Draft national security concept points at color revolutions, private military companies

April 4, BPN. “Non-governmental actors,” including “private military companies” and “illegal armed groups,” become participants in military conflicts increasingly often, the Belarusian Security Council said in a draft national security concept. It was published on the National Legal Internet Portal on April 3.

It named such “internal sources of threats to national security” in the military sphere as “terrorist activity” by “criminal organizations” and “illegal armed formations” pursuing the goal of “destabilizing public order and provoking an internal armed conflict”; society’s weakening patriotism and willingness to defend the homeland; “individual citizens’ criminal actions/inaction (high treason, sabotage, etc.)”; dissemination of “ideas of civil confrontation leading to armed insurrection.”

It also mentioned the state’s struggle to satisfy the demand for weapons, military and special equipment, and materiel due to the decline in the defense industry’s capabilities.

It went on to specify such “external sources of military threats” as armed provocation on the Belarusian border staged “from the territory of foreign states”; calls for military intervention against Belarus and the funding for these preparations from “international organizations (including non-governmental), radical religious movements, and anti-Belarusian centers abroad”; creation of “non-state armed formations” abroad that would carry out hostilities in Belarus; etc.

Security officials said certain states, “including in the European region,” wanted to possess or host weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and long-range non-nuclear strategic weapons, pointing at the supposed distribution of relating components and production technologies, arms race, and militarization of Belarus’ neighbors.

According to the document, “‘smart power’ tools are being used increasingly often” along with traditional forms of armed confrontation. There is an “active struggle for mass consciousness” aimed at implementing the “color revolution technologies.”