Weird Newsweek story about Belarus and the Russia-Ukraine war

Here’s another piece on the role Belarus, the Russian ally to Ukraine’s north, plays in the Ukraine-Russia war. And the role it’s not playing, that is, as an active military combatant: Brendan Cole, Could Belarus Join Vladimir Putin's Troops in Ukraine? Newsweek 08/13/2022.

To those of us not privy to highly classified documents at Mar-a-Lago or elsewhere, it may seem surprising that Belarus isn’t using its armed forces in Ukraine. What seems to have been Russia’s hope to seize Kiev quickly didn’t work out that way. And the war looks to be in more-or-less a stalemate, though it seems there are rumors of new “offensives” every few days.

Belarus participated in the Russian troop maneuvers that preceded the war. One might suppose this would be a good time for Russia to call on its close ally for military help. Belarus’ President Aleksandr Lukashenko, who has held that office since 1994, was until Russia’s invasion of Ukraine this year commonly referred to as “Europe’s last dictator.” Now that we have a New Cold War (more-or-less), of course now Putin is the New Hitler – America’s Big Bad of the moment is always the New Hitler – I guess we can’t call Lukashenko the last dictator any more.

But this is still surprising. First: "Anyone openly speaking out against Putin's war will be treated like an opponent of the regime, posing danger in a country that retains the death penalty and has seen regular reports of protesters dying in custody."

Then comes this:

The General Staff of the Ukrainian Army said that Belarusian troops had been testing their readiness in the Brest and Gomel border regions.

However, senior officers from Belarus's special forces have warned in an open letter to Lukashenko that sending Belarusians to fight alongside Russians would be "pure suicide." Also, deploying troops who are not considered to be combat ready to a war Belarusians do not want risks further unrest for Lukashenko.

Konrad Muzyka, a defense analyst who focuses on Belarus and Russia, expected Lukashenko to recognize the independence of the separatist Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics at the start of the war and then send in his troops to Ukraine.

"But neither of these things happened," he told Newsweek, "I was very surprised by this. As the war has dragged on, my assessment has changed. Now I don't expect him to commit troops, if it hasn't happened already."

Muzyka, who is the director of Rochan Consulting, said that he has tracked Belarusian troops near the border where they have been undertaking "serious" exercises, albeit on a small scale.

This could point to not preparing for war but a plan to "tie up Ukrainian forces near the border with Belarus to make sure that these guys are not deployed to Donbas or Kherson or anywhere else."

Much of the first part of the article is about the severity of the rule of the Once-Last Dictator of Europe, and quotes Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, a major opposition leader in exile, at some length. They also quote a pseudonymous oppositionist in Poland:

"It's not only about Lukashenko now in Belarus, because they have a lot of Russian officers now in Belarus who are making orders."

"It's like a double occupation in Belarus now. We have Lukashenko who is actually beating people and there is a lot of repression," she said, "and we have Russians who are even much worse than Lukashenko."

So, on the one hand, the Once-Last Dictator is ruling with an iron hand. But the country is half-controlled by Russians, or something. But serving officers in the Once-Last Dictator’s armed forces are publishing an open letter practically threatening to murder him (“pure suicide”) if he sends Russian troops to Ukraine? This is pretty clearly a hodgepodge of information that is some combination of dodgy and poorly explained.

Lukashenko in the last couple of years has clearly tilted more heavily toward Russia. But for a long time he tried to strike some kind of balance between Russia and the EU, though careful to stay on friendly terms with Russia. And to the extent Putin’s government really is operating on some sort of Greater Russia annexationist ambitions – as the New Cold Warriors gleefully assume – Belarus would be a part of that vision. And certainly part of the Eurasian Union that Putin has been working to build.

So, there are different reasons why Lukashenko may not be sending his regular armed forces into Ukraine now. Or, yet.

1. The Russians might not want him to, because it might look Russia look weak to rely on Belarusian troops.
2. The Russians may not want him to at this time. There are surely contingency plans of some sort in both Moscow and Minsk.
3. Lukashenko sees the costs of direct intervention as notably greater than the cost of disappointing Putin. The one active war Russia currently has with a western neighbor country isn’t looking all that promising for Russia at the moment and no quick end is in sight. So a Russian threat to invade Belarus or overthrow Lukashenko may not look so immediately threatening as it might have six or seven months ago.

There's another curious item in the Newsweek report:

[Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya] said Belarusian partisans sabotaged railway lines against important supply routes at the start of the invasion, when Russian missiles were fired from Belarus' territory toward Ukraine. 

Information was also passed on to Ukrainian forces about bases from where the Russian missiles were fired and this resistance would be repeated if Belarusian troops were forced to fight.

Ukraine hinted at Belarusian partisan involvement behind explosions on Wednesday at the Ziabrovka airfield, in the Gomel region, where Russian aircraft are reportedly stationed. [my emphasis]

Assuming that there are anti-Russian partisans militarily active in Belarus, the obvious question is who is running them and/or supporting them? Presumably it’s not Russia. The anti-intervention Belarusian officers reported as publishing an open death threat to Lukashenko? Possible, but still seems unlikely.

