What do you know about Belarus? Can you find it on a map? (You know, that piece of paper that never folded up right yet helped get us from here to there before GPS?) Anyway, Belarus is a country located in Eastern Europe, which you can’t easily get to by water. To access any navigable seaport, you have to first trudge through Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, or Latvia.

Students of history might be familiar with Belarus because of a couple of items of interest. One is the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident that occurred in 1986. While the plant itself was in Ukraine, most of the fallout apparently took place in Belarus. It seems that as the 21st century dawned, something on the order of 20% of Belarus’ land was still contaminated. Second, Minsk is the capital of the country, and scholars will remember that was the city where Lee Harvey Oswald (the assassin who shot John F. Kennedy) lived in the early 1960s.

When the Union of Soviet Socialists Republics (the USSR of folklore and fame) was founded a little over 100 years ago, Belorussian S.S.R. was one of the original republics. Joseph Stalin saw to it that Belarusians figuratively kissed his ring and did whatever he “suggested.” Sixty-some years later, when the Soviet republics began breaking away from the Union, Belarus rather reluctantly did so (perhaps because it seemed as if all the cool republics were doing it, but I don’t know for sure).

Since that burst of independence, Belarus has pretty much kept to itself. In 1994, strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenko began ruling basically by fiat, and he hasn’t stopped. What he says generally goes, and it’s really not prudent for anyone who values breathing to say a word in opposition. He controls the state police, the media, the army, and virtually everything else, and has a history of some significant human rights abuses. In other words, he’s your definitive despot.

Surprise alert! It seems his best buddy on the planet is none other than Vlad “The Mad” Putin. You might notice some similarities in their modus operandi. That’s not a coincidence. Belarus has been totally complicit in Russia’s ongoing “special military operation” in Ukraine. So much so, that just recently Mr. Lukashenko welcomed the arrival of Russian tactical nuclear weapons onto his soil. As a matter of fact, it was Putin who actually made the announcement that the nukes were already in place within Belarus’ borders. In his mind, the weapons are there as, “an element of deterrence so that all those who are thinking about inflicting a strategic defeat on us are not oblivious to this circumstance.” Meaning potential aggressors, I guess. (As in, the U.S. of A.?)

Lukashenko seemed quite pleased to tell the world that his new nukes were three times more powerful than the atomic bombs that ended the war with Japan in 1945. One caveat to the deal: Putin has already said he (well, Russia – but tomato, tomahto) will retain control of the weapons. I know that helps me sleep better at night.

Surely none of this weapon-moving has anything whatsoever to do with the fact that Putin’s two-day war is now some 15 or 16 months long and shows no end in sight. But the presence of some serious firepower next door to Ukraine is why you might now start to hear more and more about Belarus.

Back in the mid-1960s, the great satirist Tom Lehrer sang a little ditty entitled, “Who’s Next?” It was all about which nations were getting “the Bomb.” The lyrics started with, “First we got the bomb but that was good, ’cause we love peace and motherhood. Then Russia got the bomb but that’s okay, ’cause the balance of power’s maintained that way.” The song went on to mention other countries such as France, China, Indonesia, South Africa (which “wants two, that’s right, one for the Black and one for the White” in those apartheid days), and Israel.

In Lehrer’s inimitable style, the clever patter sounded funny. Nowadays, with the regime in Pyongyang in the nuclear mix, perhaps he might rhyme North Korea with something such as, “If you launch one, we’ll see-ya.” Unfortunately, though, I’m not sure he could fit all the nations that have fingers on the launch buttons into one short song, let alone with lyrics that might be entertaining.

So far, Vlad says he has no intention of using the newly-located firepower. And surely his marionette in Minsk wouldn’t do anything foolish. Would he? Hey, Putin definitely wants to change the map.

©MMXXIII. William J. Lewis, III – Freelance Writer