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60FOREIGN POLICY OF CIS ВНЕШНЯЯ ПОЛИТИКА СТРАН СНГ
Research article / Научная статья
Belarus 2020: The Strategic Logic of Regime Change in the New Cold War
Greg Simons
Ural Federal University, Yekaterinburg, Russia Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
Abstract. Events in Belarus erupted quickly from just before the election and have continued in the wake of it, carrying the hallmarks of a Colour Revolution-typology of an attempt at regime change. This comes at a time of heightened tensions between the West and Russia within the framework of the branded international relations event known as the New Cold War, which has the additional context of a transformation of the global order away from a US-centric unipolar configuration. The information realm political discourse by Western public information sources is studied to see how the information realm is manipulated to shape the cognitive realm of the various target groups to affect their perceptions, opinions and decision-making. The end state being to create a relative military and political advantage to the attacker over the defender and the allies of the defender.
Key words: New Cold War, Belarus, geopolitics, regime change, subversion, hybrid warfare
For citation: Simons G. Belarus 2020: The Strategic Logic of Regime Change in the New Cold War. Postsovetskie issledovaniya = Post-Soviet Studies. 2021;4(3):250-259.
Беларусь 2020: Стратегическая логика смены режима в новой Холодной
войне
Г. Симонс
Уральский федеральный университет, Екатеринбург, Россия Университет Уппсала, Уппсала, Швеция
Аннотация. События в Белоруссии начали стремительно развиваться накануне и сразу после президентских выборов, сочетая в себе все характерные признаки Цветной революции, ориентированной на смену режима. Все это происходит на фоне роста напряжённости в международных отношениях, в частности, между Россией и странами Запада, что всё более напоминает новую холодную войну, дополненную явлением в виде размывания американоцен-тричного мипопорядка. В рамках исследования рассматривается информационное пространство стран Запада. Задача - изучить манипулятивный фактор информационной повестки, призванный сформировать у целевой аудитории соответствующие видение проблемы, мнение и дискурсные подходы. Конечная задача заключается в создании военно-политического преимущества атакующей стороны перед защищающейся стороной и её союзниками.
Ключевые слова: Новая Холодная война, Беларусь, геополитика, смена режима, подрывная деятельность, гибридная война.
Для цитирования: Симонс Г. Беларусь 2020: Стратегическая логика смены режима в Новой холодной войне Постсоветские исследования. 2021;4(3):250-259.
Introduction
Ideology is alive and well in 21st century global politics and geopolitics. Van Dijk (1995: 284) defines ideology as "socially shared, value-based framework of fundamental evaluative propositions developed and used by social groups within societal structures." There is a
logic to the use of discourse to shape the perception, opinions and behaviours of bystanders and participants in warfare, which includes subversion. As the 20th century came to a close with US global hegemony uncontested, it created the opportunity and motivation to spread its global
influence, the excesses of which have led to the Global War on Terror and the Forever Wars.
Not all warfare is direct, the 21st century has witnessed an increase in the use of covert subversive operations against targeted governments (for regime change) to gain a relative advantage in power and influence over adversaries. Examples of this style of 'hybrid' warfare were seen in the branded cascading regime changes of the Colour Revolutions and the Arab Spring. Warfare is an extension of politics, but it does not need to be waged from a rational logic, it can also be waged on the basis vanity and other forms of emotional origins [Harbaugh 2013]. This can create a great deal of volatility and unpredictability that increases risks and hazards when engaging in warfare by the logic of vanity and faulty assumptions, which was visualised by the 2008 Georgian-Russian War.
This paper focuses on the current 'unrest' taking place in Belarus after the 2020 presidential elections from the perspective of the strategic logic of regime change in the era of the so-called New Cold War. It is an example of subversion that has similarities to previous historical attempts of regime change, which possesses a significant informational element that is intended to shape the perception of audiences to support the process by attempting cognitively restrict the defender while cognitively unrestric-tive to the operational methods of the attacker. The research question is, how is this process managed discursively in the global public information space?
