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Responsible Statecraft
Responsible Statecraft is a publication of analysis, opinion, and news that seeks to promote a positive vision of U.S. foreign policy based on humility, diplomatic engagement, and military restraint. RS also critiques the ideas — and the ideologies and interests behind them — that have mired the United States in counterproductive and endless wars and made the world less secure.
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Trump's most underrated diplomatic win: Belarus
October 21, 2025
Rarely are foreign policy scholars and analysts blessed with as crystalline a case study in abject failure as the Western approach to Belarus since 2020. From promoting concrete security interests, advancing human rights to everything in between, there is no metric by which anything done toward Minsk can be said to have worked.
But even more striking has been the sheer sense of aggrieved befuddlement with the Trump administration for acknowledging this reality and seeking instead to repair ties with Belarus.
A recent New York Times report cited several experts who charged the White House with rushing to give away the farm to Minsk for nothing that they can put their finger on. But anyone who has reached this conclusion hasn’t looked very hard, or, as it were, not in the right places. The administration’s Belarus strategy has so far been remarkably effective and, if consistently pursued over the coming months, promises greater successes still.
Critics of the White House initiative to engage Belarus are keen to inveigh against the country’s authoritarianism, an argument curiously seldom deployed against U.S. cooperation with dozens of partners across the Middle East and Africa whose domestic politics hardly fits the liberal-democratic mold. One need not venture so far from Europe to happen upon the glaring inconsistencies of a “values-based” approach to Belarus. Azerbaijan is hardly any more aligned with the Western liberal-democratic model than Belarus, yet the very same European champions of democratization in Minsk have not the slightest qualms about striking deals with President Ilham Aliyev in Baku.
European leaders could respond, with full justification, that concrete interests are served by maintaining good relations with Azerbaijan, but the same has always been true when it comes to Belarus’ importance in Eastern European security issues. Even within a narrowly selective democratization framework, it's been well established that the only way to advance a substantive dialogue on civil society with Belarus is through engagement, whereas punishment and isolation drives Belarus away from the West and thereby produces the opposite effect.
There is no government on either side of the Atlantic that does not accept, even if tacitly or grudgingly, the basic diplomatic principle that it is necessary to engage countries that differ from the West — itself far from a monolith — in their norms, values, and institutions. On what basis, then, is Belarus one of the few to be held to another standard? European leaders would counter that Belarus is different because it provided passage and logistical support to Russian troops in the opening stages of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. This argument shifts the debate from values back to security, which is where it should have always been.
The Europeans are quite correct that there are legitimate concerns stemming from what scholars have called the “Belarusian balcony,” or Belarus’ capacity to act as a staging ground for hybrid attacks or a full-scale confrontation between NATO and Russia. Such concerns are felt especially acutely by Belarus’ Western neighbors, Poland and Lithuania. But the best and only viable way to address these challenges is through sustained dialogue with Belarus, not by pushing for a change in government or punishing Minsk until it cuts ties with Moscow. The latter strategies were tried for the past five years and have been revealed as deeply counterproductive for reasons fully explained in the latest Quincy Institute brief on Belarus.
To the extent that the Europeans are interested in a stable Belarus-West relationship that reduces risks of escalatory spirals on NATO’s eastern flank, their current policy is akin to kicking in a wide open door. President Alexander Lukashenko has built his brand of “multi-vector” foreign policy precisely on the idea that Belarus’ sovereign interests are best advanced by hedging between Russia and the West not just to secure the best terms for itself but to assert itself as a regional stabilizer.
Minsk has long sought positive relations with the West as the only possible counterweight to what would otherwise be its one-sided dependence on Russia. Lest this be dismissed as an exotic arrangement, consider that the precedent for this style of hedging was set by NATO members themselves.
Turkish President Recep Erdoğan and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, for instance, have developed their own nuanced relationships with competitors, including Russia and China. These governments have layered their national interests on top of NATO’s overall priorities in ways that are not always complementary but are nonetheless accepted as part of their sovereign foreign policy decisions. There is no reason why Belarus, a Russian military ally, cannot engage in similar hedging behavior in its dealings with the West.
