AFGHAN AND CHECHEN WARS IN MODERN RUSSIAN LITERATURE

Abstract

This study examines and compares the performance of the Soviet military in Afghanistan and the Russian military in Chechnya. It aims to discern continuity or change in methods and doctrine. Because of Russian military cultural preferences for a big-war paradigm that have been embedded over time, moreover, this work posits that continuity rather than change was much more probable, even though Russia’s great power position had diminished in an enormous way by 1994. However, continuity— manifested in the continued embrace of a conventional and predictably symmetric approach—was more probable, since cultural change usually requires up to 10 years. Several paradoxes also inhere in asymmetric conflict— these are also very much related to the cultural baggage that accompanies great power status. In fact, the Russian military’s failures in both wars are attributable to the paradoxes of asymmetric conflict. These paradoxes come into play whenever a great power faces a pre-industrial and semi-feudal enemy who is intrinsically compelled to mitigate the great power’s numerous advantages with cunning and asymmetry. In other words, great powers often do poorly in small wars simply because they are great powers that must embrace a big-war paradigm by necessity. This study identifies and explains six paradoxes of asymmetric conflict. It also examines each paradox in the context of Afghanistan and Chechnya.