Human rights advocates, alarmed by escalating hostilities in Chechnya, want the Clinton Administration to do more to protect that region's human rights against ferocious Russian assault. But the root of the conflict is neither oil nor ancient hatred between Chechens and Russians but a search by both for honor and respect in the new Russian Federation. U.S. intervention would only intensify rather than heal the fierce disrespect each has for the other. PNS commentator Sanjoy Banerjee is professor International Relations in the San Francisco State University.

The recent escalation of the year-old war in Chechnya has revived calls for the United States to stand up for human rights in that embattled land. But there are three important reasons why Americans' criticism of the Russians needs to be tempered.

First, the U.S. itself does not have clean hands on the question of using excessive force in military intervention -- in Panama, the Gulf War, and in the cruel and indiscriminate sanctions against the people of Iraq, for example. This point is rarely raised in the diplomacy of the present world order, but it is not forgotten. The failure of the U.S. human rights community to campaign effectively against these excesses has undermined its credibility abroad.

Second, there is the question of whether Russia has the right of territorial integrity. The U.S. correctly accepts that it does, which critics see as a concession to Russian power. Instead, this is a principle that has vital human consequences. It binds people not only to a land, but to each other. In the Russian Federation it enables persons from many ethnic backgrounds to live where they do without worrying about being ethnically cleansed, or feeling the need to ethnically cleanse others. The terrible break up of Yugoslavia shows the consequences of carrying the process of partition in a multi-ethnic society to its final conclusion.

There are numerous small minority groups within the Russian Federation, most of whom are not fighting to secede. The successful secession of Chechnya would increase the temptations of secessionism, especially for the would-be leaders of these groups. A large number of ordinary people would then have to recalculate their relationships with each other, with consequences potentially as bloody as those in the ex-Yugoslavia.

The reason why the break-up of the USSR went as smoothly as it did was that it was Russia that seceded. Had the break-up been imposed upon Russia, the dynamics would have been far less pleasant. If the U.S. were, in the name of promoting human rights, to undermine Russian territorial integrity, in the end even more people would suffer than now.

Third, there is the question of the roots of the crisis. The conventional explanations are hatred or oil. General Dudayev, leader of the Chechen rebels, was a general in the Soviet armed forces. Where were his ancient hatreds then? And Chechens could obtain economic benefit far more easily than by the current rebel strategy. The root issue is honor.

Honor is based on respect for self and others. But what leaders and soldiers call honor is closely related to a basic concept in political science: status. Political scientists see heirarchies of status alongside hierarchies of power everywhere in the world. These two hierarchies may be related but are not identical. In the Chechen-Russian conflict, the two hierarchies had become dangerously de-stabilized. The Russians still have the power, but have lost their status.

When the Russians were still an awesome empire, they faced fewer internal challenges, not only because of their raw power but because of the status deference granted them by their subjects. As political scientists have discovered, those who consider the status hierarchy as legitimate see it as a scale of civilization.

From the perspective of Chechen separatists, it is far more humiliating to live under the sway of low-status Russians than it was under the high-status Soviets. It is this feeling of insult that fuels the Chechen rebels' willingness to die in battle against the Russians. Furthermore, since many Russians consider the Chechens of low status, their army has used firepower more indiscriminately for that reason. That helps turn the Chechens' sense of insult into rage.

To the rebels, Russia's transition from dictatorship to democracy hardly moves them to seek a settlement. In fact, the rebel leaders are looking to higher-status states -- notably the United States -- in the hope they eventually might intervene in their support and pressure the Russians to back down. That keeps the rebels going even when the local odds are daunting.

But it would be wrong for outsiders to intervene. That only would make the status disparity worse and prolong the conflict. The Russians and Chechens, along with many other minorities in Russia, share a common history. There is no other way out for Russians and Chechens but to negotiate a new unity honorable to both, within a deeper understanding of what honor means at the end of the 20th century.