The White House, contrary to many skeptics’ claims, is not trying to conjure a diplomatic opening ex nihilo. Rather, it is exploiting a window for substantive diplomacy that has existed for decades. That window is premised on the crucial understanding, lacking under previous administrations, that severing Belarus’ tight-knit military, economic, and diplomatic ties to Russia is not just unviable but unnecessary. Lukashenko was well positioned to provide a backchannel for the kinds of signaling and trial balloons that paved the way for the Alaska summit between President Trump and Vladimir Putin in August. The White House rightly perceives that Minsk, beyond the POW exchanges and other services it is rendering now, has — by dint of geography if nothing else — a major postwar role to play in supporting a peace deal.
American interests toward Belarus extend beyond finding additional ways to advance the Ukraine peace process. The White House cannot conclusively accomplish its goal of retrenching away from Europe and prioritizing other theaters while NATO’s eastern flank remains a powder keg. Progress on a U.S.-led normalization track with Belarus can set the stage for a much-needed dialogue between Minsk and its Western neighbors building into a new set of security agreements.
This understanding can eventually be formalized into a binding commitment by Belarus not to enable, facilitate, or engage in aggression against any of its neighbors, something Minsk has consistently averred it has no interest in, as part of a normalization deal. An agreement along these lines does not violate any of Belarus’ treaty obligations to Moscow, which are purely defensive in nature, and carries positive deescalatory spillover effects for long-term deconfliction and confidence building between Russia and NATO.
If carried to its conclusion, the U.S.-Belarus track can be a template for a model of low-risk, low-cost American regional engagement that strikes a sustainable balance between U.S. ends and means. It would, in its novelty and boldness, amount to something that can be called a Trump Doctrine for NATO’s eastern flank.
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Ashraf al-Mansi walks in front of members of his Popular Army militia. The group, previously known as the Counter-Terrorism Service, has worked with the Israeli military and is considered by many in Gaza to be a criminal gang. (Via the Facebook page of Yasser Abu Shabab)
These Israeli-backed gangs could wreck the Gaza ceasefire
October 21, 2025
Frightening images have emerged from Gaza in the week since a fragile ceasefire took hold between Israel and Hamas. In one widely circulated video, seven blindfolded men kneel in line with militants arrayed behind them. Gunshots ring out in unison, and the row of men collapse in a heap as dozens of spectators look on.
The gruesome scenes appear to be part of a Hamas effort to reestablish control over Gaza through a crackdown on gangs and criminal groups that it says have proliferated during the past two years of war and chaos. In the minds of Israel and its backers, the killings reveal Hamas’ true colors — and represent a preview of what the group may do if it’s allowed to maintain some degree of power.
Indeed, some are already arguing that these attacks should spark a return to war. “Hamas continues to show that their barbaric and irresponsible actions are the biggest threat to the Israeli and Palestinian people,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement, adding that Israel will “respond forcefully” to Hamas’ “brutal rule.”
The U.S. seemed to back Netanyahu up with a statement warning of a planned Hamas attack on Palestinian civilians. “Should Hamas proceed with this attack, measures will be taken to protect the people of Gaza and preserve the integrity of the ceasefire,” the State Department said. The Washington Post editorial board, in an editorial blaming Hamas for a potential collapse of the ceasefire, argued that “Terrorist brutality risks igniting a Palestinian civil war.”
But this emerging narrative omits crucial context: many of the groups now clashing with Hamas receive weapons, supplies and protection from Israel. And that support has continued despite Israel’s decision to sign onto a ceasefire. As Israeli troops have withdrawn from parts of Gaza, the leadership of many of these groups have retreated with them, giving the militants space to build up their forces and issue public calls to fight Hamas.
Experts who spoke with RS described the support for anti-Hamas militants as part of a long-standing Israeli policy of stoking division in Palestinian politics. In order to prevent the rise of a unified, nationalist Palestinian leadership, Israel has often offered assistance to smaller, less politically engaged factions. In Gaza, this approach has expanded to include highly controversial groups, including ones led by criminals and people with links to ISIS.
Now, it looks like the strategy could pay off for an Israeli leadership that remains skeptical of a lasting ceasefire. “We are starting to see these groups trying to sow the seeds of civil strife in order to try and destabilize things in Gaza,” said Tahani Mustafa, an expert on Palestinian affairs and a visiting scholar at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “That can be incredibly dangerous because it doesn't take much for Israel to use [it] as a pretext to revert back to war.”