There are four sections to this paper. The first section concerns the subject of developing an understanding how a target government is subverted by another actor. In the following section, the transforming global order and the New Cold War is detailed as a context to understanding the context for events in Belarus. The third section provides the reader with the method and approach used in analysing and evaluating the data collected. In the fourth section, the case study of the attempted foreign-supported subversion of Belarus in 2020 with the collected Western open-source mass mediated material to understand the projected logic and the approach used to try and subvert the Belarusian government with a Colour Revolution-type event.
Subverting Another Government
Subversion is the ability of an attacking actor to overthrow an existing government using overwhelming psychological force by using the information realm to overpower the cognitive ability of decision-makers to act in their best interests of defence. Information is used in influencing and supporting subversion, where a proxy force and its foreign backer can cooperate together in addition to the physical support rendered to a proxy (such as arms, money, intelligence, military support and other supplies) [Beilenson 1972: v-ix[. Physical force can be used alternatively or in conjunction with the psychological elements to overthrow a targeted government. This combination was seen in the NATO operation in Libya during the branded operational level of cascading regime change that murdered Ghaddafi in the name of democracy and freedom within the Arab Spring.
"Words and images are the most powerful weapons in a war of ideas. Used skilfully, they can serve the cause well" [Waller 2007: 38]. This situation falls within the context and practice of political warfare, which involves the forceful political expression of policy [Codevilla 1989: 77]. Where the definition of "political warfare is the marshalling of human support, or opposition, in order to achieve victory in war or in unbloody conflicts as serious as war" [Codevilla 1989: 77]. This concerns the appearance and perception of reality among the stakeholders and audience in any operation, rather than any sense and understanding of an 'objective' and 'true' reality taking place in the physical realm.
There needs to be several pre-existing conditions present to increase the chances for success of the attacker in subverting a target government in pursuit of regime change. These four conditions need to be simultaneously present: 1) a protracted economic recession to create a general mood of discontent among the public of the target country; 2) a lack of open communication between the targeted government and the population to enable greater effect and influence of subversive messages; 3) an iconic event to prime and mobilise a discontented public to physical action, such as a 'contested' election result; and 4) the support of a foreign power for the local subversive actors designated to execute the regime change [Simons, Chifu 2017]. This can be carried out by covert warfare to achieve the
political goals with minimal risk, a contemporary style of the favoured operational concept is hybrid warfare.
Frank Hoffman (2009) is credited with developing the concept of hybrid warfare from 2007 when he predicted a convergence in future warfare where challengers would engage in multimodal warfare that combined organisation and means of lethality of state conflict and the fanatical passion of irregular warfare. NATO (2015) recently defined the concept and practice, "hybrid warfare and its supporting tactics can include broad, complex, adaptive, opportunistic and often integrated combinations of conventional and unconventional methods. These activities could be overt or covert, involving military, paramilitary, organised crime networks and civilian actors across all elements of power" [Cal-iskan, Liégeois, 2020: 3-4]. The Western narrative is that it is the victim of hybrid warfare rather than the purveyor of it.
Further, hybrid warfare is intended to achieve political goals in a plausibly deniable and financially cheap manner [Fridman 2017]. The very nature of hybrid warfare as a conceptual practice means that it attempts to create a synergy of effect between the physical and psychological effects [Caliskan 2019]. This is evident in how the European Commission (2016) defines 'hybrid threats' as a "mixture of coercive and subversive activity, conventional and non-conventional methods (i.e. diplomatic, military, technological), which can be used in in a coordinated manner by state or non-state actors to achieve specific objectives while remaining below the threshold of formally declared warfare." It should be noted that hybrid warfare can complement other forms of warfare that are violent or non-violent in nature to achieve foreign and security policy goals. This can include the use of subversive forms of diplomacy.
