reason is that the armed forces are always the last bastion against anarchy and chaos in any political system. And Russia now is on the verge of collapse and anarchy. In taking a closer look at the Russian military and the role it plays in the Rus- sian political system, I divide my observations into three categories. First is the question of the armed forces themselves. It is impossible to discuss the role of the military without understanding how serious the situation is in Moscow’s armed forces. As those who have spent time working in the military or analyzing military issues know, reversing conditions like those that now characterize the Russian armed forces is not easy. It will take considerable time. The lead time on many weapons systems exceeds five years from planning to production. A second issue is the question of whether there is a serious danger that the Rus- sian military will become involved in politics. Finally, there is the question of what the West can do and should be doing at this point vis-à-vis the Russian military. The Situation Facing the Russian Military Despite Defense Minister Marshal Igor Sergeyev’s comment on 19 July 1999, to the effect that Russia’s armed forces are “combat ready, controllable and capable of ensuring the military security of the country,” the fact is that their situation is nothing short of disastrous.1 Equipment is outdated, officers and men are dispir- ited, thousands of the “best and brightest” are leaving, the budget is in shambles, generals have been politicized in a way unknown in the past, and talk of reform is a farce. -
The City of Moscow in Russia's Foreign and Security Policy: Role
Eidgenössische “Regionalization of Russian Foreign and Security Policy” Technische Hochschule Zürich Project organized by The Russian Study Group at the Center for Security Studies and Conflict Research Andreas Wenger, Jeronim Perovic,´ Andrei Makarychev, Oleg Alexandrov WORKING PAPER NO.7 APRIL 2001 The City of Moscow in Russia’s Foreign and Security Policy: Role, Aims and Motivations DESIGN : SUSANA PERROTTET RIOS Moscow enjoys an exceptional position among the Russian regions. Due to its huge By Oleg B. Alexandrov economic and financial potential, the city of Moscow largely shapes the country’s economic and political processes. This study provides an overall insight into the complex international network that the city of Moscow is tied into. It also assesses the role, aims and motivations of the main regional actors that are involved. These include the political authorities, the media tycoons and the major financial-industrial groups. Special attention is paid to the problem of institutional and non-institutional interaction between the Moscow city authorities and the federal center in the foreign and security policy sector, with an emphasis on the impact of Putin’s federal reforms. Contact: Center for Security Studies and Conflict Research ETH Zentrum / SEI CH-8092 Zürich Switzerland Andreas Wenger, head of project [email protected] Jeronim Perovic´ , project coordinator [email protected] Oleg Alexandrov [email protected]; [email protected] Andrei Makarychev [email protected]; [email protected] Order of copies: Center for Security Studies and Conflict Research ETH Zentrum / SEI CH-8092 Zürich Switzerland [email protected] Papers available in full-text format at: http://www.fsk.ethz.ch/ Layout by Marco Zanoli The City of Moscow in Russia’s Foreign and Security Policy: Role, Aims and Motivations By Oleg B. -
The War in Chechnya and Its Aftermath
Baylis, Wirtz & Gray: Strategy in the Contemporary World 6e Holding a Decaying Empire Together: The War in Chechnya and its Aftermath On 25 December 1991, the Soviet Union officially was dissolved, with the former superpower splitting into 15 individual states. Each of these entities had been a constituent ‘republic’ of the USSR built around one of the major ethnicities within the country—Russia itself was dominated by Russians, Ukraine by Ukrainians, and so forth. The 15 republics, however, actually greatly simplified the diversity of the Soviet state, which contained hundreds of distinct ethnic groups, many of which dominated a small piece of territory within a republic. In many cases, these groups had certain limited rights to govern themselves locally and independently of the larger republic of which they were a part. The Chechens were one such group. Chechnya is located in Russia, in the mountainous Caucasus and bordering the now-independent country of Georgia. The total number of Chechens is small, although exact numbers are disputed—there are perhaps somewhat over two million Chechens, many of whom live outside Chechnya itself; the population of Chechnya itself is approximately 1.2 million, but this includes Ingush, Kumyks, Russians, and other non-Chechens. The great majority of Chechens are Muslims, and although Chechnya was incorporated into the Russian Empire in the nineteenth century (and Russia had influence in the region much earlier), their culture remains quite distinct from that of the Russians. During the Soviet period, Chechens were joined with another small Caucasian Muslim group, the Ingush, in a local governing entity.