Poland Should Accept Belarus’ Proposal For Mutual Military Inspections But Probably Won’t

Entering into a rapprochement with Belarus along the lines of what the US is reportedly working towards would prevent Poland’s ruling duopoly from playing the Russian card against one another during elections and nullify the imperative behind its large-scale military buildup.

Belarus offered an olive branch to Poland amidst the US’ reported attempt to repair ties with Minsk by proposing mutual military inspections 80 kilometers deep inside one another’s border. The purpose is to rebuild lost trust, alleviate their security dilemma that worsened over the last three years, and ideally lay the basis for their own rapprochement that could follow the US’ attempted ones with Russia and Belarus. Here’s what its International Military Cooperation Department head Valery Revenko just said:

“We have informed our neighbors via the OSCE communication network that we are ready to conduct activities within the framework of regional confidence-and security-building measures under the Vienna Document 2011. This means that we are ready for negotiations, for visits to military units <...> and for mutual inspections. Both on the territory of Belarus and Poland within an 80-kilometer zone.

Poland can see for itself that we are oriented towards peace, ready for dialogue and cooperation…(This is) a kind of test and an indicator of Poland’s policy. If our neighbor to the west is ready for these activities, then we will also be able to understand that their policy is one of peace and aimed at finding compromises and establishing good neighborliness, good dialogue.”

Here are five background briefings for readers to review before proceeding:

* 21 July 2023: “The Latest Polish-Belarusian Border Tensions Actually Advance Both Of Their Interests”

* 12 August 2023: “What’s Behind Lukashenko’s Surprise Proposal For A Belarusian-Polish Rapprochement?”

* 13 May 2024: “Poland’s Border Fortification Buildup Has Nothing To Do With Legitimate Threat Perceptions”

* 19 July 2024: “Why’d Poland Rebuff Belarus’ Proposal To Resolve Their Border Problems?”

* 26 December 2024: “The West’s Next Anti-Russian Provocation Might Be To Destabilize & Invade Belarus”

They show that Belarus already extended two olive branches to Poland during prior border tensions.

Each was rejected, just like this one likely will be even though Poland should take Belarus up on its third offer, because the ruling duopoly benefits from fearmongering about their tensions. There’s no desire on the current liberal-globalist coalition’s part or the former (very imperfect) conservative government’s to enter into a rapprochement with Belarus. Doing so would prevent them from playing the Russian card against one another during elections and nullify the reason behind Poland’s historic military buildup.

It's a pity that Poland doesn’t have a truly patriotic leadership because otherwise they’d take this opportunity in a heartbeat to get ahead of their Western European competitors, especially Germany, as the nascent Russian-US “New Détente” transforms global affairs. Instead of voluntarily remaining in a position of weakness whereby it continues reacting to others’ moves, Poland could proactively shape these processes in the direction of its objective national interests through this way.

To explain, Poland could be at the center of the inevitable Russian-EU rapprochement that’ll follow sometime after the Russian-US one if it was the first to repair its ties with Belarus and Russia, after which it can profit from facilitating the EU’s trade with them and China too. That could speed up multipolar processes and hasten the rise of inter-civilizational cooperation in the global systemic transition but will regrettably not happen due to the ruling Polish duopoly’s politically driven obstructionism.