Bottom line: this is a story that’s both very interesting and very odd.

The EU tries to put a better face on its support for Poland's treatment of refugees on the border to Belarus

Wolfgang Münchau's Eurointelligence reported last week on a move by the EU, apparently meant to soften its previous support for Poland's refugee policy in the face of Belarus' ploy of sending a few thousand refugees across the border into Poland. (EU and Poland at odds over migrants 12/2/2021; scroll down)

EI describes Poland's practice this way: "Poland took the toughest stance against the migrants at the border. It criminalised irregular border crossings, and used its state of emergency to prevent humanitarian organisations and the media from coming close to the border. They also are accused of pushing back migrants, so-called refoulement, which is prohibited by EU and international law." (my emphasis)

The EU proposed extension of the time limits Poland has been applying for refugees to register asylum claims. "Amnesty International dismissed the proposal too, saying the current [official rules than Poland should be following] rules worked fine, and that this is a weakening of migrants protection for political purposes."

Relief Web provides the AI press release (EU: ‘Exceptional measures’ normalize dehumanization of asylum seekers 12/2/2021):

In response to today’s proposals from the European Commission which would allow Latvia, Lithuania and Poland to derogate from EU rules, including by holding asylum-seekers and migrants at the border for 16 weeks with minimal safeguards, Eve Geddie, Director of Amnesty International’s European Office said:

“The arrival of people at the EU’s borders with Belarus is entirely manageable with the rules as they stand. Today’s proposals will further punish people for political gain, weaken asylum protections, and undermine the EU’s standing at home and abroad. If the EU can allow a minority of member states to throw out the rule book due to the presence of a few thousand people at its border, it throws out any authority it has on human rights and the rule of law." [my emphasis]

Rumors of war over Ukraine

All of a sudden - or at least so it probably seems to most news consumers in the US and Europe - there's hair-raising talk in the press about a confrontation between the US/NATO and Russia over Ukraine.

BBC News provides this summary, Why tensions are rising with Russia 11/20/2021:

In the geopolitical jockeying among Russia, the US, and other powers in Europe, the rumors of war over Ukraine are happening simultaneously with the confrontation with Belarus and Poland, also along with Latvia and Lithuania, which haven't gotten as much attention as Poland in the international news.

There is a useful discussion on this between Emma Ashford and Matthew Kroenig, the latter of which is mainly taking a knee-jerk hawkish position (usually a very safe stance for people operating in the foreign policy Blob), while Ashford is notably more pragmatic: Is Russia Preparing to Invade Ukraine? Foreign Policy 11/19/2021.

Their discussion includes the key role that Russian energy business plays in this situation, which plays a key role in Russian relations with both Ukraine and Belarus, and which also gives both Russia and the EU (particularly Germany) an incentive to avoid political and especially military escalation in either place. But Putin's government also has practical reasons to see benefits in saber-rattling, as well.

Ashford notes:

... on the upside, [Belarusian President] Lukashenko is also his own worst enemy. In addition to the migration crisis [he staged on the borders to Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania], he started to suggest last week that he might cut off oil and gas shipments to Europe. This week, he announced an unplanned three-day “maintenance” stoppage on the Druzhba pipeline, which carries Russian oil to Poland.

But I don’t think he’s going to get very far with this ploy. Putin’s response to this suggestion last week was to tell reporters that any move against pipelines carrying Russian energy to Europe would “risk harming ties between Moscow and Minsk [Belarus].” The Russian state depends on energy revenues — and on being a reliable supplier. If Lukashenko tries to disrupt that, I think he’ll find his support from Moscow drying up faster than the Polish oil supply. [my emphasis]

A lot of the mainstream commentary on Russia that I see doesn't give enough weight to Russia's status as a petrostate, a situation which is simultaneously a big blessing and a big curse.

Anatol Lieven of the pro-realism/pro-restraint Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, wrote about the Ukraine issue of the moment in Ukraine: The Most Dangerous Problem in the World The Nation 11/15/2021:

Since the Ukrainian revolution and the Donbas rebellion of 2014, successive Ukrainian governments have vowed to recover the Donbas — by force if necessary. Despite a ceasefire in 2015 that suspended full-scale war, probing attacks and retaliations by both sides have led to repeated clashes, as in March and April of this year. Successive US administrations have expressed strong support for the Ukrainian side and for future NATO membership (so far blocked by Germany and France), though they have stopped short of promising to defend Ukraine militarily. ...

Only the most insane of US politicians and commentators actually want to go to war with Russia in Ukraine. But as the outbreak of World War I demonstrated, leaders who do not intend to go to war may stumble into a situation in which they are unable to stop or turnback.

Do I need to add that in the era of Donald Trump, Paul Gosar, and Kyle Rittenhouse, the phrase "most insane of US politicians" is not empty hyperbole? After all, one of those three was still President this time last year, actively plotting a coup to remain in office after losing the Presidential election.

