Once bitten twice shy. Not so for the Russians in Chechnya as they have launched a second atrocious war in that tiny state on their southern border despite their humiliating defeat in the first war against it fought for two long years in 1994-96.

The Russians had invaded Chechnya, which had declared its independence in 1991, to force it back into the Russian fold. Heavy Russian casualties, particularly of the ill trained, uninspired and indifferent conscripts fighting against a small but thoroughly dedicated, highly inspired and almost fanatic militia of Chechens, had forced the Russians to withdraw in humiliation. Like the Vietnamese or the Afghans, the Chechens were fighting for their homeland and independence from the Russian yoke.

It is but natural to wonder why the Russians undertook Chechnya II last August that continues to this day with extreme brutality against the ethnic minority in the south of their vast, sprawling state. Why?

Officially the Russians attribute their action to the recent spate of bomb blasts in Moscow. These explosions in which a good number of civilians were killed are being projected by the Russian officials as the handiwork of international terrorism particularly of the Chechens. They are also accused of inspiring an independence movement in neighboring Dagestan.

No official evidence has, however, been presented of a Chechen connection with the bombing. No wonder, the Russian message has been met with skepticism even in the US that has tender sensitivities to terrorism. It is relevant to mention here that the Chechen war hero, Shamil and his colleague Khattab, are mentioned repeatedly by the Russian media as terrorist leaders having links with Osama bin Laden. Evidently the US intelligence agencies, being better informed, were not swayed by such tendentious stories.

Russia had the US support in the last (1994-96) war when President Clinton went to the extent of comparing Boris Yeltsin with Abraham Lincoln. He had said: “We once had a civil war in our country over the proposition -that Abraham Lincoln gave his life for- that no state had a right to withdraw from our union.”

Now President Clinton, in his recent meeting in Oslo with the Russian PM, Vladimir Putin, has emphatically advised him to seek a political solution to the Chechen conflict. US media and think tanks too regard the war as futile and counterproductive.

Why is then Russia pursuing it so stubbornly? There are two reasons, one internal and dictated by short term political objectives and the other external with long-term benefits in mind.

Short-term objectives are as follows:

1. It is calculated to rehabilitate the honor of the military by reversing the humiliating defeat of the earlier war:
2. It would send a message to Dagestan, the neighboring Muslim state, against its own independence movement;
3. The Moscow bomb blasts have been a great drawback for Russian President, Boris Yeltsin, ailing, aging and in the last year of his Presidency, yet given to changing his Prime Ministers one after the other to divert attention from failures of his rule towards them. The war in Chechnya preempts any such action by him against PM Vladimir Putin. Matter of fact some rumors said politicians who wanted to succeed Yeltsin set the bombs in Moscow.
4. Vladimir Putin was almost unknown to the Russian people when he became Yeltsin’s sixth Prime Minister last August when the second Chechnya war started. His entire career was spent in the much-dreaded, ruthless secret service –the KGB. He has succeeded in giving a bad name to the Chechens and if he succeeds, as intended, in subduing them, he is sure to be elected the next President.

Now we come to the external and long-range factor that is equally, if not more, important. It has to do with the recently discovered enormous reservoirs of oil in the Caspian Sea area. These reservoirs are said to be next only to those in the Gulf region.

Baku, capital of Azerbaijan was the seat a few months back of celebrations by leaders of regional states and representatives of international oil giants on the new finds. But, that has also given rise to the ambitions, rivalries and designs of the regional and world powers and the oil companies. Clash of interests is inevitable, particularly on the routes and control over the pipelines.

Azerbaijan has already signed $30 billion worth of oil exploration and production agreements with international oil firms.

While China wishes the oil in the Eastern basin of the Caspian to be pumped through pipelines to its power-starved Western region, Sinkiang and other provinces, Iran would like the pipeline to go through its territory to the Gulf. That may be one reason for the progressive, reconciliatory posture towards the West of President Khatami. The oil companies would prefer the Iranian route as that would be cheaper, but the US government is opposed to it in view of the continuing bitterness between the two countries.

The Russians already have an old pipeline from Baku to the Black Sea. They want to repair and replace this so that it can carry huge quantities of oil to the ocean via the Black Sea. But, the pipeline passes through Dagestan and Chechnya. In view of the declaration of independence by Chechnya and the volatile nature of the Chechens, the Western oil companies are reluctant to agree to this route.

The current operation of the Russian army in Chechnya and the virtual genocide there make some sense when seen in the perspective of Russian interest in the pipeline passing through a docile community.

As for the US, it has proposed the construction of a massive, 1087-mile, East-West pipeline that would start from Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, then run West under the Caspian Sea to Baku in Azerbaijan. From there it would cross Georgia and terminate in Ceyhan, a Turkish port on the Mediterranean. In all probability that would be the route that would eventually become operative. If the Russians succeed in their own design, the Western oil companies would make use of their pipeline despite the US reservations on letting the control of the oil flow pass into the hands of the Russians or the Iranians.

One final point: Are the Russians likely to succeed in Chechnya II where they failed in the first war? There is right now no external pressure that would force a shift in the Russian policy. Although President Clinton has strongly advised Prime Minister Putin for a negotiated, political settlement, the US is unlikely to go beyond that. Russia is a big power; it is not Serbia. The Soviet action in Chechnya, nevertheless, reminds one of the Serbian atrocities in Kosovo. The Western criticism of Russian military offensive in Chechnya has so far been relatively muted. The West continues to accept Chechnya as part of Russia, but territorial integrity did not prevent NATO intervention in Kosovo. Serbia was not a member of UN Security Council; Russia is.

The dynamics of the crisis itself are more than likely to stay Soviet offensive. The current Russian public support for the war might erode owing to the following factors:

1. The war is being fought mainly by conscripts. Many of them are no match to Chechen guerillas. Their body bags will create disillusionment among the Russian masses. That is what had happened in Chichnya I.
2. The Chechen resistance doesn’t collapse quickly and the war drags on causing a severe drain on meager resources.
3. Wage arrears of the forces continue to accumulate leading to disgruntlement and indifference towards the war.
4. Corruption continues unabated.
5. The economy remains, as at present, in a tailspin.
6. Prime Minister Putin, the man behind the war, continues to be identified as President’s Yeltsin’s man. Yeltsin is now deeply unpopular. Putin is trying to distance himself in public eye from Yeltsin

Above everything else, it is the fighting spirit, the determination and the conviction of the Chechens which will go the longest way in determining the outcome of this war -a war between two unequal parties, therefore thoroughly condemnable.

Imam Shamil, the 19th century Chechen leader fought the powerful Czarist army for a quarter century and is now a legend in his country. Shamil is now a respected and popular name. And, history tells us that the hardy highlanders have always subdued the softened valley dwellers. Allama Iqbal has also mentioned this in a couplet:

Fitrat kay taqazoun ki karta hai neghabani

Ya banda-i-sahrahi ya mard-i-kohistani

(The dictates of nature are accomplished under the supervision of either a man from the desert or a man from the mountainous terrain.)