A Failed Revolt? Assessing the Viability of the North Caucasus Insurgency

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis is the first article to systematically examine the factors that have led to the considerable weakening of the North Caucasus insurgency since 2013: the selective targeting of the insurgents’ support base, the deployment of elite counter-insurgent force and army in special operations, the infiltration of insurgent groups and their decapitation, and the departure of the North Caucasians to the Syrian Civil War. Scrutinizing how these factors have reduced the regional insurgency, the article also points to their shortcomings that have, as the article shows, since 2014 contributed to an increase in insurgency-related violence in the region. First, the risk of severe penalization notwithstanding, many locals, driven by the locally embedded codes of retaliation and hospitality, as well as by the sympathies toward the insurgents, have continued to provide support to the insurgents and to put up resistance to the incumbent forces. Second, with elite counter-insurgent force limited in numbers and increasingly deployed outside of Russia, a considerable part of counter-insurgency operations has again been conducted by local police, infamous for incompetence and corruption. Third, while decapitation has failed to put an end to insurgent groups, these groups’ infiltration has become harder than previously due to the insurgent groups’ increasingly selective recruitment policies. Fourth, the falling numbers of North Caucasian volunteers to the Syrian Civil War has provided more recruits to the jihadist groups operating in their home region. The article concludes that the North Caucasus insurgency is likely to survive in the years to come.