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| | ===Baltic states join NATO=== | | ===Baltic states join NATO=== |
| | In 2004 the Baltic states - [[Latvia]], [[Lithuania]], and [[Estonia]] joined NATO, setting up another common border between the Russian Federation and a NATO state. Three years later, at the Munich Security Conference, Putin declared, “We have the right to ask: against whom is this [NATO] expansion intended? And what happened to the assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? Where are those declarations today? No one even remembers them.”<ref>https://aldeilis.net/english/putins-historical-speech-munich-conference-security-policy-2007/</ref> In 2008 NATO said Ukraine and Georgia would become members. Four other [[Eastern Europe]]an states joined NATO in 2009. | | In 2004 the Baltic states - [[Latvia]], [[Lithuania]], and [[Estonia]] joined NATO, setting up another common border between the Russian Federation and a NATO state. Three years later, at the Munich Security Conference, Putin declared, “We have the right to ask: against whom is this [NATO] expansion intended? And what happened to the assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? Where are those declarations today? No one even remembers them.”<ref>https://aldeilis.net/english/putins-historical-speech-munich-conference-security-policy-2007/</ref> In 2008 NATO said Ukraine and Georgia would become members. Four other [[Eastern Europe]]an states joined NATO in 2009. |
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| − | ===Chechen wars===
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| − | [[File:Evstafiev palace gunman Chechnya.jpg|thumb|280px|Government palace building in Grozny, Chechnya.]]
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| − | In late 1994, the Russian security forces launched a military operation in the Republic of [[Chechnya]] against internationally financed Islamists who were intent on creating a [[Caliphate]]. The protracted conflict, which received close coverage in the Russian media, was ignored by Western media. In August 1996 the Russian and Chechen Republic authorities negotiated a settlement that resulted in greater autonomy for the Republic to deal with Islamists a complete withdrawal of Russian troops and the holding of elections in January 1997.
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| − | Following a number of continued [[terrorist]] attacks from Chechen [[jihad]]s against non-Muslims, the Russian government launched a new military campaign into Chechnya in 1997. By spring 2000, federal forces claimed control over Chechen territory, but fighting continued as jihadis regularly ambushed Russian forces in the region. Throughout 2002 and 2003, the ability of Islamists to battle the Russian forces waned but they claimed responsibility for numerous terrorist acts. In 2005 and 2006, key terrorist leaders were killed by Russian forces.
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| − | the leading group which pleads the Chechen cause is the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya (ACPC). The list of the self-styled "distinguished Americans" who are its members is a rollcall of the most prominent [[neoconservative]]s who so enthusiastically support the "[[war on terror]]".
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| − | They include [[Richard Perle]], the notorious [[Pentagon]] adviser; [[Elliott Abrams]] of [[Iran-Contra]] fame; Kenneth Adelman, the former US ambassador to the UN who egged on the invasion of [[Iraq]] by predicting it would be "a cakewalk"; Midge Decter, biographer of Donald Rumsfeld and a director of the [[Heritage Foundation]]; Frank Gaffney of the Centre for Security Policy; Bruce Jackson, former US military intelligence officer and one-time vice-president of [[Lockheed Martin]], later president of the US Committee on Nato; [[Michael Ledeen]] of the [[American Enterprise Institute]], a former admirer of Italian fascism and later a leading proponent of [[regime change]] in [[Iran]]; and R [[James Woolsey]], the former CIA director and leading cheerleaders behind [[George Bush]]'s plans to re-model the [[Muslim]] world along pro-US lines.
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| − | The ACPC heavily promoted the idea that the Chechen rebellion showed the undemocratic nature of Putin's Russia, and cultivated support for the Chechen cause by emphasizing the seriousness of [[human rights]] violations in the tiny Caucasian republic. It compared the Chechen crisis to those other fashionable "Muslim" causes, [[Bosnia]] and [[Kosovo]] - implying that only international intervention in the Caucasus could stabilize the situation. In August 2004, the ACPC welcomed the award of political asylum in the US, and a US-government funded grant, to Ilyas Akhmadov, foreign minister in the opposition Chechen government, and a man Moscow described as a [[terrorist]]. Coming from the [[uniparty]], the ACPC members represented the backbone of the US [[foreign policy]] [[establishment]], and their views were indeed those of the US administration.
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| | ===Beslan massacre=== | | ===Beslan massacre=== |