The consequences of a direct US-Russian clash in Ukraine would be catastrophic. A full-scale conventional war would have the strong potential to escalate into nuclear war and the annihilation of most of humanity. Even a limited war would cause a ruinous global economic crisis, necessitate the dispatch of huge US armed forces to Europe, and destroy for the foreseeable future any chance of serious action against climate change. China might well seize the chance to conquer Taiwan, leaving the United States to face a war with the world’s other two greatest military powers simultaneously. Finally, given the huge superiority of Russia’s armed forces over Ukraine’s, the very limited number of US forces in Europe, and the deep unwillingness of European countries to confront Russia militarily, the strong likelihood is that Russia would win a limited war in Ukraine, seizing much more Ukrainian territory and imposing a shattering humiliation on the US and the West. [my emphasis]

If the latter seems like a terrifying scenario, that's not least because the existence of nuclear arsenals in the US and Russia has the potential to make any direct military confrontation between the two powers a potential humanity-ending event. See Cuban missile crisis. And the lesser-known but probably even closer call, the Able Archer incident.

But this is also the kind of calculation that foreign policy analysts should be making, looking as realistically as possible at the threats, options, stakes, capabilities, priorities, and alternatives in a situation.

Even states that may be otherwise closely allied and sharing similar political and economic systems can't be indifferent to each other illegally seizing territory, as Russia clearly did by occupying and even annexing Crimea in 2014, which is legally part of Ukraine. Spain and the UK generally get along very well and are both members of NATO, but Spain still wants Gibraltar back. Argentina and Great Britain have generally good relations, but Argentina still claims sovereignty over the Malvinas Islands (Falkland Islands to the Brits). In both cases, the weight of international law is against Britain. But this doesn't mean that either Argentina or Spain are likely to go to war with the UK. Although Argentina made a disastrously unsuccessful attempt at it in 1982.

But Ukraine is not a member of NATO. And the US has no mutual-defense treaty with Ukraine. And it seems unlikely as a practical matter that Russia would accept NATO membership for Ukraine, Georgia, or Belarus. No less an authority than George Kennan famously warned in 1997, when the first post-Cold War NATO enlargement (outside the former East Germany) was being actively considered, "expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era." (A Fateful Error New York Times 02/05/1997)

But in 1997, Cold War triumphalism was in full bloom.

Speaking of nuclear weapons, it worth remembering that when the Soviet Union broke up, they had such weapons stationed in Ukraine. As Gerhard Wettig writes (Gorbatschow-Reformpolitik und Warschauer Pakt 1985-1991; 2021):

Die Unabhängigkeit des ukrainischen Staates schien sowohl durch das generelle Bekenntnis zur Unverletzlichkeit der Grenzen als auch speziell durch eine Garantie seines Territoriums gewährleistet, die Russland als Gegenleistung für die Übergabe der dort stationierten sowjetischen Kernwaffen zusagte.

The independence of the Ukrainian state seemed to be guaranteed both by the general commitment to the inviolability of the borders and specifically by a guarantee of its territory, which Russia promised in return for the transfer of the Soviet nuclear weapons stationed there. [my translation, my emphasis]

This is what made Russia's annexation of Crimea and the support of separatist mini-republics inside it a particular blow the nuclear nonproliferation. The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the US/NATO armed intervention in Libya in 2011 sent a similar signal, since both had agreed to give up their programs to develop "weapons of mass destruction."

So why would the leaders of North Korea, India, Pakistan, or Israel agree to give up their nuclear weapons if they see that existing nuclear powers refuse to honor their pledges to respect their territorial integrity?

A turn toward resolving the Belarus-Poland crisis

Christian Jakob in the German paper Jungle World comments on the problem and weakness the EU displayed in the refugee stunt that Belarus pulled this year, Humanitär aus dem Weg räumen 18.11.2021.

It looks like the immediate crisis Belarus manufactured at the Polish border is being resolved now and some lives saved. (Thomas Mayer, Migranten in Belarus: Realpolitik an der Grenze Standard 18.11.2021)

Deutsche Welle reports, Belarus begins repatriation of hundreds of migrants 11/19/2021:



As DW also reports, the problems for the refugees isn't over yet, Humanitarian crisis deepens on Poland-Belarus border 11/20/2021:



It took Germany and France working out an arrangement with Russia and Belarus. The EU as such wasn't capable of resolving it.

The opening paragraph defines the problem, although it's muddled a bit by what seems to be a superficial understanding of the position of immigration expert Gerald Knaus:

Der österreichische Politikberater Gerald Knaus, bekannt als »Erfinder des EU-Türkei-Deals«, gilt vielen als Stimme der Vernunft in den heißlaufenden Asyldebatten. Dass der »Deal« für viele Flüchtlinge vor allem hieß, dass sie seit 2016 Syrien kaum mehr verlassen können, die EU durch die türkische Regierung unter Präsident Recep Tayyip Erdoğan erpressbar bleibt und sich auf den Ägäis-Inseln seither eine ausgewachsene humanitäre Katastrophe abspielt, hat am Urteil über Knaus nichts geändert.

