THEY ‘WON.’ NOW WHAT?

Registan.net, WA
Jan 15 2007

President Lukashenka was able to score a major concession from Russia
in getting it to reduce export duties on oil transiting Belarus.

While it looks like a significant victory-other instances of Gazprom
relaxing fees seemed far more calculated-Lukashenka is actually in
a desperately weak position. Commonly derided as "the last dictator
in Europe," he has made Belarus an economic backwater, highlighted
the farce of his election-equivalents, and as one of the few serious
human rights violators west of the Urals has few friends. So what now?

There are larger implications for the oil spat. In 2003, years before
its own gas crisis with Russia, Ukraine had made a half-hearted stab
at diversifying oil routes on the southwest corner of Russia: the
Odessa-Brody pipeline. It was partially sunk by Kazakhstan choosing to
funnel its oil through the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan pipeline, going further
south to the Mediterranean rather than north around the Black Sea and
into Poland. Dealing a death blow was Russia essentially dictating
that the pipe flow south, rather than north: a complete reversal of
the geopolitical coup it was meant to strike in the first place. Though
late in 2005 the EU decided to invest in the OB line, nothing concrete
had taken place. It’s only been in recent months that Ukraine’s desire
to gain some independence from Russian energy policy has made sense,
now that the discontent with Moscow’s bullying is widespread.

Georgia’s spats with Russia have increased, too, from the recent
tangerine embargo to the more momentous decision to buy natural gas
from Azerbaijan, at the same time Azerbaijan began its own supply
games with Moscow. Across the Caucasus, countries are trying to band
together to form alternatives to Russian projects.

Of course, these alternatives aren’t without problems: Turkey and
Azerbaijan have decided to circumvent Armenia in their new railway.

Both are mad at the Armenians over the status of Nagorno-Karabakh,
a region with a majority of ethnic Armenians, occupied by Armenia,
but officially part of Azerbaijan (Turkey also still hasn’t quite
gotten over its little genocide thing 90 years back). The situation
is enough of a slap to have U.S. diplomats worried. More broadly,
there remain simmering tensions throughout the region; each state,
including Turkey, has major problems with unrest and separatism.

In other words, no one, at least no one serious, is predicting some
kind of Unified Caucasus acting in opposition to Moscow. But it
will be interesting to see how Lukashenka’s latest ploy eventually
reverberates through the Near Abroad. The CIS has chafed under Russian
membership, and multiple revolutions to throw out Moscow-approved
leaders in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan have hinted at the depth
of such discontent. It has also inspired a fresh wave of pro-Western
politiking, at least in Kazakhstan, and weakened the rule of both
Karimov in Uzbekistan and Lukashenka in Belarus.

Karimov is in no particular danger of falling any time soon. But in
Lukashenka’s case, he has managed to alienate his only friend-Putin.

Without Moscow’s strong support, Belarus’ economy won’t thrive. Nor
will the EU swoop in to save him. No one west of Kaliningrad much
cares for Belarus. If this latest crisis wasn’t the exact downfall
of Lukashenka, I think we can at least start the clock from this point.

He is permanently weakened, further delegitimized at home, and caught
out in a bad way regionally. My only big question is: will this be a
"soft" collapse with a reasonably smooth transition into other better
governance, or will Belarus simply swap tyrants?