Greetings! Is the world treating you well this week? I hope your work is inspiring and you’re managing to find time away from the office too! I delivered a big project last week — alas, one of the many interesting things I work on that I’m not at liberty to share publicly — and have had the luxury of a few days to catch up on things. These windows never last long, but I try to make the most of them while they’re here! In this week’s newsletter, I want to flesh out some ideas about the Chechen...
11 days ago • 6 min read
Happy Friday! I hope your week has been filled with joy. It’s muggy where I am, which probably means — since my part of the world ain’t exactly renowned for its climate — it’s hot where you are too. Dr Mark prescribes lots of ice cream. Frankly, no matter what the weather! I’m someone who likes a big project. Or seven. I’m also someone who feels a little lost without one. Publishing my book therefore left a bit of a vacuum: I need something big to work towards, something that inspires and...
16 days ago • 4 min read
Hello and welcome back! Today, I want to wrap up my mini-series on ‘how to start an insurgency.’ This week, the focus is oriented towards how small groups can take advantage of state weakness and, over time, coalesce into a more sustained form of resistance. There will be some overlap with the dynamics already discussed in the series, but the macro processes are very different. And this time — no points for guessing! — it will be Dagestan that takes centre stage. As such, this week, I’ll look...
23 days ago • 4 min read
Happy Friday! Today, I'm continuing my mini-series on 'how to start an insurgency,' looking at lessons and mistakes from the North Caucasus' recent past. The theme this week is the radicalisation of movements – and it's Kabardino-Balkaria that provides our case study. With that in mind, here's what you can expect this week: The transformation from an overt to covert movement What happens when you cut off peaceful avenues of protest The lessons Russia refuses to learn View this post in your...
30 days ago • 3 min read
Welcome back! I hope this week has been a festival of joy for you. Or, at the very least, a small gathering of joy. If not, why not?! For my part, after a couple of slightly more relaxed weeks, I’m back on the metaphorical treadmill, working hard on client projects. And, in my spare time, I’ve been thinking a lot about Chechen state-building — as you do. More will follow on that in due course… This week, however, I want to continue my mini-series on ‘how to start an insurgency’, asking how...
about 1 month ago • 5 min read
Happy Friday! Whenever terrorist attacks occur, people want to know what they mean. Often, when the North Caucasus is involved, they want to know whether a particular event heralds a return to full-blown insurgency or something else that threatens Russia’s control over the region. Such questions are frustratingly hard to answer, even for someone who has spent as long studying the region as I have (see my earlier post about the folly of prediction). But one thing we can do is look back on...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
Happy Friday! This week is book launch week: The Caucasus Emirate: Ideology, identity, and insurgency in Russia’s North Caucasus hit the shelves on Tuesday! To mark the end of a very long journey to publication, today I've got one last post exploring some of the key ideas of the book (which you can buy here!). Then, next week, I should be kicking off a mini-series on how to start an insurgency, drawing lessons from Russia's past. With that in mind, here's what you can expect this week:...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
Happy Friday! The North Caucasus has become, sadly, a byword for instability. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, it has witnessed two wars between Chechnya and the federal centre (1994-1996 and 1999-2001), two jihadist state-building projects (the Caucasus Emirate and the Islamic State’s Caucasus Wilayah), and plenty of violence in between. Although organised insurgency collapsed in late 2017, there has been no shortage of anti-state violence since then. But it has yet to coalesce into...
2 months ago • 5 min read
Happy Friday! Did you miss me last week? I was supposed to be on holiday, which made a newsletter unlikely — and then my holiday got cancelled, which ironically made it even less likely. But if you can’t take a week off every now and then, you’re doing life all wrong! Now I’m back, and an important date is approaching: The release of my first (and only?) book! The Caucasus Emirate: Ideology, identity, and insurgency in Russia’s North Caucasus will be hitting bookshelves on 20 May. Dance, tiny...
2 months ago • 5 min read