Introduction

This book is concerned with the formation and development of the North Caucasus between approximately 1800 and the present, with a particular focus on the Soviet period between 1917 and 1944. The final chapters also detail the causes and background to both the First and Second Chechen conflicts, both of which have their roots in the Soviet period, as well as territorial conflicts in the Transcaucasus. In terms of pure military history alone, therefore, the text spans what are in effect already three distinct generations of warfare, opening with the rattle of horsedrawn machine-gun carts across the steppe during the Russian Civil War, and ending with cyberspace conflict and the roar of Russian Su-25 jets over Georgian airspace in 2008.1 Broad generalizations are therefore a necessity throughout, but I have aspired to a certain analytical logic by both consistently interrogating previous assumptions in the literature, and offering my own assessments.