WIDENING PROBLEMS FOR RUSSIAN POLICY IN THE NORTH

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 MOSCOW 000105 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/11/2016 TAGS: PGOV PTER PHUM EAID PREL RS SUBJECT: WIDENING PROBLEMS FOR RUSSIAN POLICY IN THE NORTH CAUCASUS Classified By: Ambassador William J. Burns. Reason 1.4 (b, d) ¶1. (C) SUMMARY. The North Caucasus is a crucible in which the weakness of the Russian state and its ambivalence about how to overcome that weakness are compounded. In part thanks to its failed policy there, the challenge for Russia in the North Caucasus has changed over the last ten years. Just after the Soviet collapse, advocates of separatism and nationalism could be found throughout this diverse region, but the only acute expression of those forces was in Chechnya. Now, however, widespread alienation nourished by corrupt Russian security forces and narrow local elites has provided fertile ground for the growth of a new threat -- an Islamist ideology with the potential to unite fractious nationalisms throughout the entire region. Chechnya is just one focus of these developments, though still the most virulent. Russian analysts and some officials - including Presidential Representative Kozak - recognize the problems of Russian power, but Putin has aligned himself in his actions, although not always in his rhetoric, squarely with the security and military services that have dominated Caucasus policy since the Soviet collapse and that stress solutions by force. ¶2. (C) GOR ambivalence about a Western and particularly U.S. role in the North Caucasus should be seen in a wider foreign policy context. The conventional wisdom among the security and military services ("siloviki") is that the U.S. seeks to weaken Russia, or even to cause it to fracture. They see U.S.-financed democratization programs in the CIS as part of an updated containment policy intended to encircle Russia with hostile regimes. Countering that conception of U.S. goals will be difficult, since many modes of engagement will only stimulate reflexive defenses and prove counter-productive. Rather, we should find common ground to cooperate in areas where the U.S. interests and benefits are transparent: intelligence-sharing to combat al-Qaeda-linked groups operating in the North Caucasus; promotion of moderate Islam; and assistance focusing on economic development. END SUMMARY. "Graveyard of Russian Power" -------------- ¶3. (C) Nowhere is the Russian state's weakness clearer than in the North Caucasus. Repeatedly since 1995 the world has seen large groups of terrorists and insurgents - armed with weapons bought from a corrupt Russian military - penetrate deep into core Russian territory, even into the Russian capital, onto Russian airplanes, across Russia's provincial and national borders, aided by the incompetence and corruption of local security forces, and by Byzantine government infighting. Under Putin, the Russians have recognized that they are weak, but they have not determined what constitutes strength - and that dilemma, too, is being played out in the North Caucasus. ¶4. (C) Russia has relied on force and divide-and-rule policies in the Caucasus for centuries. That region is often compared to America's Wild West, and like the old West it has been a place to make fortunes, often by criminal means. After the Soviet collapse, both the force and the fortunes remained, with many of the same figures playing roles both north and south of the mountains - but now with new and greater opportunities for crime and corruption. Chechnya in particular served in the early 1990s as an entrepot for laundering illegal exports of oil bought in Russia at ruble prices (at that time, three percent of world market prices) and sold in the west for dollars. The military and "siloviki" were deeply implicated in those schemes. After the siege of the Russian White House in October 1993, Yeltsin tried to regain control by force, culminating in the Chechnya war of 1994-96. Though Yeltsin walked away once Russia's forces were defeated, that project was renewed in 1999 with new determination, and it played a key role in building Putin's image as a strong and resolute defender of Russia's territorial and national integrity. With that much emotional investment and prestige on the line and so many buried bodies - both literally and figuratively - it is not surprising that Putin, the siloviki and the broader political class have resisted turning away from a reliance on force and towards a search for compromises. That reluctance has only been enhanced by the widespread perception that the last time political compromise was tried, it led to unacceptable results. ¶5. (C) Over the years, however, the North Caucasus' challenges to Russia have evolved. As the Soviet Union collapsed, the main initial challenge was ethnic separatism. Despite warnings of fragmentation without end, separatism had natural limits. Only the Chechens - the largest and toughest MOSCOW 00000105 002 OF 004 of the North Caucasus ethnic groupings - would fight. All the other groups were smaller and were engrossed in struggles against one another, such as the Ingush-Ossetian conflict. Each wanted Moscow on its side. Moreover, all feared an assertive, armed, independent Chechnya more