The Quest for Peace in Chechnya: the Relevance of Pakistan’S Tribal Areas Experience
The Quest for Peace in Chechnya: The Relevance of Pakistan’s Tribal Areas Experience Svante E. Cornell Maria Sultan October 2002 Svante Cornell is Executive Director and Maria Sultan Pakistan Bureau Director of Cornell Caspian Consulting. Cornell is also Research Director of the Silk Road Studies Program at Uppsala University and Deputy Director of the Central Asia- Caucasus Institute, Johns Hopkins University. Sultan is Senior Fellow at the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad, Pakistan. The Quest for Peace in Chechnya: The Relevance of Pakistan’s Tribal Areas Experience Though the war in Chechnya has clearly reached a deadlock, there seems to be little hope of a solution. Political analyst almost unanimously believe the war is set to continue for another several years, and few expect any development toward a peaceful resolution before 2004, at the earliest. This war is extremely costly for both sides, and damaging to the regional security of the entire Caucasus region. The blunt of the burden has been borne by Chechen civilians, who have for several years faced Russian aerial bombardment, zachistkas, death and mutilation, poverty and destruction. For Russia, Chechnya is a costly war that it cannot afford, depleting the resources of its military, while the Russian army is sinking ever deeper into chaos, the war thwarting all possible military reform. The military is taking casualties on a continuous basis, casualties that are far higher than it is publicly admitting. Unwilling or unable to find a way out of the war, the Putin administration has instead tried to regionalize the conflict, blaming Georgia for hosting Chechen rebels and threatening to launch a unilateral military intervention on Georgian territory.
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