Forty dead is hardly the final toll of the recent subway bombings in Moscow, and the attacks are hardly the final terrorist act in the Russian capital. The policies of the state that unabashedly prioritizes security of state power over the security of its citizens will continue making them targets of terrorism, restricting their human rights and civil liberties, facilitating recruitment into terrorist cells in the North Caucasus, and increasing the rebels’ popularity with Muslims around the world.

If the conflict escalates, the terrorist acts originating in the region may acquire a truly international character by transcending the Russian borders. Today, however, lumping all terrorists as a “common enemy,” the term US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used when expressing condolences after the attacks in Moscow, and equating the Chechen rebels with terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and the Taliban is not very accurate.

Of course, there are indeed some links between all terrorist activities around the world. Some Russian terrorist leaders were trained in Al Qaeda camps during the 1990s or helped terrorists in places like Afghanistan. Moreover, the Taliban was the sole foreign government to recognize Chechnya’s independence. However, the increasing ties between Russian-based and foreign terrorist groups are the effect rather than the cause of the violence in the North Caucasus. Unlike the majority of terrorist attacks around the world, the Moscow bombings were perpetrated against the Russians not by foreigners but by Russian citizens. Moreover, most weapons used by the guerrillas in the North Caucasus are made in Russia, and are either purchased or stolen from Russian troops.

Inspired by the US Global War on Terror strategy, Russia frequently frames the militants, who have complex nationalist demands, as irrational actors who cannot be negotiated with, and pigeonholes the multilayered conflict as an Islamic-inspired insurgency. For example, the 17-year-old suicide bomber who attacked the Moscow subway system was said to had been “lured from her single mother“ into fundamentalist Islam by an older man. However, most Russian suicide attackers do not fit the mold of religious fanatics. For them, terrorism is the last resort measure in response to Russia’s own “state-terrorism” – the use of indiscriminate force, extrajudicial killings, torture, and kidnapping by the Russian security forces and pro-Russian Chechen forces.

Although the conflict and the resulting terrorism is primarily the fruit of Russian policies in the region, the situation is undoubtedly exacerbated by the indifference and/or inertia of Western governments. With many Western states’ perspectives skewed by the War on Terror, the global Islamist movement turned out to be among the very few foreign sources willing to empathize with the Chechen troubles. Ironically, the military operations in Chechnya were financed, indirectly, by Russia’s loans from the International Monetary Fund and other Western institutions and governments.

The developed democracies and institutions – especially those in which Russia holds membership and to which principles it supposedly subscribes – should take a more active role in mediating the Russo-Chechen conflict and call on Russia to observe the international norms and standards of humane conduct. The European states like the UK and Spain, who themselves experienced separatist and irredentist problems and resorted to outside mediation to solve them, and all the states involved in mediating a similar conflict in the Balkans should work together with Moscow to develop a program for the resolution of the conflict that would incorporate the views of the Chechen side and outline steps to strengthen the local social institutions and increase the legitimacy of native rulers in the region. A sure way to accomplish this is by holding free and fair elections – something the European institutions have had experience in monitoring.

On a more basic level, the democratic states should push for increasing media independence and creating a more transparent and pluralistic political process in Russia. After all, with the lack of a law-governed state and a civil society, both Moscow and Grozny are unequivocally on the wrong side, and more of Russia is in danger of becoming like Chechnya if the Kremlin’s policy does not change.

An improvement in any of these three factors – something that the democratic states can certainly push for – will considerably increase the chance of reaching compromise and achieving peace in the volatile region. Even if Moscow continues on its authoritarian track, the outside involvement will produce beneficial results if not by improving the situation in Chechnya directly, then by helping Russia’s fledging civil society to have its voice heard. This, in turn, will make the Russian state more concerned about the security of its citizens and less unscrupulous in turning the screws of state power.

Chechnya was a war of choice, not of necessity. However, it is clearly a necessity to deal with it today – not only for Russia, but also for the rest of the world.

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