Post-election turmoil in Belarus has the typical situation of a geriatric dictatorship that wastes its ability to control through fear. The corruption and overwhelming poverty produced through Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko and the 26 years of his regime, despite all the provocations.a new reform generation to challenge the dictator at the ballot box; knowing that they were despised, the dictator’s gang manipulated the election; outraged through fraud, reformers filled the streets with massive non-violent demonstrations and called for help from loose nations The dictator’s insurrectionary policemen, in an attempt to weigh a life-filled opposition, reacted brutally, beating and arresting thousands of people.
That all the time? Unfortunately, yes.
Although Lukashenko has rogue qualities comparable to those of Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela, Belarus is a Venezuela or a Democratic Republic of the Congo, two other countries where a vote has caused violent instability.
Is chaos important in those complicated twists? Here is a way to formulate the answers, in the plural, to this question: beyond the fear of compassion for human beings suffering under a brutal dictatorship, Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world, and Congo dominates the world’s cobalt production.States and their allies should remain diplomatically engaged and, if possible, obstruct the wrong actors through economic and political sanctions.
Unfortunately, Belarus has no valuable resources, which it has scarce: a population of between nine and 10 million, a GDP of about $1 billion, and a dishonest government that controls between 70 and 80% of the economy.Lukashenko is an ancient communist apparatus. His 26 years in force are lately the longest era of strength among European leaders.Commentators have called Belarus the last communist dictatorship in Europe and even “Europe’s last dictatorship,” Russian President and former KGB Colonel Vladimir Putin is a kind of tyrant.
The political geography of the 21st century, however, condemns Belarus with a condemnation that counts.Look at the map. Belarus is the linchpin of Russia’s nuclear-armed Western Front, a mirror image of Poland’s new role in defending NATO’s eastern front.
Belarus is Russia’s last Slavic satellite country, at least seen by the Kremlin, adding demographic interest to a Russia facing a demographic decline.
The Kremlin sees Belarus as the key to Russian defensive and offensive operations on Europe’s new central front. Russia borders the Baltic states and NATO member countries, Estonia and Latvia, so Russian ground forces can threaten them. However, Belarus separates Russia from NATO countries A pro-Western government in Belarus that denies Russian forces its territory reduces the possibility of a wonderful Kremlin attack in Poland, greatly diminishing the diplomatic and media influence sought across the Kremlin by conducting mechanical and tank infantry training along a NATO.Border.
Is this Theoretical Russian risk? Poles don’t think so: Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea and the invasion of eastern Ukraine are a fact, not a theory.The same goes for Russian hybrid warfare, poisonous political interference, data warfare, narrative warfare, economic risks, covert attacks and assassinations.
While Belarus erupted after the elections hijacked on August 9, Russia conducted naval training in the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Finland, and floor training near St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad, the Russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania.
For Russia, defining the Kaliningrad Oblast is a defensive and offensive operation, with Belarus important to both.Kaliningrad was once the Prussian city of Konigsberg.Russia kept the city and its landscape a special eulogy for winning World War II.In June 2016, NATO conducted the Anaconda Exercise 2016 and, at the end of the exercise, NATO troops entered Lithuania, freeing it from a Russian attack, but the maneuver explicitly cut Kaliningrad.
Russia is provided lately in Belarus – open and secret.Last August, Reuters reported that Putin had personally announced that the Kremlin had created a police force to help Lukashenko.Poland promptly called on Russia to abandon its intervention plans “in Belarus, under (the) false excuse of “re-establishing control”, a hostile act, in violation of foreign and human rights laws.The Belarusian people, who deserve to be relaxed with their own destiny.”
Yes, it matters what happens in Belarus.
Pelosi’s valid explanation why to violate the coronavirus regulations he defended
Oh my brother: WaPo’s conservative editor makes a laudable one about suburban white women
Es: CSPAN Dunks calls Brian Stelter and CNN about his lies