Belarus - USA relations. Security context

It seems that U.S. president Barack Obama has indeed decided to put denuclearization at the heart of his presidency. At least, at a Munich conference US Vice President Joe Biden repeated all the key points of the previous administration’s policies toward Iran, so nothing has changed compared to George W. Bush’s times. Moreover, Obama seems to be serious about launching the most ambitious arms reductions talks with Russia, aiming to reduce each country’s stockpile of nuclear weapons by 80 per cent. The Times report that the treaty would cut the number of nuclear warheads to 1,000 each.

But will this bring stability to the world, when there are a number of other nuclear weapons states that would not participate in the arms reductions, with some of them not even parties of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty? The United States and Russia are no longer two main nuclear superpowers which alone can provide international stability. The number of nuclear states has been growing, and there are 'unregistered' ones among them. States alleged to have nuclear weapons include Israel, Iran and Syria. Even Ukraine has recently come under suspicion.

Now as we see Ukraine blackmailing Europe and claiming that it possesses nuclear weapons, it is quite clear that giving up the Central European Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone was a fairly bad idea. In complete accordance with the forecasts made by Belarusian diplomats and military specialists, abandoning the denuclearization of Central Europe has led to growing instability in the region and undermined the cooperation between Russia and Europe. Today, as the President Barack Obama has put non-proliferation and WMD reduction issues back on the agenda, it is the right time to revive this project. At least that could become the basis for an intensified Belarus-USA dialogue at the higher level.

Specializing in Europe-Russia relations, CIS and Central and Eastern Europe, I have recently paid a lot of attention to the intensification of Belarus-EU and Belarus-US dialogue. That is why I find it relevant to make public the results of a number of discussions organized and regularly held by the Belarusian development group («Белорусская группа развития») – a non-registered non-governmental think-tank uniting a number of Belarusian experts, scholars and analysts. They've decided to go back to the history of Belarus-US relations to find the basis for a new Belarus-US agenda, which may give us an opportunity to look from a new angle at the American relations with the whole region, with both Europe and Russia.

Next goes the first part of the text.

Introduction

Following the memorable statement of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the Republic of Belarus is the "last dictatorship in Europe" the U.S. political establishment stamped the country with the stigma of "the missing chain" in George W. Bush's "axis of evil". However, other terms and policies, adopted by the administration of the 43nd President of the United States, among them fighting against "islamo-fascism", have already proved to be harmful and counter-productive. That makes one doubt the justness of the U.S. view of Belarus.

Our analysis is based on assumption that the contemporary U.S. policy toward Belarus is influenced by the following factors:
1. There is almost total ignorance of the actual situation in Belarus in the U.S. society, even among American experts;
2. While the passive majority of the society is ignorant about Belarus, the decisive role belongs to the active and biased minority;
3. The U.S. administration would not abandon declared goals of "moral condemnation" and "democracy promotion", even as the George W. Bush's foreign policy has been declared a failure;
4. The key factor that determines the U.S. position on Belarus is their view of relations with Russia, as Belarus has always been perceived in the United States as a small territory fully dependent on Moscow.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union a group of new countries emerged in the region. The United States were keen to expand their influence on all of them, including Belarus. In July 1993 the U.S. President Bill Clinton welcomed Stanislav Shushkevich, the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Republic of Belarus, in White House and in his turn visited Belarusian capital Minsk next year.

However, a few years later the situation drastically changed. In March 1997 the United States announced a policy of "selective engagement" with Belarus on issues of U.S. national interests and "very limited dealings" on other issues. The official position in the U.S.A. was that Belarus had become increasingly authoritarian and thus poses a threat to the international security and the well-being of the countries of the Eastern Europe. But this formula ignores at least a number of important issues and actually brings the US diplomacy further away from a realistic approach to building the relations with Belarus. Among the most important and increasingly urgent of those issues are non-proliferation and denuclearization.

WMD issue – the basis for a new US-Belarus dialogue?

In fact, solely on its own expense Belarus dismantled more conventional arms in the framework of the CFE Treaty than the United States, the United Kingdom and France put together. What is more important, Belarus renounced the USSR nuclear legacy without conditions and revived the project of a nuclear-weapon-free zone (NWFZ) in Eastern Europe.

Disarmament

After the collapse of the Soviet Union Belarus was left with eighty-one land mobile SS-25 “Sickle” intercontinental ballistic missiles and other nuclear weapons on its soil, which automatically made it a nuclear power along with Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. However, the country's Declaration of State Sovereignty declared Belarus to be a nuclear-free state and the country was determined to achieve the objective of nuclear disarmament. The same pledge was written into the country's Constitution:

"In its foreign policy the Republic of Belarus shall proceed from the principles of the equality of states, the non-use or the threat of force, the inviolability of frontiers, the peaceful settlement of disputes, non-interference in internal affairs of states and other universally acknowledged principles and standards of international law. The Republic of Belarus pledges itself to make its territory a neutral, nuclear-free state". (Constitution of the Republic of Belarus, Article 18)

In May 1992 Belarus signed the Lisbon Protocol to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and agreed to destroy or turn over to Russia all strategic nuclear warheads on its territory. Unlike Kazakhstan, Belarus never hesitated about retaining the nuclear weapons.

On February 4, 1993, after several months of efforts aimed at providing international guarantees of Belarus' security and international financing to carry out the liquidation of the nuclear warheads the republic's Supreme Council ratified the START I Treaty. Belarus deposited an instrument of accession to the NPT as a non-nuclear weapon state on July 22, 1993 in Washington. The Head of Belarusian State Stanislav Shushkevich presented the instrument of accession to President Clinton during a meeting in the White House's Oval Office.