One of the recent concepts that are used to provoke a rethinking in the way international relations are practiced is the idea of guerrilla diplomacy. The genesis of the idea as Copeland [Copeland 2004; 2009] has argued is that diplomats and diplomacy are being increasingly marginalised in an era of increasing conflict and when they are needed the most. The drivers behind this are globalisation and the increasing militarisation of foreign policy. A result of this situation is that there is a "dominance for a few
and a dependence for many" [Copeland 2009: 50]. The role of guerrilla diplomacy as envisaged by Copeland [Copeland 2009: 161; Copeland 2018: 376-377] was a new-style Foreign Service officer that was capable of autonomous action and to be flexible in deployment, engaging in networking and advocacy with the local population, which places the practice as a subset of public diplomacy. Copeland [Copeland 2004; 2009; 2018; Copeland, Potter 2008] argued for the role of diplomats to bring or maintain peace, rather than to foster conflict, although it does involve a foreign country striving to secure its goals and interests in a foreign country. However, the idea is not without its criticism. Insurgency and public relations can be used for ill as well as good; guerrilla or public diplomats with bad intentions might well have similarly dramatic effects as those envisaged by unconventional diplomats with good ones. We lack in the contemporary international system any kind of agreement as to why, when and how we ought to speak to foreign publics and try to shape their views. Without that, the guerrilla risks being treated as a saboteur and the public diplomat a propagandist [Hall 2010: 256].
These reservations are justified given the current fog of communication in foreign policy and international relations that is used to shape the cognitive domain. There are stark contrasts and contradictions seen in how subversive events are depicted and the different sides involved in the conflict. Hybrid war in its various forms and functions is intended to complement the objectives of an actor in coercing another actor, which is further motivated by an evolving global order as a mechanism for trying to retain a relative advantage over rivals and competitors in international relations. This form of warfare can be used in a current war or a war that is expected to come.
New Cold War and the Transforming Global Order
In the end of 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed and the bipolar world order consisting of the United States and the Soviet Union collapsed with it, ushering in an era of a unipolar and Western centric global order of US global hegemony [Nye 1992]. This was seen as an ideological and geopolitical victory by the US and a political victory by liberalism, the US as the remaining superpower that now lacked any checks
or balances in the international system sought to spread in a messianic manner liberalism and its geopolitical influence [Brzezinski 1997; Simons, Glaser 2019]. This period saw different 'humanitarian' wars and the subversion of non-friendly or non-compliant governments to US wishes in an era of aggression and expansion of US influence and power in the late 20th century.
Excesses of military operations of choice in the 21st century saw the rise of the foreign policy brand of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), but has culminated in the Forever Wars that is draining US soft and hard power [Vincent 2020]. The advent of the internet and social media created additional prospects for the US to indirectly attack its targets of subversion, but has also created a situation where it can be indirectly attacked by other actors on the international stage as US hegemony is in relative decline to other non-Western rising powers in an evolving and transforming global order towards a multipolar configuration [Simons 2019]. There are those that assess the US is not able to turn back time and restore its era of uncontested global hegemony, rather that there needs to be an effective strategy and management of this relative decline [Cooley, Nexon 2020]. This decline has led to a discursive strategy making use of a brand name to try and shape the information and cognitive realms as a means of enabling the practice of an aggressive (in the name of defence) foreign policy track that would be otherwise not acceptable in an 'ordinary' period international relations.
The current strategic foreign and security policy brand by the US and its Western allies is the so-called New Cold War, which is intending to retain relative US and Western military, economic and political advantage over rivals by limiting their operational choices and maximising the operational choices of the US. Sakwa [Sakwa 2008] already noted that there were already questions being raised about Russia and her place in the world with reference to foreign policy and the question of political leadership, which led to Cold War type thinking to begin to re-emerge. This new brand was more intensely promoted after the events in Crimea in 2014 [Legvold 2014; Kroenig 2015; Shirreff, Olex-Szczytowski 2015], for the reasons noted by Sakwa and the narrative of hostile intentions against the West, rather than the possibility of reactions against aggressive Western foreign
policy that harmed Russian interests (Simons 2020). However, the US has since expanded the New Cold War from the time of Obama's so-called Asia Pivot and intensified under President Trump trade war with China under the same pretext of subversion of the international order and opposing the 'free' world [Karaganov, Suslov 2018]. The intention is to create a rally around the ideological flag as occurred during the original Cold War, giving a façade of ethical righteousness and political legitimacy.