Preventing Palestinian unity ‘at all costs’
Israel’s divide-and-rule strategy dates back to the early days of the occupation, when Israeli leaders attempted to govern the West Bank and Gaza in coordination with “village leagues” made up of apolitical Palestinian leaders. At that time, the goal was to find an alternative to dealing with the Palestine Liberation Organization, or PLO, which sought to free Palestine through force of arms.
In the late 1980s, Israel also began to lend a certain degree of support to Islamists in Gaza, whom Israeli leaders viewed as less politically dangerous than the PLO radicals. But that equation flipped when Hamas, which Israel had initially supported, began to carry out attacks on Israeli civilians. Meanwhile, the PLO morphed into the Palestinian Authority, which now works closely with Israel on security.
Following a Palestinian civil war in 2007, Israel has primarily focused on ensuring that the PA and Hamas remain at loggerheads. At times, this has meant tacit acceptance of Hamas rule in Gaza, including through Netanyahu’s controversial policy of allowing Qatar to make payments to the Hamas-run government in Gaza.
Since the beginning of the current war, Israel has pitched a plan for post-war Gaza in which prominent clan leaders could manage the affairs of the enclave. As part of this policy, Israeli officials, with assent from the U.S., have attempted to cultivate relationships with influential families. Sometimes this just meant leaving behind weapons or supplies when Israeli forces evacuated an area. But other times, it was more direct.
“Shin Bet officers would actively reach out to people on their phones or send them [middlemen] with a clear message of ‘here are weapons, here is money, your job is to challenge Hamas,’” said Muhammad Shehada, a close watcher of the Gaza war and a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “Not a single clan agreed to cooperate as a clan, but members within the clan agreed.”
One family that Israel attempted to court is the Doghmush clan, several members of which have been publicly executed in recent weeks. The clan has a complicated history with Hamas, in part due to one influential Doghmush leader’s time running an ISIS affiliate opposed to Hamas in Gaza.
Further inflaming tensions is the fact that a handful of Doghmush members, at Israel’s request, recently began launching attacks against Hamas, according to family leader Nizar Doghmush, who condemned those members of his clan. So far, this condemnation has not been enough to spare the Doghmush clan from retribution. At least 27 people have been killed in Hamas-Doghmush clashes since the ceasefire.
As the war in Gaza dragged on, and Israel struggled to recruit from the major clans, it resorted to working with less savory characters, according to Shehada. Emerging evidence suggests that Israel is backing at least four different Palestinian armed groups across Gaza, which are now engaged in a low-level conflict with Hamas.
One such organization is led by Yasser Abu Shabab, known in Gaza as a “notorious criminal” due to his involvement in drug and weapons smuggling and apparent ties to ISIS in the Sinai, according to Mustafa. Abu Shabab’s “Popular Forces” have become infamous in Gaza for allegedly looting aid trucks in order to sell the supplies on the black market. (Israeli officials are now seeking to rebrand Abu Shabab as a “grassroots, deradicalized civil society activist,” according to Shehada.)
Husam al-Astal, who once served time in a Gaza prison alongside Abu Shabab, initially fought for the Popular Forces but has since split off and formed his own group, known as the “Counter-Terrorism Strike Force.” Astal has publicly said that he is working with Israeli forces, which on at least one occasion involved Israel bombing Hamas militants in order to preempt an attack on Astal’s fighters.
Hamas has also recently found itself fighting with a group known as the “Popular Army,” led by a previously unknown figure named Ashraf al-Mansi. Like the Popular Forces, the Popular Army has staged its operations in areas that remain under Israeli control. Video evidence strongly suggests that Mansi’s men are receiving supplies directly from Israeli forces, according to Sky News.
The crackdown on these groups, while brutal and extrajudicial, enjoys fairly wide support among Palestinians in Gaza. “Hamas has basically regrouped with other forces like Fatah, the [Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine], the [Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine] and others in order to try and reinstate a sense of law and order,” Mustafa said, noting that much of the demand for this sort of action has come from Gazans fed up with “lawlessness.”
