Before anyone gets too intoxicated with visions of "Europe" stretching from Dublin to the Mongolian steppe, it's worth considering the cold, hard calculus of post-Soviet politics. A meeting here late last month of Belarussian democratic activists hoping to topple their dictatorial president, Alexander Lukashenko, shows just how tortuous the road from authoritarian backwater to Jeffersonian republic can be -- with or without Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and his fellow reformer, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, cheering from the sidelines.

The Bush administration is busy burying $3 billion underground––the cost of filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to its 700-million barrel capacity––without any good reason.

Regime change as a term has gotten a lot of play recently with regard to U.S. policy toward Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. But participants at a conference in the U.S. capital yesterday suggested Washington should apply the term to Belarus, which the U.S. says sells arms to Saddam.

The failure of South Ossetia’s presidential election and the popularity of Alla Dzhioyeva are indicative of broader trends that have significant, largely favorable consequences for the U.S.

The EU takes note of the Secretary General's visit to Minsk, and hopes that the apparent wish of the Belarusian authorities to make rapid progress towards renewed cooperation with the OSCE, including an OSCE presence on the ground in Minsk, will be immediately translated into action. To this end, the...

Even as the political crisis in Ukraine has wound down, democratic leaders from Kiev to Washington have begun to think about how Belarus might be transformed.

The author protests the abuse of Anatol Lyabedzka, a leading advocate for democracy in Belarus, by the regime of Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko.