Europe, North America, Power & Security, Russia Transatlantic Relations - What's Next? | What Can Countries Like Belarus and Moldova Teach the Transatlantic Community About the Future of Western Politics?

What Can Countries Like Belarus and Moldova Teach the Transatlantic Community About the Future of Western Politics?

In March 2016, Belarus’s dictator, President Aleksandr Lukashenko, addressed the geopolitical forces dividing his country. “If the partners which we’re in dialogue with try to insist that we have to choose between Russia, Poland, or the E.U., we don’t want to be put in this position,” he said. At that moment, Belarus, closely aligned with Moscow, was in talks with the Washington, D.C.–based International Monetary Fund for a $3 billion loan to bolster its currency reserves in exchange for implementing a raft of liberal economic reforms.

Read Mitchell Orenstein's piece in Transatlantic Relations - What's Next? in full >>

Mitchell Orenstein is a Professor of Russian and East European studies at the University of Pennsylvania and a Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. His new book, The Lands in Between: Russia vs. the West and the New Politics of Hybrid War, was released in May 2019 by Oxford University Press.