The precise extent of these groups’ collaboration with Israel is hard to determine, but Shehada says some of them work closely with the Israel Defense Forces and carry out military operations on their behalf. Adding to the confusion — and suspicion — is the fact that Netanyahu has publicly admitted to working with some of these groups without naming any of them in particular, leaving Hamas wide latitude to crack down on alleged collaborators.
For Israel, alliances with Palestinian collaborators in Gaza are valuable for two main reasons. One is that these groups have little interest in Palestinian nationalism. “They have their own narrow self-interests, and that works very well for Israel,” said Khaled Elgindy, a visiting scholar at Georgetown and a former adviser to PA leaders.
Another is that, by subcontracting the fighting to Palestinians, Israel can distance itself from any resulting violence. “There's quite a lot of potential there for these groups to be disruptive,” Elgindy told RS. “And to the outside world, it will look like intra-Palestinian violence.”
Israel’s security establishment once sought to maintain stability at all costs, but now it appears to view chaos as an upside, Elgindy said. In the near-term, instability will provide plenty of opportunities for Israel to return to full-scale war in Gaza. And in the long-term, it will strengthen Israel’s argument that Palestinians are simply too divided — and militarized — to negotiate with in good faith.
Harder to understand is why the U.S. continues to support these policies. Mike Casey, who served as a foreign service officer in the Palestinian section of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem from 2020 to 2024, argued that Washington’s backing for Israeli efforts to divide the Palestinians has left everyone worse off. “There's just this constant cycle of violence that [the U.S. is] not taking steps to stop because the Israeli government is pushing to prevent a Palestinian state and Palestinian unity at all costs,” Casey told RS.
When Casey resigned from the State Department, one major factor was his frustration with the Biden administration for lining up behind Israel’s plan for a clan-based government in post-war Gaza. “We were just taking Israeli directives on what to do and not thinking through what's best for the United States, for our interests, for Palestinian interests and for Israeli interests,” Casey said. “We just did whatever Netanyahu and others would tell us to do.”
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Top photo credit: Several thousand people rally against a proposed EU migration scheme in Warsaw, Poland on 11 October, 2025. In a rally organized by the opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party thousands gathered to oppose the EU migration pact and an agriculture deal with Mercosur countries. (Photo by Jaap Arriens / Sipa USA)
Poland’s Janus face on Ukraine is untenable
October 21, 2025
Of all the countries in Europe, Poland grapples with deep inconsistencies in its approach to both Russia and to Ukraine. As a result, the pro-Europe coalition government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk is coming under increasing pressure as the duplicity becomes more evident.
In its humanitarian response to Ukraine since the war began in 2022, Poland has undoubtedly been one of the most generous among European countries. Its citizens and NGOs threw open their doors to provide food and shelter to Ukrainian women and children fleeing for safety. By 2023, over 1.6 million Ukrainian refugees had applied for asylum or temporary protection in Poland, with around 1 million still present in Poland today.
That of course aligns with Poland’s consistently hawkish line and deep seated mistrust of Russia, dating back to the partition of Poland in 1939 following the Nazi-Soviet Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, the abuses of the Red Army in Poland in 1945 while driving the Nazis back to Berlin, and subjugation by a Soviet-installed puppet Communist regime after the war.
In a recent New York Times editorial, Poland’s Foreign Minister, Radoslaw Sikorski repeated the common Ukrainian mantra that the only way to negotiate with Russia is first to show force. With Russia still maintaining the military upper hand and also continuing life relatively as normal (there has been no need for a widespread mobilization of troops in Russia of the kind that is ongoing in Ukraine for men over the age of 25), it is unclear how ongoing supplies of military aid to Ukraine will do anything other than to prolong the war.
And for all of Sikorski’s comedy Eton-accented tough talk, it’s abundantly clear that Poland has no plans to show its force, having consistently expressed that it will not send troops to fight in Ukraine or participate in any so-called "reassurance force." This may in part be linked to an uncomfortable truth: Poland also has a fraught relationship with Ukraine.
The Ukrainian government is often criticized for creating space for neo-Nazi sympathizing groups. That historical grievance remains an open wound in Poland to this day, on account of the Volyn massacre of July 1943, in which up to 100,000 Poles were stabbed, axed, beaten or burned to death by the Ukrainian Independence Army (UIA), which many far right figures in Ukraine continue to revere.
