The fourth of our five confrontations flashed without warning across the global consciousness in October 2002, as Russian officials suddenly confronted a most urgent hostage/barricade crisis in their nation's capital. Again, the book first presents the relevant background on the event, then describes its dramatic (and still not fully understood) climax, then speculates on the alternatives that better non-lethal weapons might have provided.

BACKGROUND ON THE MOSCOW CONFRONTATION

Chechnya is a small (seventeen thousand square kilometers) long-turbulent region in southern Russia, with a population of approximately one million. It declared its independence in 1991, but unlike other restive Caucasian breakaways, Chechnya was not recognized by other states, and, after a period of some disinterest and passivity, Russia forcefully resisted its secession. Boris Yeltsin sent troops to Chechnya in 1994 to attempt to quell the separatist movement, but this campaign – despite a crushing Red Army presence in the Chechen capital city of Grozny – resulted in a humiliating defeat for the Kremlin. When the demoralized Russian troops withdrew in 1996, Chechens formulated a government and elected their own president; under a peace plan negotiated with Moscow, a decision on Chechnya's final legal status was to be deferred for five years.

Soon, however, any semblance of law and order collapsed, and the country descended into a morass of religious extremism, terrorism, banditry, kidnapping, and corruption.