The Belarus Challenge – USA Gov Policy

Not many Americans can identify where Belarus is located on a European map. That may be changing soon if its president, Alexander Lukashenko, decides to permit Vladimir Putin to stage Russian nuclear weapons inside the country. Belarus’ importance to political stability throughout the West today far outweighs the limited knowledge most in the US have about the state or the status of Minsk’s relationship with Moscow. In November Lukashenko made a public statement that dramatically raises the risk level of war in Europe when he stated: “I will suggest that Putin return nuclear weapons to Belarus,” and that “those nuclear armaments would be the most effective” deterrent.

Belarus is propped up by the Russian state. It purchases about half its exports and provides the former Soviet satellite state subsidized oil which it resells at a huge profit. Oil sales account for a large part of its GDP. The country borders Russia on the east and Ukraine on the south while Poland sits on its western border. Although Belarus is a smaller nation-state about the size of Kansas it is strategically important to Russia as a buffer with the European Union and NATO. Putin is willing to absorb the financial and political costs for it to remain within his sphere of influence.

Lukashenko has turned to Russia for well over a decade for financial aid, political backing, and the support needed to keep him in power. The bilateral relationship with Moscow has grown in significance in recent years as other former Soviet republics have moved closer to the West. Last year Putin saved Lukashenko’s regime by promising him a $1.5 billion loan and developing a law enforcement group for the president to ensure security inside the country. Since the August 2020 election Lukashenko, with Putin’s assistance, has cracked down heavily on protestors and the indigenous democracy movement. Putin retains regional hegemony over the area as Belarus is highly dependent on Russia’s largesse and Lukashenko is fully compliant and catering to Putin’s priorities.

“As President Lukashenko said, we are considering the possibility of deploying nuclear weapons on the territory of Belarus as one of the potential responses to future possible actions by the NATO bloc on the territory of Poland,” Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei told RT Arabic in an interview on Friday. Lukashenko suggests that that such a deployment is in response to a potential deployment of US atomic missiles in Eastern Europe in the future.

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Tensions have increased on the Belarus-Polish border over the last year as many are trying to illegally enter Poland to escape the harsh Lukashenko dictatorship. Belarus continues to align closely with Russia politically although Putin and Lukashenko have had their differences in the past. The EU and other Western nations refused to recognize the results of the August 4-8, 2020, presidential election due to corruption and falsified results. After backing up Lukashenko, Putin declared later in August 2020 that he knew he could “always count on Belarus for support.” It looks like Putin may be calling in the chips soon.

Recent intelligence reports suggest that the two countries are integrating additional Belarusian special forces units with Russian troops. After joint exercises earlier this year Putin left a number of troops inside Belarus. This pushes Lukashenko into a corner. He intends to retain his power and the independence for his country. At the same time, he is increasingly dependent on Russia for financial, political and military support. Should a skirmish occur with any of Belarus’ neighbors it could draw in NATO and Russian military forces and spread into a wider conflict with the potential to escalate into a nuclear war. Putin needs Lukashenko and Belarus but not the complications it brings to Russian-West European relations. How Putin gets resolves its Belarusian headache may determine if there is war in Europe in 2022.

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government.

Quick Analysis

Putin’s Saber Rattling

Earlier this week, President Biden reversed his 2022 decision, authorizing the provision of antipersonnel land mines to the Ukrainian government. It follows an earlier Administration authorization to allow the use of an advanced American missile system capable of striking as deep as 100 miles inside Russian territory. The US election season may be ending, but both Russia and the West show no indication of stepping down the conflict. Russian propaganda continues to swell as the Kremlin increases its threats to use nuclear weapons against the West. Last week Andrey Sushentsov, program director of the pro-Kremlin think tank Valdai Discussion Club (VDC), published an article on growing nuclear tensions in the region. Official Russian language in the last few years has been threatening. Since the US election, rhetoric like that in the Sushentsov article, has approached the level of nuclear blackmail. The VDC article’s main theme centers on Russia’s intent to directly confront the West militarily if the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) becomes involved in Russia’s conflict with Ukraine. “On the one hand, these threats are intended to frighten the West, but on the other, Russian propagandists themselves are starting to believe in the inevitability of escalation,” according to Ksenia Kirillova of the Jamestown Foundation. On November 11, Sushentsov wrote that “The conflict will reach a completely new level, with unpredictable consequences for Europe and the entire world.” Kirillova points out that Putin’s distorted image of the world is divorced from reality and is causing the Kremlin to issue demands that are impossible to fulfill. Financial and other Russian resources needed to support Putin’s war are growing scarcer at the same time. This week the Kremlin announced a reduction of payments to its soldiers. Recently North Korea acknowledged it was sending soldiers to fight in Ukraine as Putin is running out of bodies to use as cannon fire. The war is not going well for Russia. One question floating around the Washington intelligence community is whether Putin will act out of desperation before President-elect Trump assumes office. In recent months the Russian propaganda machine is spewing out materials from fairly reputable analytical platforms inside the country. Kirillova says that “Kremlin ‘experts’ do not conceal that such threats are only intended to break the West psychologically, as they themselves are not prepared for full-scale nuclear war.” Despite Russia’s lack of preparation for an all-out war with the West, the expanding nuclear rhetoric carries with it an increase in the threat of a full-scale war in multiple theaters of operation. In June 2023 a founder of the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Sergey Karaganov, called for “delivering a pre-emptive strike of retaliation” on Poland to force the West to surrender. In the previous month, Dmitry Suslov, a direct of research programs at the policy center proposed organizing “a demonstration nuclear explosion” aimed at intimidating the West. In September, President Putin announced a reappraisal of Russian nuclear doctrine after speaking earlier in the year at the plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum and jokingly calling Suslov a “scary person.” Pavel Baev, writing in the European Daily Monitor, says “Putin intends his announcement to mark an escalation of nuclear brinkmanship and influence the proceedings of future Ukrainian peace efforts.” Putin is expanding the list of environmental conditions that are acceptable for using a nuclear weapon and incorporating it into Russian military doctrine. Baev adds that “The ups and downs of Russian brinkmanship are disconnected from the kinetic battles of the war, correlating instead with Ukrainian peace offensives, such as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s first peace summit in Bürgenstock, Switzerland.” Despite the increase in vitriolic language, in a You Tube video published a week before the US presidential election, Karaganov openly assured the West the primary goal of the escalation is to break the American spirit and that of the West, not outright nuclear war. By Election Day in the US, with political prognosticators predicting a win for former president Trump, Karaganov changed his tune and called for an increased role in nuclear deterrence. Kirillova points out that Western concessions to Russia are unlikely to reduce the risk of nuclear escalation. The distorted reality inside the Kremlin continues to push that President-elect Trump is an adherent of “world government,” that Ukraine will create a nuclear weapon, and Russia must prepare for a nuclear conflagration to achieve its ambitions for a new world order. President-elect Trump has indicated he will not agree to concessions that destabilize Europe, the Middle East or other regions. Going forward a strong US foreign policy may be the most stabilizing course the West can count on to restrain Putin and his intent to rebuild the Russian empire. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept. Illustration: Pixabay

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