Once again the mountains of the Caucasus are the backdrop to scenes of violence, cruelty and suffering. The Russian government last week warned all civilians in Grozny, the capital of the breakaway republic of Chechnya, that they must leave the city in a days or be killed when the city is destroyed in an apocalyptic artillery barrage and bombing. This is a particularly cavalier escalation of a war which has already been very punishing for Chechen civilians.

But a closer examination of the conflict quashes the popular predilection for bestowing states on oppressed minorities, yet it also casts doubt on the viability of continued rule. If nothing else the war in Chechnya is a lesson in the complexities and lack of real solutions to ethnic conflict, and a rebuke to the advocates of easy answers.

Much of the suffering of this war has been caused by Russia's strategy. In the last war, poorly trained and demoralized conscripts were badly mauled by Chechen guerrillas. Now the Russians have decided to avoid direct fighting. Instead they are using military might to mercilessly pound the Chechen countryside wherever rebels might be hiding; paving the way for Russian ground troops. Since rebels often hide in villages, civilians have suffered greatly as a result of Russia's new casualty minimizing strategy. As the Russian army moves deeper into Chechnya, it leaves a swath of devastated villages, home to maimed and wounded civilians who receive little assistance because Russia has not allowed international aid agencies to operate in the area.

But it is essential to understand the reasons the Russians have adopted this strategy. In order to maintain popularity, they must minimize Russian troop casualties. It is easy to condemn this strategy and its real and atrocious human cost, but it is not unlike American justification for the use of the atomic bomb on Japanese cities during WWII. Moreover, as in all wars with guerrilla fighters, it is often hard to tell Chechen rebels from ordinary villagers.

Nor are the Chechens innocent in these conflicts. In the last war some Chechen commanders were notorious for raiding Russian territory and taking villagers hostage, in one case even seizing a hospital and its patients.

It should not be surprising that Chechens would be up in arms following this kind of treatment. But their suffering at the hands of Russia extends back much further. Chechnya only became part of Russia after 19th-century wars. During World War II, Stalin was suspicious of their loyalty, and deported almost the entire nation to Central Asia in cattle trucks, a journey which perhaps a third of them did not survive. Unsurprisingly, they declared themselves independent as many minorities in the fomer U.S.S.R. did, starting the first Chechen war, from which they emerged with a limited form of autonomy.

But there is a great danger in using a litany of past and present wrongs against a minority group as justification for their sovereignty. It is especially tempting with the Chechens, who have a remarkable courage and perseverance in the face of long odds, which they demostrated in the fiercely noble stand a few Chechen fighters made against the massive Russian army this decade.

But Chechnya's experience with autonomy dashes this romantic longing for independence. After Russia was badly mauled in the first Chechen war earlier this decade, the peace settlement gave Chechnya five years of autonomy before a referendum on independence. Despite the election of a moderate president, the country quickly descended into chaos as warlords carved out fiefdoms and law and order almost completely broke down. Foreign aid workers were captured, several were beheaded and the notorious Chechen mafia had a field day in the chaos.