24 August 2020

The West's Role in Belarus

by William Courtney and Michael Haltzel

Belarus may be moving to the verge of political change. Mass demonstrations and labor strikes protesting President Alexander Lukashenko's re-election, which is widely seen as fraudulent, along with police brutality are powering the shift. Whether any transition is peaceful and improves governance may depend in part on the West. If allowed to help, the West might facilitate dialogue and a stable power transfer while defusing geopolitical risks.…

The remainder of this commentary is available at realclearworld.com.

William Courtney is an adjunct senior fellow at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation and was U.S. ambassador to Kazakhstan, Georgia, and a U.S.-Soviet commission to implement the Threshold Test Ban Treaty. Michael Haltzel, Chairman of the Transatlantic Leadership Network and Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute at Johns Hopkins University, is former European Policy Advisor to then-Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr.

This commentary originally appeared on RealClearWorld on August 17, 2020. Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis.

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