FOREIGN AFFAIRS: Support for Belarus is complicated, by Dario Pio Muccilli, reporting from Italy

As Svetlana Tikhanovskaya was greeted last July 28th by POTUS in the White House, a new signal of support was granted by the US to the Belarussian opposition which is struggling against the country’s dictator Lukashenko. Despite this, her struggle seems not to have strong ties with the Belarussian territory itself, where the president Lukashenko is making scorched earth in the opposition field, capturing or arresting activists and leaders, even making land an international flight to arrest the opposition figure Raman Pratasevich.

Asking for an international action is therefore a sort of last-chance for Tikhanovskaya, who is seeing her net constantly dismantled in the motherland, meanwhile the net across diplomats, chancellors and the Belarussian community abroad is more and more entrenched day by day.

Tikhanovskaya’s fate will depend upon which net is more useful to reach her goal. The answer has to consider many aspects of the matter, first of all the closeliness of Belarus to Russia, with a shared border lasting 1,312 km. Such a unity may undermine even the roughest embargo or the toughest sanctions, as Belarus is not an island like Cuba. Even if the other bordering countries (Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine) will decide to close any traffic towards Minsk, the main economic partner of Lukashenko’s regime will be preserved.

Putin, moreover, will not allow any foreign action on a land that, to be honest, was part of Russia till 1991 and where any foreign military presence would be an outrage, as it was for the US during the missile crisis of Cuba in 1962. We know how that ended.
Therefore, as the embargo and military solutions are undermined by the same geographical position of the country, what’s left? Diplomacy.

Since German Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck in 1881 set up the European and Colonization order during the Berlin Conference, splitting African countries according to economic and strategical interests and establishing a system of balance of power, it has been clear how diplomacy is not based upon ideas or upon brave people like Tikhanovskaya, but rather on a dirty system of Realpolitik.

Therefore, a strong action of the US in Belarus could cause a crucial reaction of Russia in a country politically close to the US itself. The possible scenarios of such a revenge are not missing.
Russia is used to showing off the firepower of its nuclear submarines in the Baltic Sea, where there are many US allies, including former Soviet republics where Russian capitalists still own a consistent part of the local industry and wealth.

These include Lithuania, where Tikhanovskaya is currently exiled, alongside with its “sisters”, Latvia and Estonia. Such little countries would be too weak to face a Russian attack if not defended by the NATO alliance.

But while Russia does not command an official military alliance such as NATO, the it maintains established ties with its surrounding nations that are similar and historically (if not ethnically) justified.

Before reaching an open (diplomatic) conflict against Russia, we should also consider if attacking this country would be convenient in the perspective of involuntarily promoting an alliance between Moscow and Beijing. A worse perspective for the USA does not exist.

Moscow, to be honest, would have better advantages from a Moscow-Washington alliance rather than from a Chinese friendship. Washington and Moscow should maybe unite their influence, as China is building the bases for a new Silk Road which will cut Russia and USA away from the Asian and African commerce, convincing even historical allies of both of them (respectively, Italy and the central-Asia republics) to be part of this imperialistic project.

China is economically the biggest threat for the USA, its growth is unstoppable and no sanction would ever work against the “Dragon”, as the Chinese economy is often called. Russia is not so powerful, nor so rich, but it would be a strong ally for Beijing if the US does not seize the moment.

But, turning back to the starting point, what should we do then with Belarus?

We (even if there’s very little democracy regarding foreign affairs) should decide whether to prioritize human rights and freedom above economical interests or not.

Realpolitik or the universal rights of a people? That’s the decision which will determine the future of that distant, previously widely unknown, Eastern republic in Europe.