by manlio graziano
Two, No One, and One Hundred Thousand
Polish–Lithuanian Republic (1619) overlaid on modern borders
Legend: 1 – Kingdom of Poland; 2 – Duchy of Prussia (Polish vassal); 3 – Grand Duchy of Lithuania; 4 – Livonia; 5 – Duchy of Courland (vassal of Livonia). Source: Wikimedia Commons
Throughout its turbulent existence, Poland has never been a “mere geographical expression.” Unlike Italy – fixed immovably in the middle of the Mediterranean – Poland has continuously migrated across the map of Eastern Europe, intersecting its destiny with Sweden, Prussia, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, and, importantly, Ukraine. At the time when the squabbling Italian city-states were still calling in foreign troops to fight each other, Poland was already a great power, one of the most important in European history.
The first Polish state was born in the 11th century, at a time when Italy was divided into about thirty major political entities. By the 14th century, the Kingdom of Poland began its ascent to great-power status under the Jagiellonian dynasty, culminating in an official union with Lithuania in 1569 that gave rise to the Commonwealth of the two nations. At its peak, in the early 17th century, the Polish-Lithuanian state sprawled across roughly one million square kilometers (modern Italy is less than a third of that), stretching from the Baltic Sea nearly to the shores of the Black Sea. In 1618, it was home to about twelve million people: over half Polish, a quarter Ruthenians (Slavs from the old Rus’ of Kyiv—Belarusians, Ukrainians, and Carpathian Slavs), more than a tenth Lithuanian, and over a million Jews.
In fact, during its rise, Poland was, among all Catholic countries, the most tolerant and open, offering refuge to the hundreds of thousands of Jews persecuted across Christian Europe. According to the European Jewish Congress, by the mid-16th century, 80% of the world’s Jewish population lived within its borders, contributing significantly to the country’s economic and intellectual development.
Many historians date the beginning of the Commonwealth’s decline to 1648, when a violent uprising of Ukrainian peasants led by the Cossacks against Polish landowners resulted in the annexation of Eastern Ukraine by Muscovy (to be called Russia in the next century) in 1653. This marked the start of a historical enmity between Poles and Ukrainians as well as the beginning of anti-Semitic persecution which, though initiated by Muscovites and Cossacks, later became embedded in Polish political culture, especially after the Republic was partitioned between Russia, Prussia, and Austria at the end of the 18th century. Polish anti-Semitism, which would intensify until peaking in the 20th century, confirms a historical pattern: eras of growth and development foster optimism and openness, while periods of crisis and decline fuel identity-driven isolation, selfishness, and scapegoating of the “other.”
The Ukrainian uprising was soon followed, in 1655, by a Swedish invasion known as “The Deluge,” which also forced Poland to renounce sovereignty over Prussia. Prussia would grow to become one of the three powers that, in the late 1700s, partitioned Poland out of existence.
The first Polish state was born in the 11th century, at a time when Italy was divided into about thirty major political entities. By the 14th century, the Kingdom of Poland began its ascent to great-power status under the Jagiellonian dynasty, culminating in an official union with Lithuania in 1569 that gave rise to the Commonwealth of the two nations. At its peak, in the early 17th century, the Polish-Lithuanian state sprawled across roughly one million square kilometers (modern Italy is less than a third of that), stretching from the Baltic Sea nearly to the shores of the Black Sea. In 1618, it was home to about twelve million people: over half Polish, a quarter Ruthenians (Slavs from the old Rus’ of Kyiv—Belarusians, Ukrainians, and Carpathian Slavs), more than a tenth Lithuanian, and over a million Jews.
In fact, during its rise, Poland was, among all Catholic countries, the most tolerant and open, offering refuge to the hundreds of thousands of Jews persecuted across Christian Europe. According to the European Jewish Congress, by the mid-16th century, 80% of the world’s Jewish population lived within its borders, contributing significantly to the country’s economic and intellectual development.
Many historians date the beginning of the Commonwealth’s decline to 1648, when a violent uprising of Ukrainian peasants led by the Cossacks against Polish landowners resulted in the annexation of Eastern Ukraine by Muscovy (to be called Russia in the next century) in 1653. This marked the start of a historical enmity between Poles and Ukrainians as well as the beginning of anti-Semitic persecution which, though initiated by Muscovites and Cossacks, later became embedded in Polish political culture, especially after the Republic was partitioned between Russia, Prussia, and Austria at the end of the 18th century. Polish anti-Semitism, which would intensify until peaking in the 20th century, confirms a historical pattern: eras of growth and development foster optimism and openness, while periods of crisis and decline fuel identity-driven isolation, selfishness, and scapegoating of the “other.”
The Ukrainian uprising was soon followed, in 1655, by a Swedish invasion known as “The Deluge,” which also forced Poland to renounce sovereignty over Prussia. Prussia would grow to become one of the three powers that, in the late 1700s, partitioned Poland out of existence.
Second Partition of Poland (1793). Source: Wikipedia
Third Partition (1795) of Poland. Source: Wikipedia
Nationalities in Poland. Source: Wikimedia Commons
At the moment of its re-birth, after World War I, Poland reclaimed many of its lost eastern territories in Belarus and Ukraine, and annexed part of Lithuania, including its present-day capital of Vilnius (Wilno in Polish). But times had changed: unlike the era of multiethnic states, Europe had entered the age of nations and nationalism. Coexistence between Poles and other peoples – Ukrainians, Belarusians, Lithuanians, and especially Jews – was now governed by Polish ethnic supremacy. This proved difficult, because in the 1921 census, minorities made up 30.8% of Poland’s population (14% Ukrainians, ~10% Jews, 3% Belarusians, 2% Germans, and 3% others including Lithuanians, Ruthenians, Armenians, Russians, Roma).
