Terrorism in Russia
The Beslan Tragedy and Putin's Response
Leon Aron
September 21, 2004
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Hundreds of civilians have been murdered in the past month across Russia by Islamist terrorists, who have effectively hijacked Chechnya’s struggle for independence and transformed it into a nihilistic, endless jihad. In the aftermath of the downing of two civilian airliners and the massacre of schoolchildren in Beslan, President Vladimir Putin has announced a radical overhaul of Russia’s political system that would end the popular election of governors and independent lawmakers--a move, critics contend, that has less to do with counterterrorism than consolidating the Kremlin’s power and stifling democracy.

What measures should the Kremlin take to stabilize Chechnya, strengthen its counterterrorism policies, and reform its overall security strategy for the North Caucasus? What can the United States and Europe do to help combat Islamic fundamentalism in Russia, and how does Russia’s struggle intersect with the global, U.S.-led war on terror? What will be the impact of Putin’s proposals on participatory politics and civil society in Russia?

These and other questions will be the subject of an AEI luncheon discussion on Tuesday, September 21. Scheduled speakers will include Leon Aron, director of Russian studies at AEI; Nikolas Gvosdev, senior fellow in strategic studies at the Nixon Center; Fiona Hill, senior fellow in foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution; Radek Sikorski, director of the New Atlantic Initiative at AEI; and Vladimir Socor, senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation.

About the Author

 

Leon
Aron

  • Leon Aron is Resident Scholar and Director of Russian Studies at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of three books and over 300 articles and essays. Since 1999, he has written Russian Outlook, a quarterly essay on economic, political, social and cultural aspects of Russia’s post-Soviet transition, published by the Institute. He is the author of the first full-scale scholarly biography of Boris Yeltsin, Yeltsin: A Revolutionary Life (St. Martin’s Press, 2000); and Russia’s Revolution: Essays 1989-2006 (AEI Press,2007); Roads to the Temple: Memory, Truth, Ideals and Ideas in the Making ofthe Russian Revolution, 1987-1991 (Yale University Press, Spring 2012).


    Dr. Aron earned his Ph.D. from Columbia University, has taught a graduate seminar at Georgetown University, and was awarded the Peace Fellowship at the U.S. Institute of Peace. He has co-edited and contributed the opening chapter to The Emergence of Russian Foreign Policy, published by the U.S. Institute of Peace in 1994 and contributed an opening chapter to The New Russian Foreign Policy (Council on Foreign Relations, 1998).


    Dr. Aron has contributed numerous essays and articles to newspapers andmagazines, including the Washington Post, the New York Times, theWall Street Journal,   Foreign Policy, The NewRepublic, Weekly Standard, Commentary, New York Times Book Review, the TimesLiterary Supplement. A frequent guest of television and radio talkshows, he has commented on Russian affairs for, among others, 60 Minutes,The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Charlie Rose, CNN International,C-Span, and National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” and “Talk of theNation.”


    From 1990 to 2004, he was a permanent discussant at the Voice of America’s radio and television show Gliadya iz Ameriki (“Looking from America”), which was broadcast to Russia every week.

  • Phone: 202-862-5898
    Email: laron@aei.org

  • Assistant Info

    Name: Daniel Vajdic
    Phone: 202-862-5942
    Email: daniel.vajdic@aei.org
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