[The Austrian political consultant Gerald Knaus, known as the "inventor of the EU-Turkey deal", is regarded by many as the voice of reason in the hot-running asylum debates. The fact that the "deal" for many refugees meant above all that they have hardly been able to leave Syria since 2016, that the EU remains subject to blackmail by the Turkish government under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and that a full-blown humanitarian catastrophe has been taking place on the Aegean islands since then has not changed Knaus' verdict. (my translation)]

This is a superficial take on Knaus' position. He conceived of the 2016 EU-Turkey deal as something that would only work properly if the EU then implemented a process by which significant numbers of refugees in Turkey have their asylum petitions considered by the EU and the successful ones accepted for residence in the EU.

The EU has not done that in the nearly six years since the EU-Turkey deal was concluded. And Knaus has been one of the most prominent critics of the EU's inaction and violations of law and human rights in its treatment of refugees in the years since. In his book Welche Grenzen brauchen wir? (2020), he discusses the concept behind the EU-Turkey deal and its antecedents. Christian Jakob is right that that there is a humanitarian crisis in the Greek Aegean islands with refugees. But that is not directly an effect of the EU-Turkey deal as such. It's another aspect of the EU's let-ignore-the-problem-and-hope-it-goes-away attitude toward the refugee crisis.

Knaus links on Twitter to Jakob's article and comments in a generous but critical way on it. Knaus calls attention to how widespread the mishandling of immigration issues is in the richer countries:

But the policies to which his criticism boils down are being implemented by any democracy, any country in the world. Currently, all 27 EU countries support Poland's policies. Under Biden, not Trump, just in September, 100,000 were deported from the United States without asylum. In the rest of the world, hardly any state grants asylum.

Like Jacob, a majority in Germany wants a humane policy without deaths. But he doesn't show a way to get there. This is more urgent today than ever.

Jakob, he points out, has advocated for an "open borders" solution.

But as far as it goes, this part of Jakob's critique is on point:

Denn für den westlichen Teil der EU ist die Flüchtlingssituation – wieder einmal – überaus verfahren: Kaum etwas fürchtet man mehr, als dass die Aufnahme der etwa vierstelligen Zahl festsitzender Geflüchteter als »Pull-Faktor«, also als Anreiz für weitere Flüchtlinge, diesen Weg zu nutzen, politisch ausgeschlachtet wird. Genau diese Botschaft aber senden Rechtspopulisten ständig, seit die vom belarussischen Diktator Alexander Lukaschenko produzierten Bilder an der östlichen Außengrenze täglich in den Medien zu sehen sind.

Dass die EU sich damit so erpressbar gemacht hat, ist ihre eigene Schuld. Bis heute hat sie keinen Plan, mit Ankommenden so um­zugehen, dass deren Rechte und die eigenen moralischen Maßstäbe gewahrt werden. Stattdessen hat auch die EU jahrelang die »irregu­läre Migration« als Bedrohung dämonisiert und jetzt auch noch die eskalierende Formulierung vom »hybriden Krieg« übernommen, die von der rechten autoritären Regierung Polens benutzt wird.

[For the western part of the EU, the refugee situation is – once again – extremely complicated: Hardly anything is feared more than that the admission of the approximately four-digit number of refugees as a "pull factor", i.e. as an incentive for more refugees to use this path, will be politically exploited. But this is exactly the message that right-wing populists are constantly sending since the images produced by Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko on the eastern external border can be seen daily in the media.

The fact that the EU has thus made itself so blackmailable is its own fault. To this day, it has no plan to deal with arrivals in such a way that their rights and their own moral standards are upheld. Instead, the EU has for years demonized "irregular migration" as a threat and has now adopted the escalating phrase of "hybrid war" used by Poland's right-wing authoritarian government.]

Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, the most senior Catholic official in Austria, calls both Belaurus' conduct in using refugees this way as well as Poland's response in their brutal treatment of the refugees, "cynical and shameless." (Kardinal Schönborn über Belarus: "zynisch und schamlos" Heute 19.11.2021)

Gerald Knaus is one of the participants in the English podcast, Fortress Europe: Who gets to come in? BBC News 11/20/2021.

It would be nice to think that there would be some kind of meaningful negative repercussions for Poland from the EU for their criminal treatment of the refugees on their border. But I doubt it.

How to make the EU look pitifully weak and irresponsible: send a few thousand refugees across the border and watch the EU panic

There's a real crisis on the border of Poland to Belarus. It results most directly from Belarus - often called "Europe's last dictatorship" - committing air piracy in May on a flight crossing its territory in order to kidnap a prominent critic of the government and his girlfriend.

The EU understandably imposed sanctions on Belarus for it. Because if the Belarusian government is going to commit air piracy on civilian flights, that not only a breach of international law and agreements, it's a very practical problem for commercial flights in that part of Europe. Although the incident touched on internal Belarusian politics, the sanctions were in response to a very practical problem for international air traffic, not an intervention in internal Belarusian affairs. (The EU had earlier imposed sanctions on Belarus that were directly related to issues involving the 2020 Belarussian presidential election and treatment of the opposition. See also: EU Sanctions Map-Belarus 06/24/2021)

So, knowing that the EU is still pitifully weak in its crisis planning for unexpected refugee flows, Belarus starting flying asylum seekers from the greater Middle East into Belarus and sending them across the border. On cue, Poland freaked out and violated international and EU law with brutal retaliation against the refugees themselves.

