Is Russia a bigger threat than terrorism?


In order to overcome the instability in the North Caucasus or the danger of terrorist attacks in Russia, a comprehensive reform of the domestic political order in Russia would be necessary. However, this is avoided by the government. The country is currently in a conceptual dead end.


Russia's war on terrorism has now been going on for over a decade. As the terrorist attack on January 24, 2011 at Domodedovo Airport showed, the danger of further attacks is not averted anytime soon. This article presents Russia's handling of terrorism since 1999 and takes the position that the terrorist threat, which was initially presented as an existential threat to the Russian state and nation, has been downgraded to a mere security risk in recent years. Since the Russian leadership appears to be at a conceptual impasse with regard to the direction of its counter-terrorism strategy, the author concludes with a pessimistic forecast. Russia will not be able to successfully deal with the terror problem in the next five years.

Domodedovo and the contextualization of the war on terror

On January 24, 2011, Moscow was rocked by a suicide bombing in the arrivals area of ​​the international terminal of Russia's largest airport, Domodedovo. 37 people were killed and dozen injured. This latest attack is part of a series of terrorist attacks that have been carried out on the transport infrastructure and central Russia in recent years, with the slight change that this time it appears that foreign nationals have been targeted.

In the past few months, experts have tried to figure out the attack. In analyzing the attack, they identified a number of mistakes made by the Russian state and its policies in the North Caucasus and tried to identify the nature of the current terrorist threat within Russia. Several different measures to prevent further attacks have been proposed, including the need to develop a more effective strategy to fight terrorism, move to more informed socio-economic policies in the North Caucasus, reform the political system across the country and eradicate corruption and engage in As part of efforts to pacify the local population in the region, more focus on "winning hearts and minds" in the North Caucasus.

In essence, most commentators argue that Russia can only address the terrorist threat if it overcomes the larger structural but also leadership problems that continue to make Russia a weak power with a growing terrorist threat face their national territory.

Russia, it seems, is suffering from conceptual failure as it has failed to develop a comprehensive strategy for dealing with the terrorist threat on its territory, as well as a lack of capacity to effectively implement such a strategy. This paper examines the conceptual failure of Russian leaders in relation to terrorism. For this purpose, the positions in dealing with terrorism since the outbreak of the second Chechen war in 1999 are analyzed.