John Schindler: Will Belarus Be Putin's Next Victim?

[highplainsdem]

http://observer.com/2017/02/belarus-national-security-nato-vladimir-putin/

Lukashenka is deeply worried that the displeased Kremlin may try to overthrow his regime, replacing him with someone more pliant to Putin’s wishes. Minsk fears the sudden appearance of Little Green Men, saboteurs and terrorists from Russian intelligence, the shadowy operatives who led the invasion of Crimea three years ago, trying to evict him from power. Here Lukashenka’s fears are entirely valid, and he faces the difficult predicament that, given the exceptionally close ties between his KGB and Kremlin security services – most Belarusian security higher-ups have been trained in Russian spy schools—he can’t be sure who in Minsk is really on his side.

Therefore, it’s no surprise that Lukashenka is flexing his muscles right now, trying to send a message of strength while assessing who in Belarus is loyal to whom. There’s a major military exercise underway right now that includes building obstacles on the main highway that runs from Minsk to the Russian border. Reservists have been called up for these exercises, including retired military officers returned to service, to practice stemming a possible Russian invasion.

Arseniy Sivitskiy, director of Minsk’s Center for Strategic and Foreign Policy Studies, which is Belarus’ only think-tank devoted to such matters, in a new interview suggests that Putin may be using the current chaos in Washington, with the still-forming Trump administration seemingly at sea about which direction its foreign policy will take, to move against Lukashenka. What’s coming may range from subversion and intimidation by Russian intelligence to all-out invasion, according to Sivitskiy. Although Sivitsky doubts that the worst-case scenario will happen, the real nightmare is that Moscow may resort to the use of tactical nuclear weapons against NATO if any aggression against Belarus does not go according to Russian plans.

Then there’s the knotty issue of what exactly the White House would do. Belarus isn’t in NATO and it cannot expect overt Western help against Putin. But would President Trump do anything at all in the event of Russian aggression against yet another neighbor? The new administration’s repeated public fawning over the Kremlin, plus its exceptionally tepid support for Ukraine as fighting increases there between the Russian military and Kyiv’s forces, provide ample room to wonder which side Trump is really on here.

Not to mention the weird question which the White House recently asked the Intelligence Community about Belarus. According to a new AP report, “national security aides have sought information about Polish incursions in Belarus.” It should be noted that Poland, a stalwart NATO member, has conducted zero incursions into Belarus, and the notion is frankly bizarre outside the paranoid halls of the Kremlin and pro-Russian websites that seek to stir up anti-NATO sentiments with fake news.

However, Polish military incursions into Belarus have featured prominently in recent Russian military exercises, namely ZAPAD (West) 2009 and 2013, where a Drang nach Osten by Warsaw was the exercise scenario—twice. Therefore, the White House is either parroting ridiculous Russian fake news or it is consciously pushing Kremlin disinformation on our Intelligence Community.