Belarus, "...further away from Europe and the rest of the world"

Or so said Gordon Johndroe, a White House spokesperson, reacting to news from this past March that the US Ambassador to Belarus had been expelled. The country's leadership insists it wants to forge better relations with the West (it has for some time), but without the frills of criticism and objection to a litany of human rights abuses and ongoing waves of political illiberalisms.

There is only so much defiance that can take place before real consequences kick in. Or, at least, that is what would normally be the case. But who, for a moment, really thinks that Belarus -- in the news right now for having ordered the further expulsion of ten US diplomats declared persona non Grata by President Aliaksander Lukashenka -- is a normal country?

I have maintained this contrary stand from the beginning of having studied the country: Belarus, under its current leadership, is an anomaly. It will continue being an anomaly so long as things carry on as they do. Lukashenka belongs to a bygone era, one that collapsed in 1991 because it imploded through and through.

It carries on, though. By some economic, Russian-backed miracle, it does, irrespective of what comes with being a moving train-wreck in a Europe that ceased playing the status-quo card a long time ago. This kind of news is not the first, and nor will it be the last, of its kind.