The Eurasian Component in the Foreign Policy of the Republic of Belarus, 1991-2021

The article discloses the essence and features of the Eurasian component in the foreign policy of the Republic of Belarus. The scientific novelty of the article lies in revealing the role and place of the Eurasian component in the foreign policy strategy of the Belarusian state at two levels - the Eurasian space as a whole and individual states belonging to this space. Using the tools of neoclassical realism, linking the implementation of the foreign policy process with the state of development of the state, and the theory of foreign policy analysis, the author comes to the conclusion about the increasing importance of the Eurasian component in the foreign policy of Belarus in the second half of the 1990s and the first two decades of the 21st century. According to the author, the course for the development of cooperation between the Republic of Belarus and the Eurasian states was predetermined by its economic interests, although a certain role in its implementation was played by political guidelines of the Belarusian leadership (maintaining stability in the Belarusian state, reinforcing the thesis of the effectiveness of a multi-vector foreign policy, expanding the range of communication in the world arena). A specific feature of the Belarusian Eurasian policy was the absence of a fundamental conceptualization of actions in this direction and the prevalence of situational solutions in building relations with individual Eurasian states. Until the early 2020s, the Eurasian region was considered by the Belarusian authorities and experts mainly in functional and geographical terms, without being perceived as a distinctive civilizational association. At the current stage of development of the Belarusian state, its key partners in Eurasia are Russia, relations with which are being built within the framework of integration associations (the Union State, the EAEU, the CSTO), and China, which is promoting the Belt and Road initiative. However, conceptually, the issue of Belarus’ geostrategic positioning in Eurasia still needs to be finalized.