Tag: Islam

Ankara’s Support for Turkic Groups in North Caucasus Calls into Question Borders There

March 26, 2014

Staunton, March 26 — As the Circassian issue became prominent in the run-up to the Sochi Olympics, Russian commentators focused on and denounced Circassian desires to re-create a single Circassia in the North Caucasus, a step that would require the wholesale redrawing of Soviet-imposed borders there. But now it appears that Ankara’s efforts to spread […]

Putin Blames Circassian Protests on the West Amid Arrests

February 17, 2014

Speaking at a meeting with participants of the public council to prepare for the Sochi Olympics earlier in the week, President Vladimir Putin called “the Circassian factor” an “atavism of the theory of deterrence,” and an “instrument of the cold war.” “Back during the ‘cold war,’ the ‘deterrence theory’ was born, aimed at deterring the […]

Sochi 2014: The Terrorist Threat

August 16, 2013

There’s been no shortage of political controversy surrounding the upcoming Sochi Winter Olympic Games. But the tensions are obscuring a potentially vitally important security issue: Could the Sochi 2014 Games become another Olympics where terrorists exploit it to propagate their political views? In 1972, the Olympic spirit of peace and international cooperation was shattered with […]