The US in the post-Trump era seeks to reengage in global military operations and get back to the business of global hegemony once more [Biden 2020]. This intention to regain global hegemony is being attempted through a very specific array of Orwellian language that intends to shape the cognitive realm of various stakeholders and target audiences through the information realm. Creating a projected physical realm 'understood' through binary sets of opposing realities in international relations and affairs, where one is good and the one bad. Although, this is no longer about expanding influence in an uncontested world, but about trying to prevent the relative rise of rivals in an increasingly contested world.
Method
The theoretical method of chosen for analysis is phenomenology, which seeks the "understanding of how appearances affect consciousness prior to the attempt to conceptualise objects and events" [Szeman, Kaposy 2011: 535]. Phenomenology is a reading and analysis of a lived experience [Merleau-Ponty, Bannan 1956; Conroy 2003; Connelly 2010; Silverman 2020: 55]. Furthermore, "phenomenology is also a philosophy which replaces essences in existence and does not believe that man and the world can be understood save on the basis of their state of fact." As such, it is the intention to use an inductive and qualitative method of approach to analyse the data collected. The objective of the qualitative study intends to capture the complexity of the object of study [Hyett, Kenny, Dickson-Swift 2014: 2]. These combined set out to ontology and epistemology of the evolution of the definition and practice of academic concepts with operational implications.
The theory of science deals with ontology, i.e. the issue of what is real and what exists, and epistemology, issues regarding knowledge and
how we know things. [...] According to critical realism it is possible to obtain knowledge about the real domain of social mechanisms by studying the phenomena in the empirical domain [Boreus, Bergstrom 2017: 9].
The empirical material that is associated with this article is drawn from publicly available information sourced from the digital environment concerning events on and around the 'Colour Revolution' in Belarus that was initiated in 2020. These materials shall be analysed using critical discourse analysis. Kress [Kress 1990: 84] notes that "most forms of discourse analysis aim to provide a better understanding of the socio-cultural aspects of text, via socially situated accounts of texts." This present article seeks a better understanding of the socio-(geo)political aspects of text on the 'revolution' in Belarus via socially and politically situated analyses of popular texts. The form of textual analysis will employ critical discourse analysis (CDA). It is noted that CDA shares the above-mentioned aims of discourse analysis, however, it intends to employ a critical dimension in the theoretical and descriptive analyses and evaluations of those texts seen through the relations of power that are revealed by the inequalities in use of and access to language [Kress 1990; Fairclough 1993; Van Dijk 1993; Blommaert, Bulcaen 2000]. The mixed approach using CDA and phenomenology intends to bring to the fore the embedded politics and relationships of the assessed texts.
This is motivated by the inherent embedded relationship between discourse and political power that is derived through meaning "as constructed during production or comprehension, is liable to embody opinions that derive from underlying ideologies" [Van Dijk 1995: 283]. This is about discourse being used to generate meaning on ideological positioning, it can also be used for political and geopolitical positioning of events taking place in the physical realm. It is useful to detect and analyse the role of manipulation in discourse. Manipulation is said to occur when an abuse of social power through cognitive mind control and discursive interaction, which is often emphasized in the binary argumentative language of our good and their bad. "We found that manipulation involves: enhancing the power, moral superiority and credibility of the speaker(s), and discrediting dissidents, while
vilifying the Others, the enemy; the use of emotional appeals; and adducing seemingly irrefutable proofs of one's beliefs and reasons" [Van Dijk 2006: 380]. This is often done through emphasizing the need of the victim to submit to the will of the attacker through a display of Orwel-lian language, especially in the case of conflict that is deeply political in nature.
On the topic of further research on the topic Van Dijk [Van Dijk 1995: 284] noted the need "to attend to the ideological basis of phonological and graphical expressions, syntax, style, rhetoric, pragmatic properties and interactional dimensions of discourse." Blommaert and Bulcaen [Blommaert and Bulcaen 2000: 461] add that a weakness of CDA is the overly linguistic outlook that prevents it from incorporating linguistic and non-linguistic dimensions of semio-sis. This article intends to address these two perceived shortcomings in the development of CDA in the field of contemporary international relations.