This round of confrontation began in May. Which could and should lead regular citizens to ask, why is this only now becoming a prominent story? See my earlier posts, Belarus' aircraft hijacking and its repercussions 05/26/2021; The EU and the political cisis in Belarus 08/14/2020

Turkey cooperated with sending refugees to Belarus, because it sees an interest in reminding EU countries that it can generate a new 2015-style refugee crisis any time it wants. The EU has had almost six years since the original signing of the EU-Turkey agreement in 2016, under which Turkey is currently housing about 3.5 million refugees, to work on the then-anticipated systematic admission of large numbers of those immigrants into EU countries. Instead, the EU has been merrily kicking the can down the road ever since.

Turkey is playing its own cynical game. But Tayyip Erdoğan's government knows it can do so because of the sad state of EU immigration/refugee policy. So, for instance, if Austria or Germany wants to put limits on formal political and financial ties of the Turkish government to Turkish groups in their countries, or want to limit Turkish funding for dubious religious projects that could have national security implications (i.e., sponsoring radical Islamic activists), well, Erdoğan knows their governments are terrified of his refugee supply heading north.

Belarus, including under the current dictatorial President Alexander Lukashenko, has aimed in its foreign policy at balancing its relations between Russia and the EU. The EU has issues with Belarus over its political and human rights policies. But it also has an interest in not driving Belarus politically into a heavier dependence on Russia. That's the larger background against which the current deadly drama is playing out. And both Russia and Belarus are very aware that Europe's absurd panic reaction in the face of the "threat" of a few thousand extra refugees arriving can lead European politicians to make decisions that are short-sighted in terms of practical foreign policy and also make the EU politicians' propaganda use of their superior "European values" look like the most cynical hypocrisy.

Here are some reports on the current situation. It's worth watching in reports on this for how often they contain references to refugees as a national security threat, or how refugees are described in the terms of menace, including natural catastrophe metaphors like "flood" and military ones like "hybrid warfare."

Belarus has launched a hybrid war on Poland and Europe, using migrants as weapons. In response, Poland has created not just a humanitarian crisis but moral, legal, and administrative chaos. https://t.co/ipuA1w4tyv

— Anne Applebaum (@anneapplebaum) November 13, 2021

Although her own use of the term "hybrid war" there strikes me as misguided, Applebaum in the article also does rightly criticize Poland for that same kind of rhetoric: "Even on its own terms, [Poland's seriously illegal] “pushback” [of asylum-seekers] has failed disastrously. Lukashenko has not been deterred. On the contrary, Poland’s hybrid-war rhetoric seems to have encouraged him to find new ways to troll Polish border guards and pile in more Belarusian troops, as if this really were a war and they really were needed." (my emphasis)

Poland may call NATO for help with Belarus border crisis Deutsche Welle News 11/15/2021:

Also from Deutsche Welle, Turkey stops flying citizens of Iraq, Syria, Yemen to Belarus 11/13/2021:

‘Please save us’: Refugees face death at Poland-Belarus border Aljazeera English 11/15/2021

Warnings that Belarus migrant crisis risks military conflict BBC News 11/13/2021:

Jana Wolf, Härte und Humanität: Auswege aus dem Flüchtlingsdrama gesucht RP Online 14.11.2021

Gerald Knaus, Die teuflische Falle aus Minsk Standard 13.11.2021

Marcel Leubecher, „So könnte die EU Lukaschenkos Erpressungsversuch ins Leere laufen lassen“ Die Welt 13.11.2021

John Follain and Birgit Jennen, EU Backs New Sanctions Powers on Belarus Over Migrant Flows Bloomberg News 11/15/2021.

Andrew Connelly, Don’t Blame Belarus. Blame Brussels. Foreign Policy 11/11/2021

Belarus migrants: Poland PM blames Russia's Putin for migrant crisis BBC News 11/10/2021

EU to sanction Belarus as border crisis persists: Live updates Aljazeera 11/15/2012

Pawel Zerka, How half-hearted sanctions put the future of Belarus at risk European Council on Foreign Relations 09/30/2021

This is a dramatic case in which the EU's lack of a sensible immigration/refugee policy constitutes a real weakness for the EU, and gives adversarial powers the ability to promote disunity and a toxic form of political polarization within EU countries. In this case, it also gives Poland a way to blackmail the EU in its current legal conflicts with the EU itself with criminal cruelty against desperate refugees.

EU trembles before "hybrid operations" (i.e., a few thousand refugees) from Belarus' Lukashenko

Jacopo Barigazzi reports on the EU's reaction to Belarus releasing refugees from Iraq, Syria, and Africa into Lithuania as part of the Belarus-EU confrontation over various issue, particularly Belarus' extraordinary action in forcing down a commercial airliner on the false pretence of a terrorist threat in order to kidnap a dissident Belarusian journalist and his girlfriend. This led to the EU suspending flights to and from Belarus. (EU pledges to step up efforts to help Lithuania stem migration from Belarus Politico EU 08/02/2021)

Belarus and its dictatorial President Alexander Lukashenko know that the EU has a broken system for handling refugees, much less the huge and unusual influx of the 2015-16 crisis. Far too many EU politicians use xenophobic and Islamophobic rhetoric for cheap political points and try to push the problem onto somebody else. The Politico article reflects the framing of refugees as a security threat to the EU.

