Doug,
You raise a lot of interesting points, to which I should like to respond. At the moment, however, I have the time to respond to only one.
The comparison between the American Civil War and the Russian-Chechen War is MOST inapt, for the following reasons:
1) In the American Civil War, you had two blocs of relatively similar size, both of which had genuine armies, both of which were prepared for war. Not the case with Russia and Chechnya.
2) The Russian-Chechen War began as a unilateral assault, by a huge force of Russian troops, tanks, and planes. There was no declaration of war, by either side. The assault was more in the Russian tradition of the "karatel'naia ekspeditsiia" -- "punishment expedition."
3) To begin with, the Chechens had about six tanks, no "army" worth mentioning, and a handful of special Presidential guards. That's it -- and that's why Grachev originally thought he could take Grozny in 24 hours.
4) It was only AFTER the Russian invasion that young & middle-aged men by the thousands joined the resistance forces. The invasion itself, in other words, CREATED the resistance. Many people argue that Dudayev was becoming so unpopular at home that he would have fallen within a year, anyway. But thanks to the Russian Army, even people who hated Dudayev, and wanted to see him removed, rallied round him.
The Russians could not have done anything more counter-productive, as even Yeltsin himself now admits.
jbe |