Johnson [Johnson 2018] notes that the power of media in the information age influence the access to events and how they are perceived, which tends to cause disorientation through dominant interpretive frameworks that are used. As a result, Johnson [Johnson 2018] concludes creates a problematic effect where a hysteria and anxiety are created about presumed events and processes that are characterised in a sensational and inauthentic narrative that gradually subverts the global rules and conventions on conduct in international relations owing to public disorientation and a desire for urgent remedies. This background is kept in mind when applying CDA and phenomenology to the sample of digital mass media articles collected.
A general internet search was used to generate a corpus of mass media articles from Western (focus from European Union countries and United States) sources. The search terms used were "Belarus elections 2020" and "Belarus protests 2020", the results were then manually checked for relevance within the criterion established in this section. The resulting sample was selected and drawn from digital news sources in English (reaching large potential global audiences) based in the United States and the countries of the European Union, motivated by the leading roles these actors played in the regime
changes of the Colour Revolutions and Arab Spring.
Case Study: Belarus 2020
In February 2020, the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Belarus in an election year, offering to 'normalize' state ties between the countries as relations between Belarus and Russia became increasingly strained. This decline of relations was owed to, among other things, a scaling back of subsidized Russian oil supplies to Belarus,1 which is a significant economic factor and the potential impact on the Belarusian economy and public opinion towards the country's leadership significant. Elections in Belarus were scheduled for 9 August 2020, and this visit in advance of those elections seems to be a ploy for the US to isolate Belarus from her ally Russia in advance of this time in order to increase the government's vulnerability to subversion and political warfare.
The official Belarusian results were the incumbent President A. Lukashenko won 80 per cent of the vote and the main political 'challenger' S. Tikhanovskaya - a 37-year-old former English teacher who resumed her jailed husband's political campaign and elevated to the status as "Belarusian opposition leader" by the West - received 10 per cent.2 Tikhanovskaya went to exile in Lithuania one day after the election, Poland and Lithuania have been engaging in long term diplomacy and public diplomacy programmes to affect regime stability by supporting alternative political and cultural elites [Pospieszna, 2014]. This bears some hallmark similarities to US supported attempts to subvert other countries during elections, such as the use of Juan Guaido in Venezuela (who boycotted the election) as the asserted 'rightful' winner over President Maduro. These are political proxy fronts for regime change based on the façade of political legitimacy and capital informed by binary values and norms rather than factual substance. As in the cases of attempted regime change in various cases of the Colour
1 Makhovsky, A., Pompeo Visits Belarus as Minsk's Ties With Moscow Fray, Reuters, https://www.reuters.com/ar-ticle/us-belarus-usa-pompeo-idUSKBN1ZV3IO, 1 February 2020 (accessed 8 February 2021).
2 Moore, M., Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Vows to
Deliver 'Freedom' in Belarus, NY Post, https://ny-post.com/2020/08/12/secretary-of-state-mike-pompeo-vows-to-deliver-freedom-in-belarus/, 12 August 2020 (ac-
cessed 8 February 2021).
Revolutions and Arab Spring (such as Syria), elections are used as a cover and pretext for priming and mobilising opinions and mass publics by increasing the level of discontent in target audiences for the purpose of hybrid warfare against a designated target.
Mass media outlets in Western Europe and the US were very predictable in their subjective and politicised coverage of the unfolding events along the lines described by Johnson [Johnson 2018]. For example, scanning the headlines and content of Euronews3 or the British Broadcasting Corporation4 reveals a very standard and tried approach of information support for regime change attempts by altering the perception of the various stakeholder (global public, Belarus public, defenders and so forth). This is done through an attempt to control a manipulated discourse of the various actors and the interpretation of the events through various narratives and symbolic binary juxtaposing of 'good' and 'bad' values, norms and actors.