Part of the anti-immigrant rhetoric in the EU is to use "migrant" as an inclusive term for refugees, people who are hired by EU employers, people fleeing bad economic or environmental conditions who may technically not qualify for asylum or permanent residence, and refugees from ongoing wars or severe political oppression. "Migrant" implies that they just voluntarily wandered into the EU. Austrian politicians like to say they are coming to take advantage of Austria's social safety-net "hammock."

My emphasis in bold):

This is not primarily a migration crisis, this is an act of aggression that is aimed to provoke,” the EU’s commissioner for home affairs, Ylva Johansson, said during a press conference in Vilnius. “What we are facing is an aggressive act from the Lukashenko regime.

Yet for Lithuania, it is increasingly a migration crisis.

The allegation is that Belarus is “weaponizing” migrants by facilitating their arrival and that several flights are landing in Minsk, the Belarusian capital, carrying migrants from Istanbul and Baghdad.

The bloc [EU] believes this is in retaliation against EU sanctions targeting Lukashenko and his allies.

The situation “is deteriorating, more people are arriving,” Johansson said, adding that “a lot more needs to be done” to protect Lithuania’s external border.

... the EU agencies active on migration have deployed staff to the country: for example, almost 120 Frontex officers, 86 of them border patrol guards, have already deployed.

Vilnius also wants to install some kind of physical barrier at the border with Belarus, Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė said at the same press conference. EU money is not usually provided for the building of walls but she promised to go ahead anyway. [BUILD-THE-WALL! BUILD-THE-WALL! Lithuania needs to look for better role models, I think.]

"Lukashenko keeps waging hybrid operations against the EU and it is our duty to react and take decisions fast,” said a senior EU diplomat.

My point here is that the EU has effectively created an unnecessary vulnerability for itself by the combination of its unnecessarily stringent general immigration policy and its broken refugee process that depends on the "Dublin System" of processing new entries to the Schengen area that was never designed for significant refugee flows. And since the EU not only reacts with rhetorical overkill to even small refugee flows like those currently from Belarus into Lithuania, but quickly resorts to nationalistic resentments against other, its less friendly neighbors like Belarus at the moment know they can create a political trauma for the EU at relatively little cost to themselves.

The EU has legitimate concerns about its neighbor Belarus, including the stolen presidential election of 2020 there. Because Lukashenko's increasingly authoritarian turn increases the likelihood of problems just like the air piracy incident in May.

And threats of sending additional refugees into the EU are an obvious response to EU actions. Lukashenko is even flying them in from other countries, which doesn't cost a lot. Because, obviously, the EU could end the "hybrid operations" of, uh, Belarus releasing a couple of thousand refugees to cross the border by simply dropping its air travel restrictions on Belarus. Which would not only be a big mistake on the substance. But it would be a remarkable demonstration of weakness by the EU.

And Lukashenko may be up to more serious mischief, as well: Vitaly Shishov: Head of Belarus exiles group found dead in Ukraine BBC News 08/04/2021.

And, of course, Turkey is holding 3.5 million or so refugees under its agreement with the EU negotiated by Angela Merkel in 2016. We can take it for granted that Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan is following the Belarus refugee situation very closely. Because, if Lukashenko can bully the EU into submission with w few thousand refugees, imagine what Erdoğan can do.

To close: Yes, countries have to pay attention to border enforcement, which normally is and should be a civilian police function. But for the EU leaders to talk about refugees in terms of military threat and imminent danger - Austrian Chancellor Basti Kurz, for one, constantly uses such language - is ridiculous threat inflation. They need to knock it off. And, much more importantly, they need to set up a realistic EU refugee policy that goes beyond the Dublin System.

Belarus, Lithuania, and EU fecklessness on refugee policy

It is often sad and aggravating to see how public discussion in Austria over refugee issues goes.

This is a small example from Der Standard, which is actually a very good news organization, and a partner newspaper of the New York Times. It's about refugees arriving from Belarus into Lithuania, . The article includes this sentence:

Der baltische Staat [Litauen] hatte zuletzt eine Rekordzahl von Flüchtlingen und Migranten registriert, die von Belarus aus ins Land kamen. Heuer wurden bisher mehr als 3000 von ihnen aufgegriffen – im gesamten Vorjahr waren es gerade einmal 81. Für das Drei-Millionen-Einwohner-Land ist das eine echte Herausforderung.

The Baltic state [Lithuania] has recently registered a record number of refugees and migrants entering the country from Belarus. So far this year, more than 3,000 of them have been picked up – in the entire previous year there were just 81. This is a real challenge for the country of three million inhabitants.] (my emphasis)

But the article doesn't elaborate on how 3,000 refugees, which is 0.1% of three million, is a "real challenge" for Lithuania. It does later ridiculously describe them as a "type of partisan warfare," i.e., guerilla warfare, by Belarus against Lithuania. I think there are some diplomats as well as reporters who need to sober up on this matter.

