It would be superficial to categorize all conflicts within the context of modern state-building in the North Caucasus as interethnic or religious. Every region is currently plagued by tense internal conflicts over resources, posts, spheres of influence and various power struggles between groups organized around common interests or strategic aims (?strategic groups?). Ethnic antagonisms are not typically the source of inter-group conflict, but rather power struggles between different groups for control over economic resources. A painful adaptation to new economic conditions in the North Caucasus is currently taking place, to a large extent as a result of new competitive networks.
For example, the tragic street fighting in ?peaceful? Kabardino?Balkaria in the town of Nalchik in October 2005 between young men of similar ethnic backgrounds, which led to the deaths of dozens of people, demonstrated that rather than ethnic differences, power relations between states and local societies have a more important role in the development of local conflicts. The attack of government buildings in the Kabardino?Balkaria capital was reportedly in response to Moscow?s repeated targeting of what it calls ?Islamic extremist groups,? including the persecution of practicing Muslims in the region and the wholesale closure of mosques. But perhaps the most influential factor usurping power by force when engaging in business and political entrepreneurialism.in the outbreak of such conflicts, often overlooked by contemporary research on Caucasus conflicts and crucial to the search for solutions, has been the practice of ?divide and conquer? so often utilized by Moscow, which in Soviet times involved the carving of North Caucasian lands and peoples into national and ethnic groups. Only recently have anthropologists begun to critically assess stereotypes about nations, religious or ethnic groups inherited from Soviet times as constituting ?imposed identities.? Another often-overlooked factor contributing to Caucasus conflict is related to kinship and professional-clan association practices of usurping power by force when engaging in business and political entrepreneurialism.
