Minsk updated key documents in the sphere of national security...

This week, Belarus approved two important documents: the Military Doctrine and the National Security Concept. The doctrine for the first time spells out the purpose of deploying Russian tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of the country. They are seen as ‘an important component of preventive deterrence of potential adversaries from unleashing armed aggression’ against Belarus. The Belarusian authorities will perceive the deployment of nuclear weapons in the territory of neighboring countries, which pursue ‘unfriendly policies’ against Minsk, as a ‘military threat’. The authorities of Poland are thinking about hosting American nuclear weapons. At the same time, they present this measure, among other things, as a reaction to the appearance of nuclear weapons in Belarus.

The All-Belarusian People's Assembly this week unanimously approved the country's new Military Doctrine and National Security Concept. They will replace similar documents from 2016 and 2010, respectively. Presenting the updated documents to the assembly, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said: ‘They reflect the key changes in the global military and political situation, national views on maintaining international peace and stability, ensuring the military security of our country and its armed defence.’

‘Tectonic changes in the system of world politics and economy have exacerbated existing contradictions and catalysed the destruction of the unipolar model of the world order. The current balance of military and political forces is characterised by the confrontation between the collective West, led by the United States, and other geopolitical centres of power,’ says one of the first chapters of this document, ’In an effort to maintain its hegemony, the collective West, disregarding the interests of other states, is trying to control the resources of the entire planet. This provokes acute confrontation in the system of international relations and contributes to unbalancing the existing mechanisms of checks and balances in the military sphere.

The ‘inevitable breakdown of the unipolar world order’, as the doctrine further notes, increases the likelihood of ‘a direct military clash between the subjects of international relations’. ‘This may lead to the outbreak of war with the participation of most states of the planet, including the use of weapons of mass destruction,’ the authors of the document do not rule out.

Several passages of the new Military Doctrine of Belarus are devoted to NATO. According to the Belarusian authorities, the North Atlantic Alliance ‘actually acts as an instrument of expansion and contributes to the establishment of American control over the European continent. The U.S. and Britain, the document says, through NATO limit ‘the European Union's ability to pursue an independent policy’ and encourage ‘regional ambitions of individual European states.’ ‘The consequence of such steps is an increase in the aggressiveness of the policy of the leadership of Poland and the Baltic States, their formation of an enemy image of the Republic of Belarus to serve their domestic political interests, their active militarization with simultaneous attempts to unjustifiably accuse the Republic of Belarus of escalating the situation,’ the doctrine says. The 2016 document did not mention NATO directly at all.

There is another important element in the new doctrine, which was absent in the previous version: the provision on the deployment of Russian nuclear weapons on the territory of Belarus.

This measure, the document says, is seen as ‘an important component of preventive deterrence of potential adversaries from unleashing armed aggression’ and ‘is a forced response’ to the actions of Western countries.

In 2016, the Belarusian authorities considered one of their tasks to be ‘providing full assistance to the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, their components and production technologies, reduction and limitation of nuclear missile weapons.’

Soviet nuclear weapons were stored in Belarus until 1996. President Lukashenko publicly asked his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin for its return in June 2022. The Belarusian leader cited the fact that U.S. nuclear bombs are stored at bases in several European countries and urged his Russian counterpart to ‘consider a mirror response.’ Vladimir Putin agreed. Six months later, the two sides announced they were proceeding with the plan. In March 2023, Vladimir Putin announced that Russia had transferred the Iskander-M complex to Belarus and helped to re-equip Belarusian aircraft for missions involving nuclear warheads. At the same time, he said that a special storage facility for nuclear warheads was being completed in Belarus.

In July 2023, Alexander Lukashenko announced that nuclear weapons had already been delivered to his country and boasted that it had been done ‘in such a way that no one in the West noticed’. Recently, the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) released a report on the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus: experts believe that a warehouse near the town of Osipovichi, Mogilev Oblast, has been modernized for this purpose. However, the FAS cannot say with certainty that nuclear warheads have already been placed there, although Western officials are already talking about it publicly.

Speaking at the All-Belarusian People's Assembly, Alexander Lukashenko said that in 1996 he ‘had’ to sign a document on the removal of Soviet nuclear arsenals from the territory of Belarus (they were moved to Russia). ‘If I had to make a decision then, we would never have removed strategic nuclear weapons from the territory of Belarus. It was the most powerful arsenal. We wouldn't have needed any other modern weapons. But it was decided before me at the request of the Americans,’ he said.

The Belarusian president stressed that he saw no need for the return of strategic nuclear weapons to the territory of his country.

‘We are not going to go to war with America... Well, tactical weapons are out of the question - they must be on the territory of Belarus. And since we were also listed as co-aggressors, Putin and I being ‘the world's main enemies and aggressors’, the leadership of the Russian Federation, comparing all the facts, made a decision - I stress again, at my insistence, and not because they wanted to create a nuclear weapons base here - to return a certain amount of nuclear weapons to us. I will not name the numbers, I have already told you: several dozen of the most modern nuclear warheads,’ he said.

The main threat to Belarus, as follows from the speech of Alexander Lukashenko, comes from Poland and the Baltic States, arming themselves, according to the President, ‘to the teeth.