A number of common narratives appear on the 'news' platforms, such as Euronews or the BBC, such as the "patriotic and self-sacrificing heroine" (Tikhanovskaya) ('heroic' narrative), defections from Belarusian security forces ('just' narrative), embattled political leadership ("illegitimate and isolated regime" narrative), possible threats and risks from the 'political crisis' (social, political and economic) (time constraint narrative - longer the crisis continues the more damage to 'ordinary' people), police and security force brutality (moral/ethical narrative), unconditional demands for Lukashenko's resignation (solidarity narrative), 'protestor' and 'opposition' resolution ('brave and determined grassroots citizen' narrative). These narratives are intended to affect the intangibles of the opposing sides - to weaken the political capital and legitimacy of the defending forces by reducing the soft power and reputation/brand in order to isolate them and restrict their tangible operational mechanisms of defence. At the same time
3 2020 Belarusian presidential election, Euronews https://www.euronews.com/tag/2020-belarusian-presi-dential-election (accessed 8 February 2021).
4 Belarusian presidential election 2020, British Broadcasting Corporation https://www.bbc.com/news/top-ics/c909d02x417t/belarusian-presidential-election-2020 (accessed 8 February 2021).
to embolden the proxy forces of citizens, NGOs and foreign interests subverting the Belarusian government by delivering soft power and legitimacy through reputational management and therefore broadening their choice and selection of tangible operational mechanisms of attack.
There have been numerous attacks against the legitimacy of the election result, which is reminiscent of "contested" election results in other targets of Western regime change, such as Ukraine, Venezuela, Bolivia and so forth. Various key influencers in the Western liberal political establishment have rejected the election result1 or the inauguration of Lukashenko.2 There is an attempt to project an image of mass anger and protest over the result with photos as well as text,3 which is in line with one of the environmental conditions needed to increase the chances of successfully subverting a target noted in the first section of this paper. Following logically according to regime change narratives, there is the projection that the government of Lukashenko is weak and in trouble and that the organised protests having an effect4 as a means to encourage the priming and mobilising of Belarusian citizens as well as the support of the international public to support the regime change as an 'inevitable' conclusion in an act of perception and expectation management. To reinforce the moral and ethical dimensions of the regime change into a moralistic discourse, efforts are made to depersonalize the government and de-monise Lukashenko as someone that is not in tune with the people and is cruel.5 This is
1 EU Rejects Belarus Presidential Election Result, DW, https://www.dw.com/en/eu-rejects-belarus-presidential-election-result/a-54622050, 19 August 2020 (accessed 8 February 2021).
2 Pollet, M., Belarus Crisis: EU Slams Lukashenko's 'Inauguration' as President, Euronews, https://www.eu-ronews.com/2020/09/24/belarus-crisis-eu-slams-lukashenko-s-inauguration-as-president, 24 September 2020 (accessed 8 February 2021).
3 Taylor, A., Anger and Protest Over a Presidential Election in Belarus, The Atlantic, https://www.theatlan-tic.com/photo/2020/08/photos-anger-and-protest-over-presidential-election-belarus/615451/, 20 August 2020 (accessed 8 February 2021).
4 Huet, N., 'The Regime is in Agony': Belarus Opposition Leader Slams Lukashenko, Euronews, https://www.eu-ronews.com/2020/09/08/the-regime-is-in-agony-belarus-opposition-leader-slams-lukashenko, 8 September 2020 (accessed 8 February 2021).
5 Filtenborg, E. & Weichert, S., 'He Stopped Listening ...
and Became Cruel': Lukashenko Remembered by Former
another critical element of the regime change attempt in political and hybrid warfare, to reduce or cut-off the attacked leadership from open communication with the populace in order to isolate them physically and psychologically.
In the wake of the election, Pompeo issued symbolic rhetorical public statements in support of the subversion attempt by political warfare through a war of ideas, perception and binary values. "We will continue to speak about the risks to the Belarusian people, [...] We want them to have freedom in the same way that people do across the world."6 This is an attempt to create empathy among the wider global publics through attempting to create a sense of common values and human aspirations through a sweeping statement and assertion. There have been numerous articles concerning the actions of Belarusian police, with a focus on a disproportionate use of force against people with 'legitimate' demands.7 However, the EU has not condemned a long-term campaign using extreme force against the Yellow Vests in France, thus the very selective approach on what is to be spoken about and what is to be hushed.
