Cerwyn Moore

Foreign Fighters and the Case of Chechnya: A Critical Assessment

The aim of this article is to explore and analyze the role of foreign fighters in the recent episodes of Russo–Chechen violence in the North Caucasus. The article begins by offering a preliminary theoretical consideration of foreign fighters, indicating how the events in Afghanistan combined with the development of a Salafi-Jihadist movement that would shape subsequent conflicts in the North Caucasus throughout the 1990s. The article will then move on to identify the role of Arab foreign fighters in Chechnya, demonstrating how a complex local and global social networks enable and motivate volunteers.

Laminated Security for London 2012: Enhancing Security Infrastructures to Defend Mega Sporting Events

Since the 1970s, security planning has become an integral and required part of bidding documents and preparation for hosting sporting mega events, most notably the summer Olympic and Paralympic Games. Drawing on a multidisciplinary conceptual framework derived from prior experiences of security operations at major sporting events and historical counter-terrorism experiences of London, the paper unpacks the socio-spatial implications of security measures intended to secure the 2012 Games. In particular, it highlights the threat posed against ‘crowded places’ from international terrorism as well as possible surveillance, design or managerial measures that are to be deployed to make such sites more resilient to terrorist attack. This, it is argued, both converges with standardised Olympic security models and diverges at important points, related to the pre-existence of capacity in urban counter-terrorism onto which 2012 security will be overlaid or laminated. The paper also highlights the increased use made of security for ‘legacy’ purposes.

Assessing Unholy Alliances in Chechnya: From Communism and Nationalism to Islamism and Salafism

The end of the Cold War ushered in a new period of instability in the Caucasus, as groups formerly associated with the Communist Party sought to wrest power from newly formed political movements, which themselves sought independence from the successor to the Soviet Union, the Commonwealth of Independent States. In the immediate post-Cold War period a number of alliances, formed by groups with radically different agendas, shaped the ensuing political uncertainty across the region. In Chechnya, a number of historical relationships influenced the formation of nationalist and communist coalitions, particularly in the early and latter part of the twentieth century. Moreover, in the post-Soviet period, a series of coalitions and alliances – such as the Abkhaz Battalion – melded together national and regional groups, which themselves had an impact on the first Russo-Chechen War of the 1990s. Following the end of the first war in 1996, a series of other alliances, partially influenced by religion, linked members of the Chechen diaspora community with indigenous radical figures and foreign jihadis who espoused Salafism. This, in turn, expanded what had ostensibly been a nationalist movement into a regional conflict beyond the borders of Chechnya, a development that sheds light on the second Russo-Chechen War.

Reading the hermeneutics of violence: the literary turn and Chechnya

The primary aim of this paper is to draw together a set of theoretical questions in order better to explore a case of contemporary violence. The case of Chechnya has, in the main, been ignored by Anglo-American academics. Therefore, as this paper will demonstrate, the use of hermeneutics—and more specifically literature—may provide theorists with a further critical theoretical tool for interpreting the complexity of contemporary violence in Chechnya. Still further, it will be argued that literature can be used to identify some of the cultural and symbolic forces that condition violence. The first part of the paper will explore aesthetic, hermeneutic and literary international relations. This section will outline and establish a hermeneutic interpretation of contemporary violence, drawing upon the primacy of ontology, agency and inter-subjectivity. The second part of the paper will demonstrate the role that literature plays in guiding representational readings of contemporary Russo-Chechen violence.

Aesthetics and International Relations: Towards a Global Politics

ion and International Relations”, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Vol. 30, No. 3 (2001), pp. 535–554. 9. Christine Sylvester, “Whither the International at the End of IR”, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Vol. 35, No. 3 (2007), pp. 551–573. 10. Roland Bleiker, “The Aesthetic Turn in International Political Theory”, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Vol. 30, No. 3 (2001), p. 523.

