Jason Lyall, an Assistant Professor of Politics and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School, is an expert in Russian affairs, ethnic conflict and insurgency. His current research examines the determinants of insurgent violence in civil war and why states vary in their military effectiveness in both conventional and counter-insurgency warfare.

In October Lyall spoke with the School's Office of External Affairs about Russian foreign policy and security affairs, and the nature of the Iraq insurgency and other conflicts around the globe.

Woodrow Wilson School (WWS): Russian President Vladimir Putin has agreed to run for parliament in December as a candidate of the United Russia party. The move likely means that Putin's successor as president would be weak and that there would be a new center of influence outside the Kremlin. What is your view on this maneuvering?

Jason Lyall (JL): Pundits and scholars alike continue to be surprised by President Putin, who has proven both unpredictable and bold in his policy choices during his second term. His recent decision to stand as a candidate for the United Russia Party in the upcoming Duma elections is the latest in a series of unexpected moves. There's no question the gambit is a shrewd one. At one stroke, Putin appears to have consolidated his post-Presidency position while avoiding the international outcry (and financial instability) that would attend more crude efforts to amend Russia's constitution to permit a third term.

Assuming a Putin electoral victory – a safe bet – there are at least two possible scenarios that might unfold. First, Putin may be content to wield his influence as Prime Minister, allowing his hand-chosen candidate, Viktor Zubkov, to remain as a puppet President.

Second, Zubkov may remain in power for a decent interval and then step aside, allowing Putin to ascend – or, rather, re-ascend – the office of President. If Putin has taught us anything, however, it's that Russian politics are unpredictable, so we shouldn't rule out anything.

WWS: Putin has expressed his disapproval about U.S. plans for a missile defense system in Eastern Europe. He also, however, offered a range of new proposals, which included modernizing a radar station in Azerbaijan as well as a new radar facility being built in southern Russia. In terms of our foreign policy do you think this is something the U.S. should consider?

JL: Yes, I believe that the United States should look very closely at Putin's recent proposals to create a joint defense system using existing facilities at Gabala, Azerbaijan and Armavir, Russia. These proposals were made in the hopes of dissuading the U.S. from its current plans to station an anti-ballistic missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Russia has genuine concerns that the proposed system, which would initially be limited to only 10 missiles, could be expanded, allowing the U.S. to neutralize part of Russia's nuclear arsenal. There's no question that some of Russia's fears are exaggerated for political effect: the proposed system does not even exist yet, and is unlikely to have either the capability or the density to serve as an offensive weapon against Russia.

Nonetheless, the Kremlin is alarmed that the missile system presages its further isolation in Europe. In short, the U.S. is in danger of trading the uncertain benefit of an as-yet unproven weapon system against an uncertain Iranian threat for an aggrieved Russia willing to impose real costs in the form of withdrawal from existing treaties, such as the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), and diplomatic intransigence over issues such as Kosovo or Iran.

WWS: On this subject, Putin has also threatened to withdraw from the INF. The treaty, which limits U.S. and Russian short- and medium- range missiles, was signed 20 years ago and led to the elimination of almost 3,000 Russian and American missiles. If the U.S. follows through on its plan do you believe Putin will withdraw?

JL: It's unclear whether Putin is serious about INF withdrawal or if this is the opening wedge in a negotiating strategy. There's a small chance that Russia might withdraw, but I believe that Putin is unlikely to take this step. The Russian military, for example, is strongly opposed to abrogating the treaty.

More generally, Putin has consistently extolled the virtues of binding international agreements, especially when dealing with strategic issues. Pulling out from the INF would make it even harder to sign a new START agreement, which the Kremlin desperately wants, with an already treaty-shy United States.

Finally, the consequences of a withdrawal would be quite severe, if not immediately felt. Russia is already actively modernizing its land- and sea-based nuclear forces, along with submarines and satellite capabilities. We can expect that such efforts would accelerate if INF restrictions were lifted.

WWS: Upon going to Tehran for the recent Caspian summit, Putin is the first Kremlin leader to visit Iran since World War II. What are the implications here? Why now?

JL: Putin's attendance at the second summit of the Caspian Sea Littoral Nations served several purposes. Russia's relationship with Iran has captured most of the attention, and with good reason. Part of the summit, including Putin's personal meetings with Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, were clearly designed to dissuade the U.S. from considering a military solution to Iran's nuclear aspirations.

Central to this task was Putin's efforts to wrest a pledge from the attending states (Iran, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan) not to lease their military facilities to "outside powers." Similarly, Putin also publicly denounced even the mention of the use of armed force toward Iran.

While Iran is unquestionably a pressing issue, it was not the only one discussed at the summit. Putin was also plainly seeking to torpedo efforts by Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to construct a trans-Caspian natural gas pipeline (TCP) that would bypass Russian territory. This project is actively backed by the EU and U.S. and is just as strongly condemned by Russia. More generally, Putin was seeking a resolution of outstanding issues of territorial control and resource sharing disputes that arose in the wake of the Soviet Union's dissolution.

