Terrorism is a problem worldwide, from Colombia, where terrorist groups receive funding from an illicit drug trade, to the Middle East, where Palestinian suicide bombers blow up Israeli restaurants and buses. Since the mid-1990s, Russians have also experienced terrorism, at the hands of Chechen rebels. Although Chechnya declared its independence from Russia in 1991, when the Soviet Union dissolved, and established itself as a republic the following year, Russia has yet to accept Chechnya as an autonomous nation and still views it as a breakaway republic. The struggle between Russia and Chechen rebels, who want Russia to acknowledge Chechnya’s independence, has led to an unending cycle in which Chechen rebels commit terrorist acts and Russia retaliates.

Chechen terrorism began in January 1996, following a two-year war for independence from Russia. By the time Russian forces had withdrawn from Chechnya, eighty thousand Chechens...