(Ebook) The Insurgency in Chechnya and the North Caucasus: From Gazavat to Jihad (Praeger Security International) by Robert W. Schaefer ISBN 9780313386343, 031338634X

(Ebook) The Insurgency in Chechnya and the North Caucasus: From Gazavat to Jihad (Praeger Security International) by Robert W. Schaefer ISBN 9780313386343, 031338634X

The shocking events of the Moscow airport terrorist attack make it clear that the North Caucasus insurgency is still strong – despite the Kremlin’s announcement in 2008 that the conflict was “over.” For the first time, a military expert on both Russia and insurgency offers the definitive guide on the violence in Southern Russia, explaining why the Russian approach to counterterrorism is failing, why terrorist and insurgent attacks in Russia have sharply increased over the past three years, why civilians continue to disappear, why the situation will only worsen as the 2014 Sochi Olympics approach -- and why there is no end in sight to the morass.The Insurgency in Chechnya and the North Caucasus: From Gazavat to Jihad is a comprehensive and award-winning treatment of this 300 year-old conflict. Thematically organized, it cuts through the rhetoric to provide a contextual framework with which readers can truly understand the "why" and "how" of one of the world’s longest-running contemporary insurgencies, despite Russia's best efforts to eradicate it.A fascinating case study of a counterinsurgency campaign that is in direct contravention of US and Western strategy, the book also examines the differences and linkages between insurgency and terrorism; the origins of conflict in the North Caucasus; and the influences of different strains of Islam, of al-Qaida, and of the War on Terror. A critical examination of never-before-revealed Russian counterinsurgency (COIN) campaigns explains why those campaigns have consistently failed and why the region has seen such an upswing in violence since the conflict was officially declared "over" less than two years ago.The book's features include: information drawn from the North Caucasus Incident Database (NCID), compiling every violent incident in the region over a two-year period; charts showing the complex strategies of the insurgency and the Russian counterinsurgency campaigns; declassified intelligence reports; as well as maps and a bibliography. Presented through the lens of counterinsurgency theory, this incisive analysis explores the historic roots of each issue, the key players, and the farthest-reaching effects. It is the first doctrinal analysis (classified or unclassified) produced on the conflict in over 10 years and is already being used as a textbook at the Program on Terrorism and Security Studies at the Marshall Center.