Foreign Bodies: Transnational Activism, the Insurgency in the North Caucasus and “Beyond”

This article examines foreign fighters and the insurgency in the North Caucasus. The first part of the article addresses conceptual issues concerning the ways that foreign fighters are analysed, posing this more widely in terms of transnational activism. Here I examine the importance of kin and relatedness. I develop this argument in the second part of the article, which examines pan-Islamism and transnational activism in the post-Soviet period. The third section draws attention to the different groups of foreign fighters, as part of a wider activist movement in the North Caucasus. Here I show that a complex group of transnational activists from the Greater Middle East, North Africa, parts of Europe, and Central Asia participated in the conflicts in the North Caucasus. Finally, the article turns to examine volunteers from the North Caucasus who travelled to fight in Syria, concluding with some considerations about the reintegration of returnees and former activists.

Suicide Bombing: Chechnya, the North Caucasus and Martyrdom

Abstract This essay analyses Chechen-related suicide attacks, locating them within the historical and political context of the anti-Russian insurgency in the North Caucasus and the different factions of the anti-Russian armed resistance movement in the period between the first and second Russo-Chechen wars. The core of the essay is an analysis of the different character of two waves of suicide operations, (2000–2002) and (2002–2004). The first wave was linked to nominally Islamist groups, whereas the second set of attacks were linked to Operation Boomerang devised by Shamil Basaev. Finally, the essay considers other attacks that do not fit into either of these two waves of terrorism.

Contemporary violence : postmodern war in Kosovo and Chechnya

Introduction: Alternative Approaches to Violence in International Relations 1. Narrative Identity and the Challenge of Literary Global Politics: Towards Interpretive Pluralism 2. Kosovo and Chechnya/Kosova and Ichkeria 3. Regional Politics, Trans-Local Identity and History 4. Globalisation and Conflict: Screening War in Kosovo and Chechnya 5. Stories of War in the Balkans and Caucasus 6. Criminality and War 7. The Politics of Emotionality 8. Networks and Narratives: The Road to War in the Balkans and Caucasus Conclusion Selected Bibliography

Combating terrorism in Russia and Uzbekistan

This article aims to offer a preliminary assessment of Russian and Uzbek attempts to combat terrorism after 9/11. While both cases fit into the larger post-Soviet political narrative, itself shaped by strategic realignments following the events of 9/11, relatively little work has been undertaken to analyse how terrorism and law enforcement have intertwined in order to generate military, legislative and police responses in these countries. Thus, while recognizing how security policies changed in Russia and Uzbekistan immediately after 9/11, this paper argues that policy reactions to home-grown terrorism have, for the most part, continued to be the main driving force behind attempts to combat terrorism. Equally, however, the latter part of this paper argues that a more nuanced account of security in the North Caucasus and Central Asia is needed in order to study terrorism effectively. In particular, the emergence of suicide terrorism in Russia and Uzbekistan raises important issues, not just about post-9/11 law enforcement, but also identity politics, illustrating how diverse local, regional and international forms of identification shape International Relations theory.

On Cruelty: Literature, Aesthetics and Global Politics

In recent years there has been compelling debate about the “aesthetic turn” and, more generally, the impact of art in international relations (IR). And yet few, if any, of the discussions and debates related to aesthetics have addressed the issue of cruelty or fully explored the role that literature could play in global politics. The article starts with a preliminary discussion about IR, as part of a broader conversation about inter-disciplinary studies of global politics, alternative knowledge claims, aesthetics and literature. The second part of the article advances a particular set of ideas about imagination, interpretation and intuitive knowledge claims which are presented as methodological and conceptual tools associated with literature, and are thus embedded in the “aesthetic turn”. The third section of the article explicates the three methodological tools through an examination of the politics of cruelty. The final sections of the article turn to work by the Czech-born Paris-based writer Pavel Hak so as to push forward debates about radical creativity in literature, enriching discussions about cruelty and war, and IR and global politics.