Well that's interesting, in a "excuse me while I go change my underwear" sort of way:
President Vladimir Putin has more than five years left in office, but he must already contemplate his next move. The transition among Russia’s leaders is seldom smooth, so Putin is looking at ways to ensure his continued influence by forging a closer union with neighboring Belarus. ...
The Russian constitution allows a president to serve only two consecutive terms. In 2008, rather than change the law and be ridiculed as the equal of Central Asian dictators, Putin ceded the presidency to a close ally, Dmitry Medvedev. ... Simply going into retirement in 2024 is an even scarier option: Putin could never be certain of any personal security guarantees his successor might provide.
That makes the Belarus deal especially attractive.
In America, retirement advisors might put your hopes in an Individual Retirement Account. In cut-throat Russia, the IRA is way different.
I had assumed Putin would simply declare whatever office he holds to be the supreme office of the land.
But this move would restore a crucial part of the empire and extend Putin's rule, perhaps indefinitely.
Given the new National Guard Putin set up as his personal army, I wouldn't give Belarus much chance of maintaining any fiction of autonomy in that Anschluss. So it seems self evidently a bad deal for Belarus. I was always amazed that the relatively Russified Belarus broke away after 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed. Would Belarus give up that hard-won independence to join a rickety empire just as it embarks on a Viking funeral ride?
If Putin does take over Belarus it would really deepen that feeling of an inter-war vibe (even if Putin plays the sidekick role) I've periodically gotten.
And since Belarus is perhaps the most important territory in Europe today, Russia in control of Belarus will rather cement a new Cold War with NATO. Which I'd rather not do given that Russia and America should worry about China the most.
In the long run any territory Russia gains in the west at the price of making peaceful coexistence with NATO far more difficult will be more than offset by losses in the east. Right now, as I mentioned in this Military Review article about United States Army options in the Asia-Pacific region, an American army might be the only ground force capable of helping Russia hold their Far East if China gets as eager to reclaim former imperial land there as Russia is in the west.
Has Putin decided on death or glory with that poor country taken along for the ride? But hey, if Putin can retire in safety, what's a lot more danger for Russia than Putin has already engineered?
Have a super sparkly day. #WhyRussiaCan'tHaveNiceThings
