Primary features of U.S. foreign policy and their application in Belarus

ABSTRACT

This article discusses and contextualizes U.S. foreign policy preferences towards Belarus. It analyses how traditional and modern foreign policy instruments can be used to hold authoritarian rulers accountable for violations and anti-democratic practices; how U.S. actions may counter such regimes. It interrogates how the U.S. prioritizes countries for diplomatic engagement. Our emphasis is on engagement with Belarus, given its distance from the U.S., but proximity to increasingly authoritarian Russia. Indeed, there are many reasons to renew strategic U.S. diplomacy there, though interest in Belarus abated following the return of its nuclear weapons to Russia. Factors such as Belarus’ economic dependence on Russia, its annihilation of civil society and open support of Russian aggression in Ukraine, among others, signal a need for the U.S. to reconsider a renewed alliance with the country.

KEYWORDS:

• Foreign policy
• democracy
• authoritarian rule
• Belarus
• United States

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Conflict of interest disclosure statement

In accordance with Taylor & Francis policy and our ethical obligations as researchers, we are reporting having no potential financial or non-financial competing interests.

Notes

1 Freedom House’s Freedom in the World reports have consistently defined Belarus as a ‘not free’ country between 2017 and 2022 (the latest reports available online) (Freedom House, 2024a). Additionally, Freedom House’s Nations in Transit reports consistently defined the Belarusian regime as a ‘consolidated authoritarian regime’ between 2015 and 2023 (the latest reports available online) (Freedom House, 2024b).

2 It is not clear how many nuclear weapons were actually placed on Belarus’ territory. According to Zerkalo (2022), in 1989, there were about 1,180 strategic and tactical nuclear warheads in Belarus, and after Belarus became independent, it transferred to Russia 87 SS-25 missiles. The Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) (2024), on the other hand, claims that Belarus used to have ‘81 Soviet SS-25 Sickle missiles with warheads and an unknown number of tactical nuclear weapons’ before returning them to Russia.

3 An interesting fact noted in the memorandum about Shushkevich was that in 1961, when he was employed as a worker at one of Minsk factories, he was assigned to teach Lee Harvey Oswald Russian while the latter temporarily stayed in the USSR.

4 On March 25, 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia would station its tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. These would include nuclear missiles and missile systems to carry the weapons.