In part one, Kramer describes how the Russians suppress terrorists by targeting their families: parents, children, spouses, uncles and aunts. At various times they've held family members hostage to prevent terror acts, at other times they've "disappeared" family members. Little though he wants to admit it, this approach appears to work.
Therefore, in part two, Kramer talks about the downside of such actions - radicalizing whole groups, creating enemies where none previously existed, accusations of war crimes, creating a bad reputation. You get the sense part two was added to keep the SJWs off the backs of the Times' editors.
What Kramer cannot deny is that the Russians took Chechnya and the Caucasus from open rebellion to a sullen quiet, now largely under Moscow's control. The process was far from humane or pretty, human rights were violated wholesale.
“He should understand his relatives will be treated as accomplices,” Kirill V. Kabanov, a member of President Vladimir V. Putin’s human rights council, said of a potential suicide attacker.The tribal societies producing most of today's terrorists value family highly. Knowing your family will suffer your fate - or worse - cannot be comforting to a potential jihadi.
This article describes an approach western democracies have - so far - been unwilling to employ. I wonder how bad terrorist carnage will have to get before such tactics become, as they have for the Russians, the lesser evil?
