Belarus

Saturday

Anthony J. Constantini

Why America needs a grand bargain with Russia

Russian is losing influence in a region it once dominated: Eastern Europe. Highlighting this newfound weakness are Ukraine and Belarus, two states that were once solidly in Russia’s sphere of influence and are now on the verge of completely falling away. In 2018, Ukraine enshrined in its constitution the goal of NATO membership and last year Belarus experienced massive pro-democracy protests; both of these events are in Russia’s eyes akin to westernization. The American foreign policy establishment acts as if Russia will ultimately accept being surrounded by Western-allied states. Instead, history shows that losing influence will cause Russia to lash out. If Ukraine moves toward NATO membership, it will incur a Russian invasion.

vladimir

Friday

Daniel DePetris

The dictator behind Europe’s next migrant crisis

Belarus, the former Soviet satellite state, isn’t exactly a global heavyweight. Alexander Lukashenko, the country’s authoritarian president, is an international pariah who is better at concocting conspiracy theories than he is at running a country. At $60 billion, the Belarusian economy is about the size of Rhode Island’s. Other than petroleum, cheese and dump trucks, Belarus doesn’t offer much in the way of exports. A once promising information technology sector is now gutted, as Lukashenko’s crackdown on dissent forces highly educated talent to flee the country for the Baltics. Lukashenko, however, is smarter than he looks.

lukashenko

Thursday

Jacob Heilbrunn

A DC evening with Svetlana Tikhanovskaya

A few years ago, in my capacity as editor of the National Interest, I sent out a sonorous query to a variety of contributors asking them to comment for a forum on the direction of American foreign policy now that the Cold War was over. I promptly received a tart reply from Ferdinand Mount: 'Almost every word of the National Interest’s question could itself be questioned: has the Cold War ever definitively ended? Vladimir Putin doesn’t seem to think so.’ How right he was! His words came back to me last night with particular force when I attended an event on behalf of Belarusian democratic opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya last night, co-sponsored by the Lithuanian embassy and the Atlantic Council.

svetlana

Wednesday

Enes Kanter Freedom

Biden shouldn’t bow to tyrants like Erdogan

Back in 2015, when Turkey downed a Russian jet on the Syrian border, relations with Moscow nosedived. Russia imposed sanctions on Turkey, and its government-controlled media laid bare financial and military links between radical groups in Syria and high-level Turkish government officials. Russian pressure on Turkey was so crippling that Erdogan had to write a letter to Russian president Vladimir Putin to apologize. Putin knows how to handle bullies — because he is one. Not only did Russia's pressure force Turkey to toe line, but it also turned Turkey into one of Russia's biggest allies. Ankara even purchased S-400 Russian anti-air defense systems at the expense of alienating its Nato allies.

erdogan

Tuesday

Toby Young

Make America Normal Again

To win in November, Trump should seek inspiration from President Alexander Lukashenko, the 65-year-old autocrat who has ruled Belarus since 1994. He trounced his liberal opponent in the presidential election in August with 80 percent of the vote. I’m not suggesting Trump emulate Lukashenko’s methods. Among other things, the man dubbed ‘Europe’s last dictator’ disqualified his three main political opponents at the beginning of the race, imprisoning two of them. He has never won an election with less than 75 percent of the vote, although none have been found to be free and fair by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), an election monitoring body.

make america normal again