Brookings: Experts - Pavel K. Baev

The Chechen War Comes to Boston

Pavel K. Baev — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0400

In the days that have passed since the terrorist attack in Boston, the many details of this crime and the even greater volume of speculations have still provided no satisfactory explanation of reasons and motives. What had seemed to be a picture of an émigré family working hard for their pieces of the American dream turned out to be a story of failed socialization and a frustrated search for identity that turned into blind hatred. The US media has focused on the blunders of the security services in preventing this premeditated crime, on the shortcomings of the American immigration policy (currently distorted by the deadlocked battles in the US Congress), or on the continuing mutations of Islamic extremism. There is, however, a twist to this tragic story that sets it apart from other cases of quiet Americans turning into Muslim fanatics. This twist originates in the humanitarian catastrophe in the North Caucasus and spins through the protracted agony of the Chechen diaspora.

One family in the trail of tears

The uprooting of the Tsarnaev family was a micro-episode in Stalin’s punishment of the Chechens and other peoples that were forcefully displaced from the Caucasus and dumped into Siberia and Central Asia in February 1944. Most of the survivors were allowed to return to their devastated villages in 1957, but the Tsarnaevs, who had managed to find steady jobs in Kyrgyzstan, opted to stay. It was the fast decomposition of social fabric in the newly-independent Kyrgyzstan after the collapse of the USSR in 1991 that forced them to flee, but the North Caucasus, which had been badly affected by the war that engulfed Chechnya in 1994, proved to be an equally unwelcoming home. An attempt to return to Central Asia was another failure, and they joined the sad journey of many Chechen families moving from temporary shelters in Turkey to refugee centers in Poland to asylum-seekers institutions in Austria or Norway. The difference was that this family ended up in the US, where the Chechen community is so small that, much to the dismay of the Czech Republic, first reports on the manhunt misrepresented the Tsarnaev brothers as Czechs.

As he passed his teenage years in Boston suburbia, Tamerlan Tsarnaev never developed a feeling that he could fit in despite his moderate success as amateur boxer. It is unclear how he convinced his American girlfriend to convert to Islam and to marry him, but it is a fact that he was once arrested for beating her. His father Anzor dismissed that episode as nonsense: “In America, you can’t touch a woman,” implying that in the Caucasus, a self-respecting man wouldn’t think twice about it. Unable to find a job at 26, Tamerlan was probably deeply frustrated with the role of house-father taking care of his baby daughter, while his wife supported the household with her salary. His sister married an American and cut ties with the family, but Tamerlan had a strong influence on his younger brother Dzhokhar. Still a teenager, the youngest Tsarnaev was struggling with college courses and his habit of smoking marihuana didn’t help.

The call of the war

Confused about their identity, both brothers kindled a passion for their imaginary homeland Chechnya, but it was the older one who found a way to blend this yearning with a progressively consuming devotion to Islam. The local mosque was unable to satisfy this craving and he turned to surfing through the archipelago of proselytizing and extremist websites. His parents could have checked that journey, but a few years ago they returned to Russia and settled in Makhachkala, Dagestan. In early 2012, Tamerlan came to visit them and stayed for as long as six months. It was this exposure to war as a way of life that most probably sealed his violent radicalization.

Dagestan is indeed the theater of a protracted low-intensity civil war of unique complexity, in which feuds between criminal clans are barely distinguishable from guerilla attacks of rebels of various persuasions and underground Islamic networks challenge the alliance of authorities and clergy. According to NGO data for 2012, 405 people were killed and 290 wounded in the republic. Russian society pays scant attention to the shootouts and explosions, and in the West, this smoldering war in a far corner of Europe is completely forgotten. Russian troops stick to their routine of counter-terrorist operations, but the rebels now see themselves not as ‘al-Qaeda franchises’ but as a part of the powerful revival of political Islam. Tamerlan had plentiful opportunities to internalize this powerful message.

Kadyrov can and will deny everything

Russian media is full of speculations about the ‘setup’ of the Tsarnaev brothers and ‘plots’ of US special services, but these conspiracy theories avoid one person who has benefitted from the Boston bombing – Chechnya’s warlord-president Ramzan Kadyrov. He described Tamerlan and Dzhokhar as ‘products of American culture’ but counts on this terrible incident to severely discredit the whole Chechen diaspora, which he seeks to terrorize with every means available. He was irked by his de-facto inclusion in the ‘Magnitsky list’ and knows that the Obama administration has suffered a painful ‘lesson’. More importantly, he expects that Moscow has registered the message that cutting federal subsidies to Chechnya would be unhelpful. US investigators will struggle to establish how the idea of taking the ‘jihad’ from the war-torn Mahachkala to the finish line of the Boston marathon was planted in Tamerlan’s head, but Kadyrov, the master of terror in Grozny, had a good week and enjoys being untouchable in the matter.

