And yet geopolitical developments have revealed a Belarus  once called “the last dictatorship of Europe” by Condoleezza Rice – referring to the country’s human rights record  and by way of a demand for Belarus to become more democratic – that is quite different from these clichéd perceptions: small but highly realist  trying to use the little foreign policy marge de manœuvrethat it has to preserve its sovereignty and contribute to regional security amid growing turbulence in Eastern Europe and the more general Russian-Western confrontation