Islamizing an Insurgency: Considerations on Radicalization in the North Caucasus [？syan？ ？slamla？t？rmak: Kuzey Kafkasya’da Radikalle？me üzerine De？erlendirmeler]

This article examines the radicalization of the insurgency in Chechnya and the North Caucasus. The North Caucasus nationalist and secular movement of the 1990s became radicalized and Islamized by the 2010s. This research analyzes whether or not Russian counterinsurgency tactics contributed to the radicalization of the insurgency or if this process was the result of external factors, such as the influence of foreign fighters and ideologies not native to the North Caucasus region. In the North Caucasus, the Russian Federation employed the enemy-centric approach to counterinsurgency, rather than the population-centric approach common to the United States and other Western countries. This research concludes that the influence of foreign missionaries, fighters, and ideologies was the primary reason that led to the conflict becoming religiously inspired. While the Russian counterinsurgency tactics also contributed to radicalization, they were not the cause of the insurgency’s Islamization