Authors

Pavel K. Baev

Publication: NRK

Image Source: © Handout . / Reuters

The Arab Awakening : America and the Transformation of the Middle East

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Brookings Institution Press 2011 381pp.

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"The events began in Tunisia in January 2011 . . . shook the political, social, and intellectual foundations of the Middle East. The tremors can still be felt, and no one is quite certain when the aftershocks will end, or when another shock wave of popular unrest might occur. Nevertheless, enough time has passed to try to make sense of what has happened so far and, perhaps, gain an inkling of where the region is headed."—from the Introduction by Kenneth M. Pollack

About the Book | Contents | Author Commentary | Events | About the Authors

About the Book

The Arab Awakening brings the full resources of Brookings to bear on making sense of what may turn out to be the most significant geopolitical movement of this generation. Coauthored by 18 of the leading experts on the Middle East, it is essential reading for anyone looking to understand these developments and their consequences.

Even the most seasoned Middle East observers were taken aback by the events of early 2011. Protests born of oppression and socioeconomic frustration erupted throughout the streets; public unrest provoked violent police backlash; long-established dictatorships fell. How did this all happen? What might the future look like, and what are the likely ramifications for the United States and the rest of the world? In The Arab Awakening, experts from the Brookings Institution tackle such questions to make sense of this tumultuous region that remains at the heart of U.S. national interests.

The Arab Awakening offers broad lessons by analyzing key aspects of the Mideast turmoil, such as public opinion trends within the "Arab Street"; the role of social media and technology; socioeconomic and demographic conditions; the influence of Islamists; and the impact of the new political order on the Arab-Israeli peace process.

The authors also look at the countries themselves, finding commonalties and grouping them according to the political evolutions that have (or have not) occurred in each country. They offer insight into the current situation, and possible trajectory of each group of countries, as well as individual nation studies.

Part I: The Dynamics of the Arab Spring
Part II: Countries in Transition
Part III: The Imperative of Reform
Part IV: States in Crisis
Part V: Other Regional Actors
Part VI: The External Powers

Author Commentary

" Israel Looks at the Arab Awakening with Skepticism" by Daniel Byman, Brookings Up Front blog, February 9, 2012
"International Order in the Arab World " by Bruce Jones, Brookings Up Front blog, February 1, 2012
"Yemen's Transition of Power" by Ibrahim Sharqieh, Brookings Up Front blog, January 9, 2012
"The United States and Iran: The Arab Awakening Changes Everything" by Suzanne Maloney, Brookings Up Front blog, January 4, 2012
"The Palestinians and the Arab Awakening" by Khaled Elgindy, Brookings Up Front blog, December 29, 2011
"United States Policy in Syria: Masterful Inaction" by Michael S. Doran, Brookings Up Front blog, December 13, 2011
"The Long Spring Ahead" by Stephen R. Grand, Brookings Up Front blog, December 8, 2011
"Arab Public Opinion: A Question of What They Want and Say" by Shibley Telhami, Brookings Up Front blog, December 6, 2011
"Can Al Qaeda Capitalize on Unrest in Egypt and Syria? " by Daniel L. Byman, Brookings Up Front blog, December 1, 2011
"The Egyptian Military Faces Its Defining Hour " by Kenneth M. Pollack, Brookings Up Front blog, November 28, 2011
"Saudi Arabia: Its Rulers and its Future in Light of the Arab Awakening " by Bruce Riedel, Brookings Up Front blog, November 23, 2011
"Egypt: The Military, Elections, and the Hope for Reform " by Shadi Hamid, Brookings Up Front blog, November 21, 2011

Events

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Akram Al-Turk

Akram Al-Turk is the publications manager and senior research assistant in the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.

Pavel K. Baev

Daniel L. Byman

Michael Doran

Khaled Elgindy

Stephen R. Grand

Shadi Hamid

Bruce Jones

Suzanne Maloney

Jonathan D. Pollack

Kenneth M. Pollack

Kenneth M. Pollack is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, where he is
director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy. Previously, he was director for Persian Gulf affairs at the National Security Council and spent seven years in the CIA as a Persian Gulf military analyst. He is the author of A Path Out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East (Random House).

Bruce Riedel

Ruth H. Santini

Salman Shaikh

Ibrahim Sharqieh

Ömer Taşpınar

Shibley Telhami

Sarah Yerkes

Sarah Yerkes is a former Research Analyst of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution and currently a doctoral candidate in the Department of Government at Georgetown University.

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