Belarus’ Warning About Using Nukes Probably Isn’t A Bluff (But There Might Be A Catch)

Lukashenko spoke only about a conventional invasion of his country by NATO, not an unconventional attack of the sort that he warned about earlier in the year with regard to Lithuanian- and Polish-based anti-government militants.

Lukashenko said that “an attack against Belarus will trigger World War III. Recently, Vladimir Putin has confirmed it having amended the nuclear doctrine. An attack on Russia and Belarus will trigger a nuclear response. He confirmed what I said. It was the main point of my statement. As soon as they attack us (NATO is still NATO. Americans and Poles are already lined up along the border, especially the Polish border. We know that the Polish leadership is already rubbing their hands), we use nuclear weapons.”

He added that “Russia will defend us. If we use nuclear weapons, they will do the same. And against Russia too. So Russia will use the entire arsenal of weapons. This will be a world war. The West does not want this. They are not ready for it. We tell them openly: the red line is the state border. You step on it, we will respond immediately. We are preparing for this. I am talking this openly and honestly. There are certain boundaries, limits. We need to negotiate with Ukrainians, we need to stop this war.”

This follows Putin explicit confirming what was already self-evident about Russia’s nuclear doctrine as explained here and comes amidst worries that Ukraine might be gearing up to invade Belarus’ southeastern city of Gomel just like it invaded Russia’s Kursk Region over the summer. Russia had earlier carried out tactical nuclear weapons exercises with Belarus and given Minsk the authority to use them at its discretion. Lukashenko therefore probably isn’t bluffing, but there might be an important catch.

The Belarusian leader spoke only about a conventional invasion of his country by NATO, not an unconventional attack of the sort that he warned about earlier in the year with regard to Lithuanian- and Polish-based anti-government militants. He also claimed back in spring to have thwarted drone attacks from Lithuania. The combination of militants and drones attacking Belarus from NATO territory but without conventional support from the bloc therefore might not cross the threshold for using nukes.

Unlike Russia, however, Belarus would be compelled to use nukes in the event of a conventional invasion a la Kursk since it only has approximately 60,000 troops, one-third of which are deployed along the Ukrainian border to counter the whopping 120,000 that Lukashenko claimed Kiev already dispatched there. Meanwhile, Poland exploited the pretext of stopping illegal immigrant invasions from Belarus to send 10,000 troops to the frontier over the summer, which is less than 5% of its total 216,000 personnel.

Accordingly, Belarus could very easily be overwhelmed if it’s conventionally invaded by Ukraine and/or Poland, hence why it would have to resort to nuclear weapons in that scenario. Russia also knows this as well, thus accounting for its updated nuclear doctrine explicitly stating that large-scale conventional strikes against its mutual defense ally could result in it employing such a response. If Belarus fell, Russia’s national security would be greatly degraded, which is why it couldn’t afford this happening.

Western policymakers should therefore take Lukashenko’s warning about using nuclear weapons very seriously. It’s extremely unlikely that he’s bluffing because the threats that they pose to his country are literally existential. Russia authorized him to use nukes at his discretion because it wants to deter the West from invading its mutual defense ally, which could be preceded by a large-scale conventional strike that severs those two’s military communications and prevents Putin from passing along this order.

Lukashenko warned in mid-August that Ukraine wants to provoke Russia into using nukes, the rationale of which was analyzed here, but now he’s placed in a situation where Ukraine could provoke him to use nukes instead if it invades. Hawkish elements of the US’ permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) might want to set this escalation sequence in motion to either help Kamala ahead of the elections or sabotage Trump’s peace efforts if he wins.

From their perspective, Belarus and/or Russia’s use of nukes in Ukraine would be much less likely to lead to World War III than if they used them against NATO. It could also create the pretext for a Polish-led NATO intervention in Ukraine on the grounds of responding to a nuclear disaster in a remix of the scenario that Duda and Zelensky are cooking up as was explained here. “Escalating to de-escalate” as they’d see it is a very risky policy since a lot could go wrong, however, so hopefully they think twice.