Although major military operations have ceased, the North Caucasus remains Russia’s most troubled region and continues to suffer from a radical Islamist insurgency. Carnegie hosted the U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom’s Geraldine Fagan, Sergei Markedonov of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and George Washington University’s Sufiyan Zhemukhov to discuss the role of nationalism and Islam in the North Caucasus, the nature of the ongoing violence, and Moscow’s policy towards the region. George Washington University’s Cory Welt moderated the discussion.

Factors Driving The North Caucasus Insurgency

  • Generational Shift: Since the early 1990s, a secular nationalist movement based in Chechnya has morphed into a broader Islamist insurgency due to a “generational shift,” said Fagan. She explained that most Chechen militants who fought in the First Chechen War from 1994-96 were middle-aged men with a Soviet secular background. Since the late 1990s, however, a younger generation of fighters from the wider region who received their theological education in the Middle East has injected a strong religious element into their armed struggle. Upon returning, many of these students generated conflict within their own communities by challenging established cultural norms, she concluded.
     
  • Islam as Refuge: With a weak and ineffective public infrastructure across much of the North Caucasus, many people have turned to Islam in search of stability, noted Fagan. Markedonov agreed, adding that ordinary people continue to support radicals because the state is unable to provide security and essential goods and services. Some who support the creation of an Islamic state are more concerned about social justice than religious dogma, Fagan noted.
     
  • A Vicious Cycle: Fagan argued that “flimsy profiling” and persecution of suspected radicals and Wahhabis is common practice across the North Caucasus. The human rights organization Memorial estimates that there have been 3,000 disappearances in Chechnya alone, she added. From 1998-2005, police efforts to combat extremism were used to justify the harassment, arrest, and torture of civilians in the republic of Kabardino-Balkaria. Such reports of abuse and “fear of preemptive action” by the security services often cause young Muslims to take up arms, she concluded. 
     
  • Radical Islam’s Limited Appeal: Although the North Caucasus is typically characterized as a hub of Islamic radicalism, many, if not most, Muslims reject violence, Fagan asserted. Indeed, despite the presence of armed extremists in the region, she argued that “hardline Islamist ideology has very limited popular appeal.” Over eighty percent of residents in the republic of Dagestan reject the idea of creating a Sharia state, she concluded.

Nationalism and Islam Among The Circassians  

  • East vs. West: After the Soviet collapse in 1991, nationalism took hold across the entire North Caucasus, culminating in the Chechen separatist movement and Circassian involvement in the 1992 Georgian-Abkhaz war, explained Zhemukhov. However, over the last decade radical Islam supplanted nationalism in the eastern North Caucasus. This is distinct from the western North Caucasus, where nationalist and religious movements developed separately. For Circassians living in the republics of Adygea, Karachayevo-Cherkessia, and Kabardino-Balkaria, “nationalism was always stronger than Islam,” he concluded.
     
  • Circassian Nationalism: A large diaspora of five million has been instrumental in the formation of Circassian nationalist ideology, Zhemukhov added. Although most Circassians are Muslim, Islam by itself is unable to provide a unifying national identity because there is also a Christian minority within the Circassian community. When asked whether the creation of a single Circassian republic is possible, he said that unification is largely an elite demand.
     
  • Ideological Trends: In addition to nationalism, Zhemukhov identified three ideological trends within Islam in the North Caucasus. The followers of radical Islam express hostility towards Muslims with different beliefs and have the potential to develop what Zhemukhov called an “insurgency ideology.” Moderate Muslim leaders openly support the state and tend to regard radical Muslims as heretics. Finally, those who adhere to traditional Islam combine religion with local Circassian customs, he concluded. 

The View From Moscow

  • Current Policy: Moscow lacks an “articulated, verbalized doctrine of North Caucasus policy,” noted Markedonov. The Kremlin is “outsourcing sovereignty” by delegating federal power to local governments and supporting the “privatization of power” through financial assistance to elites in places like Chechnya. In the end, the major issue is not an overbearing security presence in the North Caucasus but rather the “extreme absence of the Russian state,” he concluded.
     
  • Misperceptions: Markedonov identified ethnic nationalism and political Islam as the two main “social-political discourses” driving events in the North Caucasus but noted that these multifaceted issues are often oversimplified. Ethnic nationalist movements, he argued, cannot simply be understood as pro- or anti-Russian, nor can political Islam be reduced to discussions about the Chechen terrorist leader Doku Umarov and the Caucasus Emirate.
     
  • New Perspectives: There is a real need for the Kremlin to develop a sophisticated integration policy for the North Caucasus, Markedonov asserted. Russia’s survival as a multiethnic state will depend on its ability to craft a coherent strategy. He also stressed that conflict in the region cannot be explained merely in terms of tension between the federal center and regional governments and suggested that political Islam in the North Caucasus is part of an ongoing process of post-Soviet identity formation.