than Moscow, and they could be divided and ruled. Now, however, jihadi Islamism is the growing challenge. As an ideology, Islamism has the potential to unite most of the disparate groups of the Caucasus. Most of the recent attacks linked to Shamil Basayev have taken place outside Chechnya, and at least one observer (Aleksey Malashenko of Carnegie) reports that many of Basayev's new recruits are Dagestanis. In Nalchik last October, disaffected locals made common cause with Basayev. ¶6. (C) During his December 12 visit to Chechnya, Putin proclaimed that Wahhabism - jihadi Islamism - was not native to the Caucasus. He was right; it is a foreign implant. Some part of its success can be ascribed to the worldwide rise of jihadism. But it is Russian policy that has expanded the potential for Wahhabism to find a haven in the North Caucasus, by denying economic opportunities to the population and extirpating political alternatives. Over the last few years, Russia has repeatedly ousted local leaders with independent bases of support - such as Aushev in Ingushetia and Dzasokhov in North Ossetia; Kokov was forced out in Kabardino-Balkaria, and the position of Magomedov in Dagestan looks shaky. Each of those cases has had internal reasons, but the pattern remains consistent. As a member of the Presidential Administration told us, the Kremlin is ensuring that new appointees "will not be in a position to disregard or countermand orders coming from Moscow." ¶7. (C) Moscow's new appointees have power bases in Moscow and are figures more in line with the "vertical of power" that Putin has sought to develop throughout Russia. Of the new appointees, only longtime Ossetian politician Teymuraz Mamsurov appears to have local roots - but nominally Christian Ossetia, for hundreds of years Russia's ally against the Muslim peoples of the Caucasus, presents neither a local nationalist threat nor a friendly environment for jihadi Islamism. Other new appointees include Moscow billionaire Arsen Kanokov in Kabardino-Balkaria and KGB officer Murat Zyazikov in Ingushetia. Widely viewed as corrupt and resting their power on a narrow elite backed by Moscow's security services, all the North Caucasus rulers have tried to wipe out threats to their power while neglecting the economic and political development of their people. ¶8. (C) The new appointees have taken their cue from Moscow's conflation of jihadi Islamism with Islam in general. By acting as if Islam itself were the threat, these rulers have contributed to the radicalization of a critical mass of the youth. Today's younger generation in the Caucasus faces a devastating lack of legitimate employment opportunities, and the resulting idleness and hopelessness are fertile ground for radicalization. In multi-ethnic Dagestan, whose stability depends on a fragile "Lebanon-model" power-sharing arrangement among the principal ethnic groups, Moscow's attempts to impose electoral reform in line with "the vertical of power" threaten the delicate balances that have kept the peace so far. The broader North Caucasus is increasingly coming to resemble the model developed in Chechnya over the last few years: narrow elites imposed by Moscow rule for their own benefit over a terrorized and/or radicalized populace. ¶9. (C) Comparisons are sometimes made between Russia's challenge in Chechnya and the U.S. challenge in Iraq. Parts of those tasks are similar: marginalizing the irreconcilables, persuading their supporters to choose neutrality, and persuading the neutral bulk of the population to support the government through political development that is given breathing space to grow by security measures. But there are two insurmountable differences: -- Whatever Americans may undertake in Iraq, we see ourselves as an extra-regional actor there and have proclaimed that ultimately Iraqis are responsible for Iraq's future. The North Caucasus has been part of Russia for 150 years, and Russia has no intention of renouncing its self-assigned responsibility for the future of the region, or of allowing any disentanglement of Chechnya's politics, and those of the rest of the region, from Russia's own politics. With that entanglement comes the vulnerability of the region to Russia's difficulties in emerging from weakness and corruption. -- While the U.S. has pursued a "roots-up" democratic process of inclusion in Iraq as the way to "Iraqify" the security struggle and put Iraqis in control of their fate, Russia has MOSCOW 00000105 003 OF 004 chosen a top-down "vertical" process to Chechenize the security struggle and place the political project - as an extension of the security project - in the hands of a narrow and non-inclusive group of appointees, most notably Ramzan Kadyrov and his ruthless thugs, who owe their position to Moscow's politics. ¶10. (C) Many Russian analysts and officials understand these problems. The Ambassador came away from his initial meeting last fall with Dmitriy Kozak, Putin's Plenipotentiary Representative to the region, with the impression that Kozak has a clear-eyed understanding of the failures of Russian policy. That meeting followed Kozak's report to Putin in June 2005, warning of the dangers of clan politics in the North Caucasus and recommending direct presidential rule (a recommendation that quickly