Belarus – a significant chess piece on the chessboard of regional security
Volume 4, Issue 1 (2018), pp. 39–54
Pub. online: 1 June 2018
Type: Editorial
Open Access
Open Access
Received
5 February 2018
5 February 2018
Accepted
20 February 2018
20 February 2018
Published
1 June 2018
1 June 2018
Abstract
Belarus is often considered as ‘the last authoritarian state in Europe’ or the ‘last Soviet Republic’.
Belarusian policies are not a popular research topic. Over the past years, the country has made headlines
mostly as a regime violating human rights. Since the Russian aggression on Ukraine, Belarus has been
getting renewed attention. Minsk was the scene of a series of talks that aim at stopping the ongoing war in
Ukraine. Western media, scholars and society got a reminder that Eastern Europe was not a conflict-free
zone. This article puts military security policy of Belarus into perspective by showing that Belarus ‘per se’
is not a threat for neighboring countries; Belarus dependency towards Russia is huge; thus, Minsk has a
small capability to run its own independent security policy; military potential of Belarus is significant in
the region, but gap in equipment and training between NATO and Belarus is really more; it is in the interest
of Western countries to keep the Lukashenko’s regime in Belarus.