By mid-1993 Belarus had disposed of all tactical nuclear weapons within its territory. As for the strategic nuclear weapons, they were to be removed by 1995, but there was little hope of meeting this deadline because of financial problems. However, the matter was settled by the end of 1996. A total of 63 out of the initial 81 single-warhead mobile SS-25 "Topol" missiles had been withdrawn by July 1996, while the rest were dismantled and transferred to Russia in late November, 1996.

Thus, Belarus made an outstanding contribution to international efforts of strengthening regional and global security and stability. The accession of Belarus to the NPT has also created opportunities for this country to take part in the international cooperation for the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

At that time the United States were supporting Belarusian government's moves. Belarus' adherence to the NPT came at a time when cooperation on nonproliferation became a central element in the entire post-Cold War structure of international security. The document is the cornerstone of the international nuclear nonproliferation regime. Naturally, the NPT is of great importance to the United States and its success was and remains crucial to the U.S. national security. At the Budapest Summit of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) held on December 5, 1994, the United States sent a positive incentive to the Government of Belarus by signing along with the Russian Federation and the United Kingdom a Joint Declaration containing a Memorandum on Security Assurances for Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine in connection with all three states' accession to the NPT. Thus Washington provided positive security assurances to Belarus and pledged

"to refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to its own interest the exercise by the Republic of Belarus of the rights inherent in its sovereignty and thus secure advantages of any kind"(Chapter 3 of the Budapest Memorandum, signed by President Bill Clinton).

The NWFZ project

The project of the NWFZ actively promoted by Belarus, however, was not welcomed by the international community and especially by the United States.

Belarus proposed it even before becoming an independent state, submitting an initiative to create the NWFZ to the United Nations in 1990. The zone was to cover territories of the three Baltic states, Belarus and Ukraine from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea.

At the UN Conference on Disarmament on April 18, 1995, Belarus commended the creation of an ad hoc committee on the cut-off of fissile materials production and expressed hope that it would work on the problem of existing stockpiles of weapons-grade fissile material. On October 17, 1995, Belarus noted that elaboration and signing of a legally binding treaty on prohibition of fissile material production for nuclear weapons is among its high priorities. Belarus welcomed the initiative of the five nuclear weapons states to adopt the UN Security Council Resolution 984 (1995) granting positive security assurances to non-nuclear weapon states, but also called for a timely resolution guaranteeing both positive and negative assurances in a legally binding framework.

On July 3, 1996, the President of Belarus called for the creation of a Central European NWFZ. The statement marked the beginning of a new diplomatic effort by Belarus aimed at advancing the NWFZ concept. The goals of the NWFZ were to further the disarmament process, especially for weapons of mass destruction, to reduce the possibility of nuclear confrontation in Europe, to improve trust and security within Europe and to strengthen European security through U.S. and Russian support of a NWFZ agreement. Belarus suggested several options for the legal framework of the NWFZ, including unilateral guarantees by non-nuclear states not to deploy nuclear weapons on their territories, which could be reinforced by nuclear states such as the United States and Russia. The NWFZ would not deny the new NATO member states the right to self-defense, especially since modern missiles carrying nuclear warheads could protect them from a distance.

A few days later, on July 11, 1996, the Belarusian parliament passed an "Appeal to European Parliaments and Peoples" calling for the creation of a NWFZ in Central Europe. In this document the parliament expressed

"serious concern over the fact that NATO's eastward expansion is actually ruining the balance and alignment of forces that developed in the course of the Yalta Agreements in 1945, posing a threat of escalating international tension in the center of Europe and actually increasing the risk of nuclear confrontation."

On December 3, 1996, the Permanent Mission of Belarus to the IAEA made a statement that the removal of all nuclear weapons from Belarusian territory constitutes a solid basis for establishing a Central European Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone (NWFZ). Considering Belarus a de facto NWFZ, the Belarusian Mission stated that a legally secured NWFZ would reduce international tensions created by NATO expansion and potential NATO members willing "to accommodate NATO nuclear weapons on their territories."

However, on January 30, 1997, NATO Secretary General Javier Solana sent Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko a letter saying that NATO member states would be unable to support Lukashenko's proposal to create a Central and Eastern European NWFZ. Solana stated that although NATO had no intention to deploy nuclear weapons on the territories of its new members, its nuclear policy would not change.

In March 1998, Foreign Affairs Ministry of Belarus stated that President Lukashenko repeated his call for creation of a NWFZ in Central Europe at the upcoming meetings of the UN General Assembly, the UN Disarmament Commission, and the OSCE Permanent Council. "After withdrawing the missiles Belarus created a de facto nuclear free zone in Central and Eastern Europe and an international accord should be concluded to establish this space de jure", said a representative of the Foreign Ministry of Belarus. In this statement Belarus also urged NATO to change its character from a military alliance to a primarily political organization.

Although these efforts of Belarus were not successful, it remained committed to its obligations of a nuclear-free country. In an interview with a Lithuanian journalist on April 8, 1999, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that Belarus had no need for nuclear weapons to defend the country. During his New Year's Day speech on January 1, 2001, Belarusian President promised that Belarus will continue to fulfill its international commitments and is not considering the return of nuclear weapons to Belarus. According to Lukashenko, there was no link between this issue and NATO enlargement plans. At the same time, Lukashenko spoke in favor of closer cooperation with Russia in the area of security policy, and expressed regret that Belarusian proposals to create a nuclear weapon-free zone in Central and Eastern Europe were not supported by other European countries.

To be continued...