At present, there is no agreed framework for the division of resources in the energy-rich Caspian, which could create tensions if each country seeks to exploit the "commons" for its own benefit. An agreement would end these tensions while institutionalizing Russia's dominant position within an emerging natural gas cartel centered on the Caspian Sea littoral states.

WWS: On the same subject, Putin went on this trip reportedly to offer a solution that would lead to a break in the standoff regarding Iran's nuclear program. But Moscow on the other hand is helping Iran build a nuclear power plant. Does this not pose some sort of conflict of interest here?

JL: There's no question that Putin is playing both sides here. On the one hand, Putin's decision to support, if sometimes haltingly, the Yeltsin-era decision to build the Bushehr reactor was central in creating the current imbroglio over Iran.

On the other hand, Putin is using the diplomatic crisis to increase his leverage over Iran by capitalizing on latent anti-American sentiment in Tehran and elsewhere to cement his position as a key broker. In essence, he can exploit the threat of American military action to bolster his influence in Tehran and Brussels while making Russia valuable to Washington as an intermediary.

At the end of the day, the Kremlin does not want a nuclear-armed Iran, but it also does not share the American perception that Iran is an immediate (or even future) threat to regional stability. It is therefore much more prepared to play a patient waiting game than Washington.

WWS: The five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council are split on whether to sanction Iran more harshly if the country does not meet its commitments to the international community. How do you think this will play out?

JL: It's difficult to predict. I believe that we're likely to witness a side payment in which Tehran agrees to stop uranium enrichment in exchange for a formal security guarantee from Russia and the other Caspian Sea states. This type of agreement has a precedent in recent efforts to mothball the North Korean nuclear program. While Russia does firmly support Iran's legal right to develop peaceful nuclear energy facilities, it is unlikely to stand with Iran if Tehran proves unwilling to make concessions.

WWS: Your current research focuses in part on the determinants of insurgent violence in civil war. Can you tell us more about this?

JL: I am currently engaged in a project supported by the United States Institute for Peace that uses satellite imagery and mapping software known as Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to explain patterns in insurgent violence over time and space.

When most of us think of civil wars, we tend to assume that violence is either random or uniform throughout a conflict area. This isn't accurate, however, as insurgent violence actually exhibits predictable patterns in its intensity and geographic location. The main effort behind the project is to develop theories about why we observe the patterns that we do in insurgent violence.

I am particularly in interested in examining how the actions of the state can affect how insurgents choose and attack their targets. What happens, for example, if the state uses indiscriminate violence against the population? What if its soldiers abuse the population? Do we observe increases or decreases in insurgent attacks after these actions?

I use GIS to help answer these questions in the context of the ongoing Russian counter-insurgency campaign in Chechnya, where rebels have been fighting for independence since 1999. Using GIS, I can create maps of the location of insurgent attacks down to the smallest village in Chechnya. This enables us to identify patterns in the data: do insurgents attack in mountainous areas or in the lowlands? Do they avoid Russian bases or seek them out? Does their pattern of violence change after a Russian military operation? How do these operations affect neighboring villages?

GIS is a very powerful tool that enables us to observe and test patterns in attacks over time and space that would remain hidden to observers using more traditional methods. Future research will test these GIS-inspired insights in different contexts such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

WWS: You also recently co-authored a study that found great powers are far less likely to win asymmetrical conflicts now than in the 19th century. The analysis shows that the likelihood of a great power winning an asymmetrical war went from 85 percent during 1800-1850 to 21 percent during 1950-2003. Is this analogous to the situation in Iraq, and if so, how?

JL: My co-author, Lt. Colonel Isaiah (Ike) Wilson III [U.S. Army], and I undertook this study partly out of a frustration with current debates about Iraq, which struck us as either ahistorical or focused on a small set of comparative cases (usually Vietnam). Insurgency has a long historical pedigree, however, and we thought that we could use the broader lessons of history to shed light on developments in Iraq.

As part of this effort, we collected data on 280 insurgencies that have been waged since 1800. We find that the ability of states to defeat insurgents steady declines after World War I. Surprisingly, nineteenth century armies, despite their fairly rudimentary nature, were vastly better at defeating insurgents than their high-tech twentieth century counterparts.

Why? We argue that as armies increasingly rely on mechanized vehicles such as tanks to fight "modern" war, they unwittingly undercut their ability to collect the types of information necessary to sift insurgents from the noncombatant population selectively. Mechanized armies therefore typically end up inciting, rather than suppressing, insurgents by creating new grievances among fence-sitting populations.

We also find that a state's chances of suppressing an insurgency diminish if rebels have external support or sanctuaries in neighboring states. Foreign occupiers also fare poorly in the twentieth century.

These findings have clear implications for Iraq today, where a highly mechanized US military is trying to defeat multiple insurgent organizations that have either safe havens in neighboring states (especially Syria) or receive aid from abroad (especially Iran).

That the U.S. is also perceived as a foreign occupier does not bode well for America's chances in Iraq. In many ways, the U.S. is the leading edge of a historical trend that finds highly sophisticated militaries nonetheless crippled by their own technological prowess when trying to defeat "primitive" insurgencies.