There are also attempts to try and psychologically tie the hands of Belarusian allies, such as Russia. The role of the foreign backers of the intended regime change revealed their moves by attempting to act as a powerful broker in a hybrid war that is supported by them. A powerful broker has the façade of being a mediator in a conflict, but, favours one side over another. This was clear when the EU urged Russia not to
Campaign Manager, Euronews, https://www.eu-ronews.com/2020/09/24/he-stopped-listening-and-be-came-cruel-lukashenko-remembered-by-former-cam-paign-manager, 28 September 2020 (accessed 8 February 2021).
6 Moore, M., Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Vows to Deliver 'Freedom' in Belarus, NY Post, https://ny-post.com/2020/08/12/secretary-of-state-mike-pompeo-vows-to-deliver-freedom-in-belarus/, 12 August 2020 (accessed 8 February 2021).
7 Loshkina, T., People are Seeking Change in Belarus: Instead, They're Mercilessly Beaten and Detained, Euronews, https://www.euronews.com/2020/08/13/people-are-seeking-change-in-belarus-instead-they-re-being-mercilessly-beaten-and-detained, 13 August 2020 (accessed 8 February 2021); DPA/AP, Belarus Authorities Crack Down on Lukashenko Protestors, DW, https://www.dw.com/en/belarus-authorities-crack-down-on-lukashenko-protesters/a-56070389, 27 December 2020 (accessed 8 February 2021).
intervene to support her ally against the foreign supported regime change. Josep Borrell from the EU stated, "If Russia respects the independence and sovereignty of a nation, it must respect the wishes and democratic choices of the Belarusian people."1 But this ignored the fact that the EU and US were intervening, and have done in many countries, such as the French proposal to run Lebanon (a former colony) as a 'protectorate' after a large explosion in Beirut in 2020.
Conclusion
The research question posed in the introduction is, how is the process of regime change through subversion in Belarus is managed discursively in the global public information space? There are a number of interconnected and mutually reinforcing mass mediated narratives in existence that are intended to shape and influence the meaning and perception of events in Belarus since the August 2020 elections through (geo)politically motivated interpretive 'journalism' in Western mainstream media outlets. The pragmatic properties and interactional dimensions of the discourse are intended to produce cognitive effects through the information realm. The news content from the sources collected and analysed shows that they perform the role of media in the information age as envisaged by Johnson [Johnson 2018] by the highly interpretive framework that are used to generate different cognitive effects on different target groups. The power relations and the intended 'moral' conclusions of the stakeholders are evident using CDA on the news content investigated.
One of the target groups is the international public to generate empathy and support for the projected depiction of the value, norm, ethical and moral dimensions embedded in the narratives interpreting the attempted regime change. This is where linguistic and non-linguistic dimensions of semiosis (something that functions as a sign to an organism) come together in order to signal a politically subjective and binary interpretation of the physical realm occurrences in order to provide a cognitive cue to the target
audiences as to what is 'right' and 'wrong'. This is about priming and mobilising audiences to engineer consent and political capital for the attacker as well as subtracting the same from the defender. There is also the intention to overwhelm the rational logic of the defending decision-makers and practitioners for the purpose of giving up their hard power advantage to 'level' the field to enable a better chance for the proxy forces to collapse the cognitive and then physical power of the defending government and authorities.