This year, Poland named July 11 the National Day of Remembrance for Volyn Massacre victims. Polish President Karol Nawrocki has also proposed a law that would outlaw “Banderite” symbols, such as the Black and Red UIA flag, which you will commonly see today flown above the graves of fallen Ukrainian service personnel.
As with resentment towards Russia, resentment towards Ukraine is common among ordinary Poles, linked both to the past and the present. In a recent poll, support in Poland for Ukrainian membership of the EU (and of NATO) was low, at 35%, with 42% opposed. An end to the war in Ukraine will certainly accelerate the issue of Ukrainian membership of the European Union, which will be disadvantageous to ordinary Poles.
As I pointed out a year ago for Responsible Statecraft, Poland is by far the largest recipient of European Union subsidies. In the EU’s multi-year financial framework covering its budget plans for 2028-2034, Poland is again set to be the largest beneficiary of EU funds by far, with $144 billion (EURO 123.3 billion).
This funding will be threatened by Ukraine’s membership of the EU, if it joined on equal terms to existing Member States. That is because Ukraine would account for 25% of all agricultural land, soaking up generous subsidies that currently benefit Polish farmers. Ukraine would also be by far the poorest European country and, with its still large if depleted population, be eligible for the largest share of so-called cohesion funds, which go into improving outdated infrastructure.
From being the bloc’s largest net beneficiary of funds, Poland may be staring down the barrel of becoming a net contributor to the EU budget.
Polish farmers already lobby hard against the import of much cheaper Ukrainian agriculture imports, once again coming out in protest in Warsaw in January of this year. That move followed a steady liberalization of EU-Ukraine trade rules, intended to give the war-torn country an economic boost. However, the Polish government (along with Hungary and Slovakia) has maintained a ban on Ukrainian agricultural imports to protect their domestic agricultural sector.
This policy seems unlikely to change any time soon, even under the Euro-centrist coalition government of former European Commission President, Donald Tusk.
Instead, the Polish strategy appears to be one of deflection — to maintain the rhetoric about Russia while going soft on their support for Ukraine. An increasingly common Polish attack line has been to criticize Hungary and Slovakia – who Sikorski has called “self-described MAGA acolytes” — for the stance they are taking, for example on continuing to buy Russian oil and gas.
This is more than slightly duplicitous, given Poland’s continued refusal to buy Ukrainian grain. Donald Tusk has also frequently criticized Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s efforts to mediate in the war in Ukraine and continues to do so.
The Polish courts have this past week also refused to extradite a Ukrainian suspected of involvement in the Nord Stream II explosion to Germany. This is undoubtedly politically motivated. Poland sought to block the pipeline from an early stage by launching anti-trust cases against European companies involved in the Nord Stream consortium. Both Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski and Prime Minister Donald Tusk have sought not only to justify the court decision, but to endorse the destruction of the pipeline itself through their remarks. This will undoubtedly continue to cause tensions between Poland and Germany.
At times it seems like there is barely a bridge in Europe that Sikorski and Tusk are not willing to burn, to show that Poland is the toughest on Russia. Yet, the uncomfortable truth remains, that Poland is not that friendly towards Ukraine either.
In August, nationalist President Nawrocki blocked a bill that would extend the rights of Ukrainians to claim welfare benefits in Poland, limiting benefits only to those Ukrainians who are in employment. Tusk’s coalition does not have the parliamentary seats to overturn this move, which it has criticized. However, Radek Sikorski has also in the past called for European governments to halt benefit payments to male Ukrainians taking refuge in their countries.
Halfway through its term, and having already faced a no-confidence vote, dissatisfaction among ordinary Poles continues to grow about Donald Tusk’s government, with 60% of citizens expressing disapproval in a recent poll. That might help to explain why the more obviously nationalist Karol Nawrocki won the Presidential election.
Seeking to defeat Russia in Ukraine, while keeping Ukraine locked out of Europe is manifestly as illogical as it is unsustainable. But you won’t find Sikorski or Tusk pushing for peace with Russia any time soon. Instead, and as is already happening elsewhere in Central Europe, I expect Poland increasingly to turn nationalist as these inconsistencies become more glaring.
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