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1/4/19
While Belarus essentially stays the same, its large eastern neighbor is changing. In particular, the ambitions of Lukashenko’s fellow de facto dictator, Russian President Vladimir Putin, are growing. With his economy still weak and his popularity wavering, Putin has acquired a need for spectacular foreign policy successes. The warm glow that followed his occupation of Crimea has faded, his intervention in Syria is complicated, and it would take a real military effort to occupy more of Ukraine. Though he may eventually decide to make that effort, it’s also possible, in the meantime, that Russia will swallow Belarus. The two countries are already, theoretically, part of something called the “Union State of Belarus and Russia,” and the two countries conduct joint military exercises. But in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014, Lukashenko has sought to protect his independence and project a different image, occasionally defying Russian requests, pursuing a somewhat independent foreign policy and even, as a gesture toward the West, releasing his political opponents from jail, though they still get detained on the way to demonstrations.
Now Moscow seems intent on removing the fig leaf. In the past few weeks, Lukashenko and Putin have met at least twice. The Russian finance minister has announced the “further integration” of the two countries. The Belarusian defense minister has declared that U.S. troops in Poland could perhaps constitute a “military threat,” which is not language that Lukashenko’s government has used before. The Russian government has raised energy prices in Belarus. There is talk of Russia taking over a whole suite of Belarusian government operations, including customs, visas, and monetary and tax policies. And that’s the “moderate” takeover model: A more extreme version could include the declaration of a new political entity, ruled by a single president, presumably one whose first name starts with a “V.” Lukashenko has already publicly dismissed Russian pressure as “blackmail,” and a Belarusian dissident told me that independent economists there believe Belarus could hold out, even if Russia uses its gas pipelines as a form of pressure. But she also agreed that a future Russian-Belarusian state can’t be ruled out: Lukashenko has stayed in power all of these decades because he is good at understanding which way the wind is blowing. If Russia makes him an offer he can’t refuse, then he won’t resist.
Most worrisome is that Putin has a coherently structured strategy for achieving his ends, whereas the US finds itself with a reactive and transactional POTUS.
- Russia’s Clash With the West Is About Geography, Not Ideology (Excerpt from The Marshall Plan Dawn of the Cold War)
- Vladimir Putin: The rebuilding of ‘Soviet’ Russia
- Putin’s attempt to recreate the Soviet empire is futile
- This is what Putin really wants
- Putin’s plan to reclaim the old Russian empire
- Russia’s return to the Middle East Building sandcastles?
- A Guide to Russia's High Tech Tool Box for Subverting US Democracy
Most worrisome is that Putin has a coherently structured strategy for achieving his ends, whereas the US finds itself with a reactive and transactional POTUS.
- Russia’s Clash With the West Is About Geography, Not Ideology (Excerpt from The Marshall Plan Dawn of the Cold War)
- Vladimir Putin: The rebuilding of ‘Soviet’ Russia
- Putin’s attempt to recreate the Soviet empire is futile
- This is what Putin really wants
- Putin’s plan to reclaim the old Russian empire
- Russia’s return to the Middle East Building sandcastles?
- A Guide to Russia's High Tech Tool Box for Subverting US Democracy
The reference to Poland already indicts NATO as the root cause of this matter. Not Putin. Lessee Now. Lukashenko dictator. Putin elected. NATO is the problem.
/
Most worrisome is that Putin has a coherently structured strategy for achieving his ends, whereas the US finds itself with a reactive and transactional POTUS.
- Russia’s Clash With the West Is About Geography, Not Ideology (Excerpt from The Marshall Plan Dawn of the Cold War)
- Vladimir Putin: The rebuilding of ‘Soviet’ Russia
- Putin’s attempt to recreate the Soviet empire is futile
- This is what Putin really wants
- Putin’s plan to reclaim the old Russian empire
- Russia’s return to the Middle East Building sandcastles?
- A Guide to Russia's High Tech Tool Box for Subverting US Democracy
Again.
An incorporation of Belarus into the Russian Federation would provide Moscow with an unbroken land-bridge from Russia proper to the Baltic Sea.
A strategic coup that Putin would certainly utilize to destabilize the Baltic States, and create a massive military problem for NATO.
And do what about it?
Let me be clear: transformational vs. transactional is evaluated on a continuum, not a binarily.
Why the world should be paying attention to Putin’s plans for Belarus
Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko and Vladimir Putin
An incorporation of Belarus into the Russian Federation would provide Moscow with an unbroken land-bridge from Russia proper to the Baltic Sea.
A strategic coup that Putin would certainly utilize to destabilize the Baltic States, and create a massive military problem for NATO.
Much like with Ukraine, there's not much that can be done about it directly.
But we can recognize Putin's political/military aggressiveness towards his neighbors and begin being proactive rather than reactive.
Instead of waiting for the Belarus Anschluss, consider it a foregone conclusion and begin moving NATO pieces now to constrain/crimp Moscow's future reckless options.
Sure it is. So why are you trying to make it binary?
I'm referring to the continuum. Which is why it was appropriate say . . . again.
Rogue Valley:
Russia already has direct access to the Baltic Sea from Kaliningrad, St. Petersburg and from the Russian ports on the Western Karelian Peninsula through the Gulf of Finnland.
Don't you read at all? I clearly stated in Post #11 that nothing can be done about a Belarus Anschluss directly.Rogue Valley:
Short of direct military confrontation, with all the existential hazards which that entails, how do you propose that the West or NATO constrain and contain Putin's Russia? Putin is going to do what Putin does and there is not a whole lot that the West, NATO, the UN, America or Belarus can do to stop him, short of a military confrontation; there is no appetite in the West for such a confrontation to rescue one dictator's regime from another's grasp. So what measures do you propose either pre or post reabsorption of Belarus by Putin's macro-Amoeba to curb the pseudopods of a resurgent Russia from extending further?
A note about the author of the cited author, Anne Applebaum. She is a Polish citizen by choice in addition to being an American citizen by birth. She is also of Belarussian heritage and she is a hawkish conservative and a former member of the American Enterprise Institute think-tank many members of which played a key role in the formation and implementation of the Bush Doctrine and the Iraq War of 2003 to the present. So readers should be aware of the author's history when evaluating what she has to say.
Cheers.
Evilroddy.
"Again" is a word indicating a temporal quality of something's incidence, and it's inherently binary. The noted continuum has no temporal dimension.
"Again" is a word indicating a temporal quality of something's incidence, and it's inherently binary. The noted continuum has no temporal dimension.
Yes, it refers to the temporal quality of the character of the Presidency and the continuity between administrations as to where it resides on that continuum (though you were unclear on the "continuum" you were referring to).
Thus . . . again.
Not sure how you think that's "binary," though.
It's fairly pointless engaging with Harshaw. His circular modus operandi is well known.
Red:
You just keep thinking that....
It's fairly pointless engaging with Harshaw. His circular modus operandi is well known.
I'm absolutely sure of what the word "again" refers to, as I am the one who used it.
There is very little discontinuity between the reactionary and transactional nature of foreign policy of the previous administration to the current one. The only minor difference is in priority.
ROTFL -- The fact of your using the word doesn't at all demonstrate you have any idea of what it means.
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