Back in July, Chechen rebel websites were proclaiming peace in our time – not so much peace in the North Caucasus (that is as distant as ever) but peace in the internal dispute between standing rebel leader Doku Umarov and a collection of rivals who felt that he had lost his way. At a Sharia court, challengers such as Aslanbek Vadalov and Hussein Gakayev reportedly renounced their schismatic ways and reaffirmed their personal oath of loyalty to Umarov. He hurriedly reorganized the ‘armed forces of the Province of Nokhchicho’, specifically abolishing the former eastern and south-western ‘fronts’ and replacing them with he western and eastern ‘military sectors’ under Amir Khamzat (also the commander of the ‘Riyad-us-Saliheen Martyr Brigade’) and Hussein Gakayev, respectively.
All posts in category Security
Suicide bombs in Grozny: signs of rebel politics, not unity
Posted by Mark Galeotti on September 1, 2011
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2011/09/01/suicide-bombs-in-grozny-signs-of-rebel-politics-not-unity/
‘State Building in Putin’s Russia: policing and coercion after Communism’ by Brian Taylor (2011)
Another quick foreshadowing of a forthcoming review, this time in the Russian Review. Read the review for my full comments, but in brief, State Building in Putin’s Russia: policing and coercion after Communism is an excellent and deeply-researched book on the MVD and other institutions of internal control under Putin. Brian Taylor (Maxwell School, Syracuse University) very usefully conceptualizes the siloviki of the military and security interests as at once a cohort (a distinct social body with certain common traits and values), clans (competing factions) and corporate (bureaucratic and institutional) interests. However, the core of this book is devoted to assessing the overall contribution of the police and security institutions to the development of the Russian state, demonstrating that state capacity only improved to a very slightly, a process largely limited by an inattention to what he calls “state quality” – essentially, good governance and the satisfaction of society’s needs. Taylor doesn’t really dig into how far poor governance reflects a failure of Putin’s state-building project and how far it is because Putin wasn’t interested in this kind of thing but wanted to create a centralized hybrid state. What this first-class book proves, though, is that even if Putin thinks he got what he wanted from the siloviki, if his aim was lasting, effective and reliable state building, then he was wrong.
(In fairness, though, I’d in any case always be a sucker for a book that declares itself to be committed to “bringing the gun back in” to the comparative literature on states.)
Taylor, Brian D. State Building in Putin’s Russia: Policing and Coercion after Communism. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. xviii + 373 pp. $95.00. ISBN 978-0-521-76088-1.
Posted by Mark Galeotti on August 30, 2011
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2011/08/30/state-building-in-putins-russia-policing-and-coercion-after-communism-by-brian-taylor-2011/
Good Bye OMON, Hello KON
My latest Moscow News column, Retooling Russia’s Riot Police, is out today. I riff off the responses to the recent UK riots (and in particular to the perceived weakness of the initial police response) to talk a little about Russian public order forces, and why – as usual before elections – they are being strengthened. The OMON, by the way, are not becoming OPON now that the militsiya are the politsiya, but KON: Komanda osobennogo naznacheniya (‘Special Designation Commands’). I plan to discuss the reforms to the public order and security forces here in a few days.
Posted by Mark Galeotti on August 22, 2011
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2011/08/22/462/
Postscript on Domodedovo: Khloponin and I, eye to eye
I’m delighted to see that presidential (and prime ministerial) plenipotentiary to the North Caucasus Alexander Khloponin seems to be willing to follow my lead, with his recent statement that while he feels that Umarov was involved with the Domodedovo bombing (“There is involvement; Doku Umarov’s participation is being investigated”) he does not see him as being the instigator (Umarov “is no longer as influential as before in the Caucasus in regard to defining positions or setting tasks”). It’s very satisfying to see that he thus appears to be following my earlier line! Obviously my tongue is firmly in my cheek here, but there is a more serious point to be made in that I am encouraged by Khloponin’s willingness not to take the easy route and characterize Umarov as the fiendish mastermind of all North Caucasus terrorism. Doing that, after all, not only gives Umarov more authority and thus power than he deserves, but it also misinforms and misguides policy. Combine that with his support for efforts to build bridges with Islamic and community leaders in the region and suggestions of a renewed effort to tackle the endemic poverty and income disparities which are such a problem in the region (over and above the grandiose and probably futile efforts to build tourist destinations which will largely enrich gangsters, property speculators and officials), and there are faint grounds for optimism. Khloponin’s first year, to be blunt, has been a disappointment, but maybe he has learned enough that he can make his second one count?
Posted by Mark Galeotti on February 11, 2011
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2011/02/11/postscript-on-domodedovo-khloponin-and-i-eye-to-eye/
Umarov claims Domodedovo attack: true? significant?
So after an unexpectedly long silence, beleaguered Chechen rebel ‘amir’ Doku Umarov has claimed responsibility for the Moscow airport suicide bomb (here’s the official announcement, with a translated summary here). As has become the norm, the statement is couched in jihadist terms and suggests that the suicide bomber was the ‘Seyfullah’ seen in an earlier video, in which Umarov threatened to make 2011 “the year of blood and tears.”
Posted by Mark Galeotti on February 8, 2011
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2011/02/08/umarov-claims-domodedovo-attack-true-significant/
‘Crime in Post-Soviet Societies’, in Herzog-Evans (ed), Transnational Crime Manual
My latest publication on post-Soviet crime is an overview in a comprehensive three-volume Transnational Crime Manual (Wolf Legal Publishers, 2010) edited by Prof. Martine Herzog-Evans of the University of Rheims. My chapter explores how the collapse of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact satellite states not only created but also revealed a wide range of social, political and economic problems, from the underground economy to corruption. While the 1990s saw the post‐Soviet states working through crises that allowed organized and disorganized crime to flourish, since then there has been a diversification of the post‐Soviet experience, with some countries beginning an effective campaign to control criminality (take a bow, Baltic states), others reaching a symbiotic equilibrium with it (bizarre Belarus, for example) and a number – frankly, most – seeing a convergence between corrupt elites and organized crime.
Posted by Mark Galeotti on January 7, 2011
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2011/01/07/319/
-
Latest Books
Osprey: Essential Histories ‘Russia’s Wars in Chechnya, 1994-2009’ Coming late 2014