If Lithuania is having some kind of crisis handling three thousand refugees, that sounds to me like they weren't taking minimum preparations for such a contingency.

This is a small example of how the EU's general head-in-the-sand approach to refugees makes it unnecessarily vulnerable to neighboring countries giving refugees access to cross the border. As the Standard article explains, Belarus is allowing/encouraging this as part of its current differences with the EU, "Der Präsident von Belarus öffnet seine Grenzen für Flüchtlinge und Migranten aus dem Nahen Osten, um sich an Litauen für die westlichen Sanktionen zu rächen." ("The President of Belarus is opening his borders to refugees and migrants from the Middle East to take revenge on Lithuania for Western sanctions.")

The EU was understandably concerned by the 2020 presidential election in Belarus, which really was stolen by Alexander Lukashenko, who continues as President. Belarus borders on Russia in the east, Ukraine in the south, and in the north and east by EU members Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia. Belarus is one of six countries that are part of the Eastern Partnership framework with the EU, along with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.

EU policy is to encourage stability and democracy in those countries and to promote friendly and cooperative relations. Being in the Eastern Partnership does not mean that a country is in a formal process of accession to the EU. But that is one possibility the EU wants to leave open, particularly for Georgia and Ukraine at the moment. However, the possibility of those countries formally becoming part of the EU and NATO is viewed by the Russian government as a potential threat.

During his Presidency when began in 1994 and continues today, Lukashenko has tended to seek a balance between Russia and the EU. There are strong affiliations to Russia and similarities in the political systems of Putin and Lukashenko. But he's tried to avoid being a situation where Russia could effective dominate or even incorporate it politically.

But his government's reckless decision a couple of months ago to commit what really was air piracy by forcing down a commercial flight legally transiting Belarussian airspace in order to arrest a dissident Belarussian journalist and his girlfriend triggered targeting sanctions by the EU. It also resulted in the very practical move by EU countries to restrict flights between Belarus and EU locations, as well as sanctions against some Belarussian officials.

So the release of refugees to cross the Lithuanian border is a retaliation against the EU by Lukashenko's government. Which should have been obvious to everyone involved on the EU side and should have prompted a well thought-out response.

But EU policy on immigration and refugees is so broken and the political leadership so irresponsible in how they frame the issue that they are now sputtering in horror at a few thousand refugees coming from Belarus. One doesn't have to be any kind of foreign policy expert to see that such weak and feckless behavior by the EU in such situations makes the whole Union subject to blackmail from unhappy neighboring regimes.

Again, the 3,000 refugees Lithuania is treating as an alarming crisis is 0.1% of their population. The total population of the current 27 EU member states is 448 million. Three thousand is 0.001% of that population. Is the EU really so weak and pathetic that it can't handle an obviously easily foreseeable consequence to the very necessary response of the EU to Lukashenko's plane hijacking?

That really is sad!

But life, diplomacy, and nationalist posturing goes on, of course. Lukashenko just made a new diplomatic move: Yuras Karmanau, Belarus leader ready to invite Russian troops ‘if necessary’ AP 07/30/2021:

In remarks carried by the state-run Belta news agency, Lukashenko stressed that he had dealt with last year’s anti-government protests without involving other countries’ armed forces, but added that he would not hesitate to bring in Russian troops if necessary.

Belarus is able to quickly deploy 500,000 of its own personnel, but “if it is not enough, all Russian armed forces will be brought in,” Lukashenko said, according to Belta. “If it is necessary, we won’t hesitate.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday that Moscow hasn’t received any official requests from Belarus to deploy troops, and the move “is possible only after an official request from the leadership of one country to the leadership of other.”

This appears to be mainly saber-rattling against the West. It does not constitute any real immediate threat to the West. But Balurus' neighbors Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia are all NATO members. And Lukashenko's threat is a not-so-subtle reminder that incorporating the Baltic states in particular into NATO was done in the expectation that there was no serious expectation liklihood that Russia would be likely to threaten them in the immediate future, a bit of post-Cold War triumphalism that should have been occasion for more careful calculations.

The refugees Belarus is using in the current situation should not be the occasion for hysteria by Belarus or any else. But Austrian Chancellor Sebastian "Basti" Kurz is using the occasion to show once again that he's the Savior of Austrians Against the Scary Scary Foreigners:

13 Cobra-Einsatzkräfte hat Innenminister Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) am Donnerstag in Wien gen Litauen verabschiedet. Mehr als 1100 Kilometer nordöstlich der Heimat sollen die Mitglieder der Spezialeinheit mithelfen, die löchrige EU-Außengrenze zu stopfen. ...

Der Einsatz der österreichischen Einsatzkräfte beginnt am 1. August und soll auf alle Fälle einige Wochen dauern. Wann er endet, hängt von der Entwicklung vor Ort ab.

[Interior Minister Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) bid farewell in Vienna on Thursday to 13 Cobra [elite police force] soldiers headed to Lithuania. More than 1100 kilometers northeast of home, the members of the special unit are to help plug the porous EU external border. ...

The deployment of the Austrian forces begins on August 1 and should last a few weeks in any case. When it ends depends on local developments.]