died). Putin Advisor Aslambek Aslakhanov, himself a Chechen, also agrees with many of these criticisms. But Putin's actions indicate that he remains aligned with the "silovik" policies that have dominated Russian policy towards the Caucasus since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Those policies go along with a portrayal of the issue as simple terrorism against the historical backdrop of Russia's centuries-long struggle (often cast as its "protection of Europe") against "Tatars" and "Muslims." As Sergey Ivanov (now Defense Minister) proclaimed at the Munich Security Conference as early as February 4, 2001: "Russia, a front-line warrior fighting international terrorism in Chechnya and Central Asia, is saving the civilized world from the terrorist plague in the same way as it used to save Europe from Tatar-Mongol invasion(s) in the 13th century, paying with sufferings and privation." Putin has just appointed Ivanov overseer of reconstruction efforts in Groznyy. Challenge for the U.S. -------------- ¶11. (C) The continued predominance of the "silovik" worldview sharply limits what the U.S. can productively do in the North Caucasus. It casts the U.S. as a conscious and active threat to the Russian state. American financing of democracy movements in the CIS "paid off" with the Rose Revolution in Georgia and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. Those "color revolutions" represent a policy of "neo-containment" aimed at surrounding Russia with "hostile regimes" that aspire to join NATO and complete the military encirclement of Russia. With regard to the North Caucasus, the most fissile part of Russia, the siloviki see the U.S. as moving beyond "neo-containment" and threatening Russia's territorial integrity. Many in the GOR will understand (and present to the Russian public) any U.S. engagement in the North Caucasus in this light, and will reject any "altruistic" explanations of our policies out of hand. ¶12. (C) U.S. policy must proceed in these circumstances based on transparency and with initiatives where the Russians understand the benefits to us, as well as to Russia. They can include: -- Enhanced intelligence-sharing on al-Qaeda-linked terrorist networks, including facilitators and financiers. The resources Washington can bring to bear on these issues are more sophisticated and extensive than those Russia has at its disposal, and in the free-flowing world of terrorist "networks of networks," facilitators may have links to networks in scattered parts of the world - including both the North Caucasus and areas of more direct interest to the U.S. -- Promotion of moderate Islam. We should work with the EU and moderate Arab/Muslim states (such as Jordan) to draw Russia into an effort to enable the moderate center of Islam to hold against the extremists. As EU countries begin to work with their own extensive Muslim populations on this project, Russia can benefit from and potentially contribute to their experience. Moderate Arab states can help provide educational opportunities, and the U.S. can help with seed money for scholarships and exchanges. Exchanges are the most valuable tool we have at our disposal in this effort, and should not be limited to religious issues: all exchange opportunities, especially educational opportunities in the U.S., can help offset the influence of radical Islamism. -- Supporting UN and EU efforts and multi-donor assistance in the North Caucasus. While Russian sensitivities and security concerns will continue to limit what we can undertake ourselves, we can mitigate those problems by working through the UN and with the EU and other donors as well as international and local non-governmental organizations. During the past year, donors have increasingly engaged the GOR in a discussion about moving from humanitarian assistance in Chechnya and the North Caucasus to a program of MOSCOW 00000105 004 OF 004 rehabilitation and development. The goal is to create jobs and improve education and delivery of health, while strengthening the constituency for peace and providing the Russians alternative models for their own efforts in the region. The UN has called for an increase of development assistance to USD 80 million. The U.S. has doubled its assistance from USD 5 million in humanitarian aid to more than USD 10 million to support immunization programs, agriculture credit, education and community efforts. U.S. involvement has been welcomed locally, and even (to a more limited extent) at the Federal level. In a non-threatening way, it can show the Russians alternative approaches to stabilizing the region. ¶13. (C) Russia is not succeeding in the North Caucasus, and its problems are growing wider and deeper. Over the last 15 years its efforts there have failed to stabilize the region and have had a corrosive effect on Russian democracy. Its policies are adaptations of the old Russian strategies of force and divide-and-rule, compounded by nostalgia for the imperial past, stagnation and corruption. That strategy is likely to remain in place until a crisis forces its replacement, but it is important to lay the groundwork for alternative approaches. America's role will remain limited, but we need to stay engaged in a constructive and realistic manner that promotes our interests. BURNS