The Biden administration must increase its support for Poland and Lithuania.
These nations face an escalating migrant crisis manufactured by Belarus and Russia, and the stakes are growing.
Each week, thousands of migrants are being quite literally driven by Belarusian security forces to the borders of Poland and Lithuania. The situation is particularly severe at the Polish border. The migrants are then invited, sometimes pushed, to cross over. But because Poland has a strict immigration policy, its forces are under orders not to allow the migrants entry. As a bitterly cold winter approaches, hundreds of migrants are being abandoned to fend for themselves.
It’s clear why the migrants want to reach Poland. Predominantly from North Africa and the Middle East, they know the EU has strict rules on humanitarian treatment and that the EU’s freedom of movement rule means that access to Poland means a route to nations with generous welfare policies.
Vladimir Putin knows this as well, which is why he is pushing Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko to take this action.
Following his August 2020 presidential election defeat and subsequent crackdown on the opposition, Lukashenko has relied on Putin for security and political support. In return, Putin has won Lukashenko’s overt deference and nodding acquiescence to Putin’s priorities. Lukashenko has even taken steps to integrate Belarus under Putin’s political authority. Putin calls this the Union State of Russia and Belarus, but it’s more accurately described as the Putin State.
In turn, the migrant crisis is a pitch-perfect example of Putin’s KGB gamesmanship under the pretense of a humanitarian crisis for which Poland is supposedly to blame. Putin and Lukashenko are using migrants as a means to challenge the Polish government’s credibility. The crisis also allows Putin to challenge NATO borders by proxy while simultaneously exacerbating tensions between Poland and its fellow EU members, which are already strained at the moment in a controversy of national versus EU judicial supremacy. Putin also knows that Europe’s dependence on Russian energy exports will prevent its forceful response to his aggression.
Put simply, the EU cannot be trusted to stand with Poland, which is why Biden must do so now and forcefully.
Unlike most U.S. allies in Europe, Poland and Lithuania are reliable security partners. Both nations take their NATO obligations seriously, spending at least 2% of their gross domestic product on defense. But Poland is in particular need of its friends right now. Biden must step up.
First, the United States should pressure the EU to introduce new sanctions on Belarus. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has called for the enacting of preset EU sanctions on Belarus. The EU should also consider sanctions on third-party airlines that bring the refugees to Belarus to be used in this manner. But these actions are unlikely to proceed unless the U.S. leverages its EU member state relationships in favor of Poland. The U.S. should then push for further action.
Recognizing Putin’s central role in this humanitarian crisis, the Biden administration should also prepare sanctions targeting Russian commodity exporters to Belarus. This tactic would serve a double purpose of imposing costs on Lukashenko’s fragile regime while also hitting the fragile Russian economy. The U.S. and its partners should make clear that a suspension of the border crisis would result in a suspension of the sanctions. The objective would be to inflict a calculated penalty on Putin and Lukashenko’s game, altering the cost-benefit calculation that Putin presently finds to be in his favor.
The only way this situation is going to end positively is if Putin and Lukashenko feel pain for what they are doing. Otherwise, they will simply continue ruining human lives in order to hurt the West.
Reliable allies need U.S. help, and Biden must step forward now and provide it.