There is also an evident effect of the New Cold War narrative and the transforming global order, where the US seeks to maintain its relative military and economic advantage by an attempt at weakening the position of rivals (such as Iran and Russia in Syria and China in Hong Kong). In the case of the actors that are seen publicly to be more active in driving the regime change agenda in Belarus currently are Lithuania and Poland. Both relatively small and insignificant global actors, pursuing a foreign policy agenda that is like Harbaugh's [Harbaugh 2013] notion of vanity wars (albeit applied to foreign policy). Both have invested in Copeland's understanding and definition of guerrilla diplomacy (and guerrilla public diplomacy) against Belarus in the post-Cold War era as a means to undermine the security interests of Russia and her allies as a means of 'revenge' against what they understand as historical wrongs perpetuated against them by the Soviet Union and by extension the successor state, the Russian Federation. Therefore, policy and actions are being driven by emotional logic rather than reasoned logic, the same logic and reasoning that caused Georgian President Saa-kashvili to take the fateful 2008 gamble based on a combination of 'righting' historical wrongs and being under the physical protection of the US-led West. The US and core EU countries are less likely to fully back the current Lithuania-Poland gamble based on Russia's foreign and security policy reactions to Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014.
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ИНФОРМАЦИЯ ОБ АВТОРЕ / INFORMATION ABOUT THE AUTHOR Greg Simons, Doctor of Philosophy, Professor Симонс Г., доктор философии политиче-
of the Institute for Russian Studies, Uppsala ским наукам, профессор института россий-
University (Sweden), Visiting Professor of ских и евразийских исследований Универ-Ural Federal University, Yekaterinburg, Rus- ситета Уппсала, Швеция, приглашенный
sia. профессор Уральского федерального уни-
верситета, Екатеринбург, Россия.
Постсоветские исследования. Т.4. № 3 (2021) ПРОБА ПЕРА FIRST STEPS
Научная статья / Research article
Ядерная энергетика Украины: история, современное состояние и перспективы
А. В. Ильичев
Российский университет дружбы народов, Москва, Российская Федерация
e-mail: [email protected]
Аннотация. После распада Советского Союза Украина попала в зависимость от топливно-энергетических ресурсов, являясь при этом одним из ключевых транзитных государств, контролирующих поток ТЭР из России в Европу. Власть постсоветской Украины, в независимости от проводимого политического курса, старалась расширить рынок энергоресурсов за счёт снабжения из третьих стран, а также наращивая собственную добычу полезных ископаемых. Украина старается дистанцироваться от использования российских энергоресурсов, заключая соглашения с иностранными компаниями и приглашая западные энергетические компании на свой рынок. При этом же Украина продолжает закупаться у России ядерным топливом, комплектующими для постройки и модернизации своих атомных электростанций, а также отправляет отработанное ядерное топливо на переработку в Россию. У постсоветской Украины осталось два направления в сфере атомной энергетики: научно-исследовательские институты, посвященные данной тематике, а также производство атомной энергии, поскольку на территории страны осталось богатое наследие в виде четырех атомных электростанций, дающих едва ли не половину всей энергии, вырабатываемой на Украине.
Ключевые слова: Украина, украинская ядерная энергетика, радиационные технологии, атомная электростанция, перспективы ядерной энергетики.
Для цитирования: Ильичев А. В. Ядерная энергетика Украины: история, современное состояние и перспективы. Постсоветские исследования. 2021;4(3):260-266.
Nuclear Energy of Ukraine: History, Current State and Prospects
Andrei V. Ilyichev
Российский университет дружбы народов, Москва, Российская Федерация
e-mail: [email protected]
Abstract. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine became dependent on fuel and energy resources, being at the same time one of the key transit states that control the flow of fuel and energy resources from Russia to Europe. The power of post-Soviet Ukraine, regardless of the political course being pursued, tried to expand the energy market by supplying it from third countries, as well as increasing its own mining. Ukraine is trying to distance itself from the use of Russian energy resources by concluding agreements with foreign companies and inviting Western energy companies to its market. At the same time, Ukraine continues to purchase nuclear fuel from Russia, components for the construction and modernization of its nuclear power plants, and also sends spent nuclear fuel for reprocessing to Russia. Post-Soviet Ukraine has two areas left in the field of nuclear energy: research institutes dedicated to this topic, as well as the production of nuclear energy, since the country has a rich heritage in the form of four nuclear power plants, which give almost half of all energy generated in Ukraine.
Keywords: Ukraine, Ukrainian nuclear energy, radiation technologies, nuclear power plant, prospects for nuclear energy.
