A decade after two wars over Chechnya’s independence (1994–2002) claimed dozens of thousands of casualties and hundreds of thousands of refugees,1 significant violent insurgency in the region has persisted. Though on a smaller scale, insurgent attacks on Russian government forces and civilians continue at the time of writing at the rate that is common in low-level civil wars—a familiar phenomenon
... [Show full abstract] in weak, developing states. Systemic violence has changed in two principal ways since the early 2000s. First, the conflict is no longer confined to Chechnya, but has spread to the neighboring ethnic provinces, especially Ingushetia, Dagestan, and Kabardino-Balkaria (KBR). From April 2008 through April 2010, operations by government and rebel forces in these four North Caucasus republics claimed approximately 1,500 deaths (Center for Strategic and International Studies 2010). Second, the dominant motivations for insurgency have changed, as secular nationalist separatism gave way to a combination of militant Islamism, profound grievances arising from government abuse of power, and competition for economic resources among local elites (Kavkazskii Uzel 2009; Latynina 2009).
