The North Caucasus: from mass mobilization to international terrorism

Insurgencies have proven to be highly adaptive movements that exploit their environments and change and mutate in order to survive. States and international actors have long grappled with ways to thwart such adaptations. In this respect, disengagement initiatives that offer insurgents opportunities for alternative livelihood seem to present a viable mechanism for weakening insurgencies. Analyzing the case of the North Caucasus insurgency, this article examines the interrelation between such variables as insurgent crises, government disengagement programs, and foreign attempts to co-opt the insurgency. It is argued that disengagement programs implemented during the second Chechen conflict prevented the insurgent command from pledging allegiance to Al-Qaeda because insurgents had to preserve their local orientation to compete for their bases of support. In 2014, however, the North Caucasus insurgents pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria as no viable disengagement opportunities existed at the time and their only route for survival was to join a global insurgency.