This is a cheap political stunt. Kurz constantly refers to refugees in terms of danger, threat, menace, danger - and rarely if ever in different terms. This is a truly dumb move, done for no other reason to bolster his own desired xenophobic image.

The EU and the political cisis in Belarus

The recent stolen election in Belarus, and independent nations once part of the Soviet Union that never established a democratic government after 1989, has set off a new round of domestic protest and international concern.

The EU is considering what the right response should be. Belarus is not an EU member, but it one of the countries of significant political and economic concern for the EU: The country borders on Russia in the east, Ukraine in the south, and on the north and east by EU members Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia. Belarus is one of six countries that are part of the Eastern Partnership framework with the EU, along with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.

The EU website currently features this set of Facts and Figures About EU-Belarus Relations that includes a Governance section which says (bolding in original):

• The EU-Belarus Coordination Group meets twice a year, at the level of senior officials, to steer cooperation between the EU and Belarus and oversee further development of relations.
• The annual EU-Belarus Human Rights Dialogue provides a forum for discussion on the human rights situation in Belarus and joint steps to be taken in this area. The EU remains committed to cooperate with Belarus to enhance democratic governance.
• The EU regularly raises issues related to freedom of assembly and association, freedom of speech and media as well as fundamental labour rights with the Belarusian authorities at all levels. The EU raises its strong opposition to capital punishment, which is still in use in Belarus, and calls for a moratorium on the death penalty.
• The EU has been supporting the implementation of the National Human Rights Action Plan in the period 2016-2019 and has encouraged dialogue between the Government and civil society. In the period 2014-2018, the EU has provided €30 million to support social entrepreneurship, civil society capacity building and participation in decision-making processes, enhancing professional reporting and strengthening the capacities of independent media professionals.
• With seven projects, Twinning, which brings together public sector expertise from EU Member States and beneficiary countries, has since 2016 become a new track of a preferred modality for EU-Belarus cooperation

So there is already a formal framework between the EU and Belarus for mutual interest in governance issues. But it's important to keeping in mind that the EU's own theory of democratization, incorporated into formal EU treaties and laws, is based on economic integration and development producing encouraging political liberalization and the strengthening of democracy and the rule of law. To put it inelegantly, well-heeled lobbies are generally more concerned about preserving continuity and mutual benefits in economic arrangements than in the good-governance issues.

Joerg Forbrig of the German Marshall Fund discusses the menu of possible immediate action alternative for the EU in Belarusians have rejected Lukashenko. So should the EU. Politico EU 08/13-14/2020. He argues that "the EU should clearly state that Lukashenko is not the legitimate president of Belarus. He has long been and is, even more obviously now, a plain usurper. With this election, he has lost whatever legitimacy he may have had left."

He provides more details on the immediate actions he advocates:

First, EU foreign ministries should instantly call in Belarusian ambassadors to express their strongest rejection of the actions of the Belarusian government.

At the same time, they should acknowledge, where applicable, the courage of Belarusian diplomats to conduct honest vote counts. At many embassies and consulates, which also serve as polling stations for expatriates, results were published that demonstrated Lukashenko's defeat.

Second, the EU and its member countries should, through their envoys in Minsk, show a maximum presence and offer support. They should visibly roam the protests, engage with people and observe police behavior.

They should attend trials against peaceful protesters, give interviews to independent media, invite engaged citizens and victims of police brutality to their embassies and regularly meet with key human-rights defenders.

Third, the EU and its member countries must ready humanitarian aid to all those who have suffered from the repression in the last days and weeks. Thousands have been arrested arbitrarily, mistreated in custody and severely injured. Many are now being tried and fined in court.

Belarusians have launched a massive campaign to help, with €1.5 million raised to date. More will be needed for legal assistance and fines, medical help to victims and financial support to their families, psychological and physical rehabilitation and relocation to safe countries. Europe can, and must, urgently help to mitigate this human cost borne by Belarusians.

Fourth, the EU should propose an international mission to mediate in the crisis. The standoff between a regime determined to cling to its illegitimate power and a society equally determined to assert its rights may not be overcome without an impulse from abroad.

An honest attempt by EU policymakers — perhaps a trio of senior parliamentarians from different member countries or a political dialogue between the regime and society under the auspices of the OSCE — would be worth undertaking. It would send a signal of constructive engagement to Belarusian society, while to the Lukashenko regime, it may be preferable to Russian interference in the situation. [my emphasis]

Jennifer Rankin reports for The Guardian on the EU discussions around Belarus in (EU considers sanctions after crackdown on protests in Belarus 08/14/2020):

European foreign ministers are expected to move towards sanctions on Alexander Lukashenko’s regime, after reports of systematic abuse and torture of Belarusians swept up in the brutal crackdown on protests.

The EU’s 27 ministers are holding an emergency video meeting on Friday afternoon to discuss the elections in Belarus, after Austria became the latest country to call for sanctions against those responsible for violence and arbitrary locking up of protesters.

Poland, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Denmark have called for “restrictive measures against officials” responsible for the election result, which gave Lukashenko 80% of the vote following a contest the EU said was “neither free nor fair”. [my emphasis]