BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS
DATE:
23/06/2009
Belarus, Russia: The Next Cold War
The current gas dispute between Russia and Belarus may lead to a literal cold war.
Minsk's boycott of last week's CSTO summit in Moscow may signal a coming gas conflict between Belarus and Russia, writes Jason Vaughn for Diplomatic Courier.
By Jason Vaughn for Diplomatic Courier
There are signs recently that there is soon going to be another conflict over gas in the former Soviet Union, this time between Russia and Belarus. Ostensibly for this reason (amid others), the president of Belarus, Alexandr Lukashenko, has in the past week boycotted a summit in Moscow of the members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), which is the security agreement between seven former countries of the Soviet Union. Belarus was, and is a founding member of this defense agreement, which in turn was the product of the less effective security arrangements of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
This development comes on top of a number of recent disagreements between Belarus and Russia, including a dispute over meat and milk transports. Over the last month, a decision of Rospotrebnadzor (which is the Russian federal agency in charge of protection for the rights of consumers and for "personal well-being") to not allow Belarusian milk deliveries into the Russian Federation has been a deepening issue of divergence between the two usually close allies. According to the Russian agency, questions of safety and a failure to meet Russian regulations has arisen over the production of Belarusian milk to the point where such products can no longer be allowed to enter the Russian food sphere.
Belarus counters that such a position is politically motivated. The Belarusian government says that it has done everything possible to meet all Russian regulations, and suggests that Russia is actually trying to press Belarus for the recognition of Russia's new client states in Abkhazia and North Ossetia.
If this is the case, this would not be the first time that the "failure to meet Russian safety regulations" has been used as a context for pressing the Russian line. In the early parts of the Russo-Georgian disagreements, which would later lead to war and the "official" creation of Russia's previously-mentioned client states, Russia used regulation requirements to begin banning various Georgian goods, which at the time were alleged to be of inferior quality.
This leads us to today. The economic affairs advisor to the ambassador of Russia to Belarus, Andrei Kuznetsov had asserted in late May that Belarus had failed to pay all of its gas bills to the Russian gas companies. To those who study this question, this strikes a very familiar tone, because these are exactly the same types of assertions that led to so much animosity between Ukraine and Russia early this year and in late 2008.
In such an atmosphere, the allegations have started flying. If things go as they have in the past, Russia will soon "consider" cutting off the gas supply to Belarus, and Belarus has already started talking about stepping back from the open-trade zone between the two countries and re-imposing trade checkpoints on the border between the two countries.
There are many differences however between the situation and government in Ukraine and the possibility of difficulties with Russia in relation to the Lukashenko regime. Lukashenko's government, given the Belarusian president's more authoritarian regime and origins, and given Belarus's higher level of dependency on Russia, the effects of such a trade and gas war between the two countries is much more at issue. Some might even question Lukashenko's ability to personally survive such a standoff, keeping in mind his arguable position as Europe's last real dictator.
Ukraine always had the possibility of trading and playing Russia and the West off of each other, and thereby getting a higher level of concessions through arguing its points with both. Lukashenko and his Minsk regime have much less chance in doing this between Russia and the West.
Lukashenko, at many points in the past, has already thrown in his lot with Russia, even at one point proposing a Union of Russia and Belarus which even now still exists (at least for a theoretical future which is looking less and less certain) in some treaties between the two countries, and so now he must deal with Moscow on a level with much less bargaining power.
Should this standoff continue, we will have to wait and see how far the two countries are willing to go to press each other. Russia does not want to lose a close ally, it must be said, which she has always had in Lukashenko's loyal Belarusian regime.
Throughout the CIS and the CSTO, in opposing the expansion of NATO, the twin heads of Russia, former-President Vladimir Putin and current-President Dmitri Medvedev have always had a reliable Belarusian government to ward off the West in any sector as required. Almost without fail, whenever Russia wanted to set up some new security, economic, or civil arrangement, she always had Minsk to make it at least a two-country idea or collective.
From the western side, there is little doubt as to what should happen to the often-supposed "Europe's last dictator" if the opportunity arose. Lukashenko is no friend of the West in most, if not all, areas of international affairs and his loss would generate some degree of celebration in European and western capitals.
Both the Russian and Belarusian governments will have to ask themselves if milk and a gas bill are so important that they are willing to risk friendship and alliance in so many other areas, while, in opposition, the West can only wish for a clean break between the two allies which could and would open up the possibility of Lukashenko's eventual downfall and thereby perhaps create a quieter and more peaceful region.
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