ABSTRACT
The violent confrontation between Russia and Chechnya has been described as “the most brutal conflict in post-war Europe”, but this characterization is misleading in one respect. Russia has adopted a variety of different approaches over the years to address its Chechen problem, some more successful than others. There is plenty to dislike about Russia’s “solution” to the problem of Chechen separatist terrorism. The chapter discusses a brief review of the scholarly debate regarding the effective management of ethnic separatism. It provides overviews and analyses of, respectively: historical context, Chechen separatist terrorist activity, and Russian responses to the terrorist threat emanating from the North Caucasus. The Ramzanization policy is often dismissed as a crude solution to the Chechen problem, but its evolution was more nuanced than generally acknowledged. Terrorism was initially used sparingly and relatively discriminately by Chechen forces and was born of military necessity.
