The satellite of Moscow has been an ally but not a full belligerent. Here’s how the West can keep it that way, despite Putin’s aims.
The satellite of Moscow has been an ally but not a full belligerent. Here’s how the West can keep it that way, despite Putin’s aims.
V ladimir Putin’s strikes across Ukraine have dominated international attention in recent days. Whether they were intended to respond to the Ukrainian attack on the Kerch Strait Bridge or were planned earlier, they demonstrate the maintenance of Russian will and the limits of Russian power. Weapons deliveries, particularly air defenses, will reduce the threat that Russian missiles pose to Ukrainian critical infrastructure and population centers.
Nevertheless, there is an additional threat — that of Belarusian intervention in the war. Although the Belarusian armed forces are relatively weak, active Belarusian participation would increase the danger of Russia–NATO escalation, further commit Russia to a broader war, and, most critically, give Russia an additional pool of manpower from which to draw. The West should treat the Belarusian question seriously: The terms of the limited war ought to be revised, Russia denied a crucial ally in theater, and the Kremlin put on notice that escalation brings certain consequences.
Alexander Lukashenko, whose dictatorship began midway through the first Clinton administration, has served a crucial role throughout the Ukraine war, providing Russia with additional ammunition stocks and basing access while also threatening northern Ukraine. Russia staged its Kyiv offensive in February from Belarusian territory and may have used Belarusian equipment during the war’s initial days.
Yet Belarus has also been an unruly ally. The 2014 annexation of Crimea reverberated in Belarus. Putin is Lukashenko’s benefactor. However, Lukashenko understands that Putin’s autarkic endgame requires Belarus’s absorption into a renewed Russian empire alongside Ukraine. He therefore executed a delicate balancing act, reviving the Belarusian language in government discourse and pursuing a tentative thaw with the West while also serving as Russia’s sanctions outlet for high-end goods — Belarusian octopus and squid became common in Russian supermarkets. The year 2020 changed this situation: The Belarusian opposition stressed the state, allowing Putin to capitalize and link the Russian and Belarusian security systems more directly. Since that point, Russia has sought to draw Belarus back into its orbit.
Since February 24, however, Lukashenko has resisted Russian pressure to intervene in the ground war. The Belarusian general staff, according to intelligence reports, has consistently advocated that Lukashenko avoid active combat. Given the war’s course, this was a prudent decision, but also one that may have undermined Russian combat power during the war’s first weeks, when additional Belarusian capacity could have overwhelmed Kyiv’s outer defenses.
Russia now seeks to pull Belarus into the war. It has activated the joint command of the Union State of Russia and Belarus and deployed Russian soldiers — likely new recruits from Russia’s recent round of mobilization — in Belarusian territory. At minimum, Russia will benefit from Belarus’s additional training facilities and military stockpiles. Russian and Belarusian troops, however, are now due to exercise along the Belarusian–Ukrainian border.
Belarusian forces would not be overwhelmingly effective. Nearly all are poorly trained conscripts. Morale is low, and equipment poorly maintained. They seldom exercise at scale beyond the annual Russian–Belarusian military drills. Nevertheless, the presence of Belarusian force along Ukraine’s northern border will divert military attention from the southern counteroffensives. If Belarusian forces join the war, Ukraine will need to redeploy reserves to defend in the north. The fighting will turn in Ukraine’s favor: Even Ukrainian reservists and conscripts mobilized on February 24 are now better trained than their Belarusian counterparts and will have far higher morale. However, the risk is that by bringing Belarus into the war, Putin has an additional escalatory pretext. A shaken Belarusian state will require Russian support. And Russian co-optation of Belarus will lengthen the Russian–NATO border, providing more opportunity for probing.
The U.S. and NATO can shift, in the Belarus context, from deterrence to compellence. There are two elements to this strategy. First, Belarus must be given a clear diplomatic warning: Belarusian participation in the conflict — the country borders Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia, three NATO members — will trigger a NATO military response. Second, Belarus must privately be given an “off-ramp,” to use the language now fashionable in Russia discourse: It can abandon Putin and come under the West’s defense umbrella. This threat, of course, must be made credible. It will involve a major military exercise in Poland, and the reinforcing of the Polish–Belarusian border.
The purpose of this shift to compellence is to demonstrate to Russia that the U.S., far from accepting the limited war’s ruleset, will also test the conflict’s boundaries. Russia will not be deterred if the Western coalition fails to demonstrate a modicum of assertiveness. Boundaries will be tested, but a degree of moral stomach can bolster long-term deterrence.