Is Putin the New de Gaulle? A Comparison of the Chechen and Algerian Wars

An expert on the conflict in Chechnya explores the parallels between France’s Algerian war and Russia’s war in Chechnya to understand why the prospects for a peaceful resolution of the Chechen war have appeared so elusive. Using histories of the conflict, interviews, the accounts of journalists and participants, and scholarly analyses, comparisons are made on several dimensions, including the colonial histories of the two regions, new leaders ’ approaches to the conflicts, and gendered aspects of the wars. Possibilities for a peaceful resolution in Chechnya are considered in the context of the complex issues of how civil wars end. n the weeks leading up to his election as president of Russia in March 2000, Vladimir Putin was asked by journalists which political leaders he found “most interesting. ” His first answer, Napoleon Bonaparte, they took as a joke, so he offered as his second choice Charles de Gaulle (Putin, 2000, p. 194). One can easily see the appeal of the French general who came to power in the wake of the failed Fourth Republic, determined to revive France’s grandeur, to “restore state authority, ” as he put it, and to create a strong, centralized, presidential republic (Stora, 2001, p. 71; Horne, 1977; Werth, 1969). Putin had from the start expressed similar aspirations for