Robert M. Cutler on Energy and Eurasia

First published in Foreign Policy in Focus, January 2001, pp. 1-2. Copyright © Robert M. Cutler.

A dangerous blind spot in the incoming administration's view of Russian affairs is its inadequate understanding of the significance of the newly independent states (NIS). The unanticipated consequences of such policy blindness are exemplified by developments in the 1990s in Belarus, formerly called Byelorussia--a country sandwiched between Russia and Poland--sharing a border with Ukraine to the south and with Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest.

First published in Foreign Policy in Focus, January 2001, pp. 1-2. Copyright © Robert M. Cutler.

A dangerous blind spot in the incoming administration's view of Russian affairs is its inadequate understanding of the significance of the newly independent states (NIS). The unanticipated consequences of such policy blindness are exemplified by developments in the 1990s in Belarus, formerly called Byelorussia--a country sandwiched between Russia and Poland--sharing a border with Ukraine to the south and with Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest.