Big powers have little sway when rival civilizations clash

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS - The war in Chechnya is one of many conflicts along the borders of the great Islamic bloc stretching from Morocco to Indonesia. There has been violence between Muslims and non-Muslims in Bosnia, Kosovo, Nagorno-Karabakh, Chechnya, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Kashmir, India, the Philippines, Indonesia and the Middle East.

These conflicts have at least two causes. First, the Muslim world lacks one or two dominant states that can maintain order within the Muslim community and constrain or mediate conflicts between Muslims and others. Second, the increasing number of men aged from 16 to 30 in many Muslim countries feeds the ranks of militants and fighters.

Almost everywhere in the contemporary world, people are espousing cultural and civilizational identities. Multi-civilizational states are increasingly being challenged, as in Serbia, and some of them, like the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, have broken up.

In addition, transnational cultural communities, or diasporas, are taking on a new importance. Diasporas provide money, arms, fighters and leaders to their ancestral groups struggling for freedom.

More broadly, other states and groups support their kind, as happened dramatically in the breakup of Yugoslavia. Western Europe hacked the Croats, Russia and Greece supported the Serbs, and Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey and Malaysia provided help to the Bosnian Muslims.

In the mid-1990s, the Chechens benefited significantly from the support of the Chechen diaspora, particularly from their compatriots in Turkey and Jordan. They also benefited from the quiet support of some Muslim governments.

The United States does not have any significant national interests in Chechnya, while it has such interests in Russia.

This conflict is 200 years old and is one front among many in the global struggles between Muslim and non-Muslim peoples. In the long run, Russia cannot win this war, and the United States cannot significantly affect the outcome.

Give Russian equivalents of the following words and combinations.

To maintain order; to benefit from; to constrain conflicts; to mediate conflicts; to back; to take on (importance/responsibility); to affect smb/smth; an outcome; a breakup; to break up.

Give English equivalents of the following words and phrases.

Развал; принимать на себя (ответственность); выигрывать от/извлекать выгоду из; посредничать в конфликтах; разваливаться; поддерживать порядок; сдерживать конфликты; влиять на что-либо; поддерживать; результат/исход.