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Though Washington has issued a lot of tough talk calling on Russia to halt its military aggression against Georgia, there is little hiding the fact that the United States currently lacks the capability to intervene in conflicts that break out in the Russian periphery while U.S. forces are absorbed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It will take some time before the United States frees itself up from the Middle East to effectively confront the Russians in Eurasia, but there are other options in the covert world that U.S. intelligence can employ to keep the Russians occupied. Such a strategy would likely involve three key ingredients: Chechens, Tatars and Saudis.
Russia’s internal security largely depends on its ability to contain Muslim separatist aspirations in its two main belts of Muslim populations: one in the mountainous northern Caucasus (which includes Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan) and the other along the western side of the Ural Mountains (which includes Tatarstan and Bashkortostan). Chechnya borders the former Soviet state of Georgia, which is always ready and willing to support (as it has in the past) a Chechen insurrection against Moscow to weaken the Kremlin’s grip in the Caucasus. Tatarstan, in the Volga-Ural region, controls all of the Siberian oil, gas, road, rail and transport routes.
Chechnya posed its biggest threat to Russia’s internal security during the Chechen wars of 1994-1996 and 1999-2004. Saudi Arabia, the United States and Turkey — all of whom had a vested interest in keeping Russia heavily preoccupied after the fall of the Soviet Union — helped fuel these wars by providing support to the Chechen rebels. Saudi Arabia in particular led this effort by implanting the Wahhabist doctrine and providing financing, arms, supplies, guerrilla training and moral support to Chechen militants. The bulk of Saudi support to the Chechens was funneled in through charities and humanitarian aid in the region.
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