Russia and the Caucasus. Try being tender as well as tough

Russian policy could still alter--and avert a catastrophe

THE very fact that the latest flaring of violence in the north Caucasus could be seen, in Moscow, as a "success" is a mark of how drastic the situation in Russia's most volatile region has become. Yet because more insurgents were killed, and fewer police and soldiers, than in a similar spectacular last year, some in Moscow seem pleased with the outcome of last week's rebel assault on the city of Nalchik. It was, actually, a disaster: hundreds of armed men infiltrating and rampaging around a regional capital. President Vladimir Putin talked about "our" losses and "theirs"; but the attackers were citizens of Russia too. Worst of all, although the facts are still sketchy--and are likely to remain so--it seems that most of them came from Kabardino-Balkaria, the semi-autonomous republic of which Nalchik is the capital, not from nearby, war-ravaged Chechnya: the Nalchik-based Islamist group implicated had hitherto been considered relatively minor. After Nalchik, it looks as though the Caucasian Cassandras, who warn of instability engulfing the entire region, are being vindicated.

Many Russians were understandably angered by western responses to last year's atrocity in Beslan in North Ossetia, another north Caucasian republic. Too little blame was placed where, in the first instance, it belonged--on the terrorists. Ditto the Nalchik rampage last week (though the fighting rumbled on into this week, and Russian servicemen were also killed in Chechnya and its already-anarchic neighbour, Dagestan). Though it largely eschewed civilian targets, the Nalchik attack killed (including the perpetrators) well over 100 people, partly in pursuit of a goal that is neither shared by most local people nor obtainable. The insurgents will never achieve their aim of a pan-Caucasian caliphate. They might, however, create pan-Caucasian chaos: a catastrophe for Russia and far beyond.

What is to be done?

All the same, Russia and Mr Putin share the responsibility, for three reasons. The first is the brutality and lawlessness of Russia's security services, who kill, kidnap and torture in Chechnya and across the region, inciting vendettas and radicalising relatives. The Nalchik raid was preceded by years of police harassment of young Muslims, and the closure of all mosques other than the state-sanctioned one. The second reason is the Kremlin's approach to regional government--which, in the north Caucasus, has involved supporting pliant but unpopular bosses. The Kremlin's embrace of Ramzan Kadyrov, warlord-cum-deputy prime minister of Chechnya, is only the worst example of this.

A third reason is the corruption that blights the Caucasus even more than the rest of Russia, and which Mr Putin has done little to confront. Corruption in the army is a big part of why war in Chechnya has proved so interminable, and why life remains so dismal for ordinary Chechens. It also helps explain why terrorists can move round Russia with mystifying ease. The corrupt monopolisation of wealth, and bullying of rival business, also lurks behind the unemployment that drives young men towards fanaticism.

Fatalistic observers blame these problems on the north Caucasus's wretched past, with its ethnic rivalries, incessant wars, the deportation of entire nations by Stalin, and the Soviet mixing of fractious peoples into unnatural administrative units. But history need not continue to repeat itself.

Given its location, and the role it plays in global jihadist rhetoric, the world should be more concerned about the north Caucasus. Yet Russia's aversion to foreign meddling means that there may be little outsiders can do. There are, however, elementary steps that Mr Putin could take. Chief among them must be a real effort to stop the brutality of the security services, beginning with serious prosecutions of kidnappers and murderers. More generally, the peoples of the north Caucasus must be persuaded that politics in Russia will let them address their problems peacefully. To that end, the Kremlin must ensure that the local elections to be held in Chechnya next month are seen to be freer and less rigged than previous Chechen votes. Using force to bind in the Russian empire's most fissiparous area has only spread misery. Democracy, if Mr Putin will only try it, might work better.