West Hasn’t Yet Figured Out What It Wants To Achieve In Belarus – OpEd

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The West has not yet decided what it wants to achieve in Belarus, and the sanctions it is now imposing will be insufficient to produce either economic collapse, any improvement in the Lukashenka regime, or the kind of political rising that occurred in that country over the last year, Vladislav Inozemtsev says.

It appears, the Russian economist says, that “the Western countries want an improvement in the Lukashenka regime, something that in fact is impossible.” Sanctions announced so far won’t lead to that because the situation now is very different from the one in 2010 when that approach appeared for a time to work (thinktanks.by/publication/2021/09/21/vyacheslav-inozemtsev-zapad-ne-gotov-vyzvat-ekonomicheskiy-kollaps-v-belarusi.html).

The Europeans and the Americans have the opportunity to destroy the Belarusian economy “if they want to.” Consequently, the question is whether they in fact do. But for that to happen, sanctions would have to be “very radical” and their goal, the destruction of the Belarusian economy, clearly defined and enunciated.

But at present, the West is not prepared to take steps that would lead to the economic collapse of Belarus. What the West has done and is doing may depress the economy but “the experience of Russia shows” that zero or even negative growth for a long period of time “is not a catastrophe for an authoritarian regime.” It is something it can easily weather.

A major reason the West has not take such draconian measures is the widespread belief that they would drive Belarus into the arms of Russia. But that isn’t the case. The Belarusian people don’t want to become part of the Russian Federation, and Putin doesn’t want them to either.

For Belarus to be absorbed, a referendum would be required; and that would be politically explosive. And for Putin, the absorption of nine million restive citizens is not a prospect he really is looking forward to. Pursuing or threatening to pursue that end is one thing, but actually wanting to live with it is quite another.

If the West decided to break the Lukashenka regime by destroying the Belarusian economy, it could do so; and the result would not be that Belarusians would rush to become part of Russia. But for the West to take that step, it would have to decide what it really wants, something it has not yet done, Inozemtsev says.

Paul Goble

Paul Goble is a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia. Most recently, he was director of research and publications at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy. Earlier, he served as vice dean for the social sciences and humanities at Audentes University in Tallinn and a senior research associate at the EuroCollege of the University of Tartu in Estonia. He has served in various capacities in the U.S. State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the International Broadcasting Bureau as well as at the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Mr. Goble maintains the Window on Eurasia blog and can be contacted directly at [email protected] .

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