And it is up to the Belarusian nation who would become the new president of Belarus. It has been stated in an interview to BelaPAN by the leader of “European Belarus” campaign, a candidate for presidency in Belarus Andrei Sannikov. Radio Svaboda offers citations from the interview of the politician. “The situation in Belarus is [...]

Continued from “Iran: Belarus’s Biggest Friend” Belarus has shown its willingness to cooperate with Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, and Venezuela, just to name a few. Not surprisingly, Belarus has been mentioned by U.S. officials as a country with flagrant human rights violations, a lack of democratic institutions, and suspicious business transactions. In the mid-1990s, UN [...]

Continued from “President Lukashenka: ‘Trade volume with Zambia is unprecedentedly low.’” The Islamic Republic of Iran became the next big friend of Belarus after Saddam Hussein’s regime fell in 2003. Iranian and Belarusian officials had met before the second Iraq war: In June 2002, while meeting with the chair of the Iranian Parliament, Mehdi Karroubi, [...]

Continued from “Belarus: Befriending the Axis of Terror” When the Belarusian president met with the Zambian ambassador in March 2001, he stressed that both countries needed to increase trade levels. Belarus, located in the heart of Europe, was becoming increasingly interested in economic and diplomatic cooperation with various African states. A few months after meeting [...]

Since early 1990s, the Belarusian government actively has been establishing diplomatic, military, and economic relationships with foreign countries. Interestingly, although Belarus is located in the heart of Europe, it has shown special attention to African and Middle Eastern countries. Specifically, the Belarusian government has focused development of its diplomatic, military, and economic efforts on Iraq, [...]

The Model I, II, and III are different in type of questions they pose, perspectives, approaches and possible outcomes. However different though, together they provide a fuller picture because upon a closer look they could be logically linked together. Model I shows that Belarus is strategically positioned to take advantage of its status as a [...]

Model III questions: Model III looks and analyzes individuals and attempts to predict outcomes or possible course of action based on this analysis. a) Whose opinion and views really count in making a particular economic or political decision? Considering that incumbent Belarusian President remains in power for 14 years (as of 2008), it should be [...]

Model II questions: While Model I focuses more on a broader picture, Model II attempts to look at organizational traits that shape and produce opinions, perceptions and courses of action. a) What organization/factor plays the biggest role in Belarus? It appears to be the Soviet Union. Certainly Soviet Union does not exist, yet its legacy [...]

In an attempt to create a complete picture with circumstances, factors and motives that underline Belarus’ energy policies and create grounds for future developments, this discussion will adopt and follow three conceptual models and corresponding questions presented and developed by Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow (1999) in their book “Essence of Decision. Explaining the Cuban [...]

Being Anchored by the Image of Soviet Success In the atmosphere of general chaos that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union and suffering from distorted trade links and unsecured currency, the image of Belarus as one of the most stable and successful republic saw a blowing crash. Unable to get public support for painful [...]