The first legal discrimination against Jews began as early as 1920, followed by pogroms and, ultimately, the adoption of anti-Jewish laws modeled on Nazi Germany’s in 1938. Ukrainians also faced discrimination, especially Orthodox ones, with increasing restrictions on language use; by the late 1930s, forced Polonization campaigns and forced conversions to Catholicism were underway.
So, when the Russians and Germans partitioned Poland for the fourth time in August 1939 under the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, the official pretext for invasion was to “liberate” persecuted Belarusians and Ukrainians from Polish “colonization” (glossing over the fact that just a few years earlier, the Russians had deliberately starved at least 3.5 million Ukrainians to death). With the German invasion in the summer of 1941, Ukrainian attacks on Poles in Western Ukraine escalated – an extension of repression already begun with the Soviet annexation of Volhynia in 1939 – and culminated in the massacre of at least 100,000 Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia in summer 1943.
The first legal discrimination against Jews began as early as 1920, followed by pogroms and, ultimately, the adoption of anti-Jewish laws modeled on Nazi Germany’s in 1938. Ukrainians also faced discrimination, especially Orthodox ones, with increasing restrictions on language use; by the late 1930s, forced Polonization campaigns and forced conversions to Catholicism were underway.
So, when the Russians and Germans partitioned Poland for the fourth time in August 1939 under the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, the official pretext for invasion was to “liberate” persecuted Belarusians and Ukrainians from Polish “colonization” (glossing over the fact that just a few years earlier, the Russians had deliberately starved at least 3.5 million Ukrainians to death). With the German invasion in the summer of 1941, Ukrainian attacks on Poles in Western Ukraine escalated – an extension of repression already begun with the Soviet annexation of Volhynia in 1939 – and culminated in the massacre of at least 100,000 Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia in summer 1943.
Volhynia (blue) and Eastern Galicia (orange) in 1939, before the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. Source: Wikipedia
At the end of the war, Poland’s borders were once again redrawn, this time 200 kilometers to the west. Around 178,000 km² were ceded to the USSR in the east (roughly the same as those “conquered” in 1939 thanks to Hitler), while about 101,000 km² were gained in the north and west, at Germany’s expense. At the same time, half a million Ukrainians were expelled from the new Poland, and one million Poles were expelled from Ukraine.
Poland’s partition in August 1939. Source: Wikipedia
As seen, there is little difference between the territories annexed by the USSR in 1939 and in 1945. Source: Wikipedia
Over time, Poland has assumed many different personalities, and has disappeared at least a few times. The map below summarizes all the territorial shifts mentioned:
Source: Wikipedia.
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Why does this brief history lesson matter when trying to understand today’s political upheavals in Poland, especially in light of the May 31 presidential election results? Because what’s at stake in Poland now isn’t just a battle between a “pro-European” camp (defeated) and an “euroskeptic” one (victorious), but a struggle between differing visions for the country’s future, which find their roots precisely in this history. While public attention fixates on the nation’s 50/50 electoral split, we tend to overlook the nuances, ambiguities, and internal contradictions within each political bloc, which can shift dramatically depending on international context.
The most salient historical legacies resurfacing in today’s transitional phase are threefold: hostility toward Russia; hostility toward Germany; the desire to shield against the ever-present Russo-German threat by seeking protection from whichever distant power seems strongest. In this context, “enmity” toward Ukraine becomes a side issue, one that can be politically wielded in different directions. Moreover, it overlaps with a broader identity-driven trend, often xenophobic and sometimes openly racist, which is far from unique to Poland’s borders.
After the 1795 partition (and disappearance), Poles looked to Napoleon as their savior. Indeed, in 1807, he created the Duchy of Warsaw – not to honor his mistress Maria Walewska, as fairy tales claim, but to build a buffer state between Russia and Prussia and to fund his military campaigns. Fairy tale or not, it ended badly: the Russians reclaimed Warsaw only five years later while pursuing Napoleon’s shattered army, and the story ends there.
When, 105 years later, Poland was reconstituted, its government sought protection from what seemed to be Europe’s two major powers at the time: France and Britain. That, too, ended poorly. By abandoning Czechoslovakia in 1938, France and the UK virtually gave Berlin a green light to invade Poland. While they indeed declared war in response, they 1) failed to prevent the invasion, 2) waged only a “phoney war”, and 3) stood idle during the Soviet invasion from the east. Winston Churchill even claimed the Soviet advance was “clearly necessary for the safety of Russia against the Nazi menace.”
In 1990, when the Warsaw Pact was still in place, Krzysztof Skubiszewski, the foreign minister of the first Polish government free from Russian yoke, visited NATO headquarters in Brussels. It was the first cautious approach to the United States, a bid for security, not just from a Russia at that point close to collapse, but also from a then reunifying Germany. For the third time, Warsaw sought guarantees from a powerful but distant ally. As we know, history doesn’t teach us anything.
Like Napoleon nearly two centuries earlier, and like the British and French in the 1920s, the Americans were interested in Polish security only insofar as it served their own security. In August 1944, Washington had refused to support the Warsaw Uprising; at Yalta in 1945, Roosevelt accepted the Soviet sphere of influence over Poland; and on July 5 that year, Truman withdrew recognition from the London-based Polish government-in-exile, handing Warsaw over to Moscow. Starting in 1947, the local Soviet puppet regime launched a propaganda campaign around the “Western betrayal of Poland”, conveniently forgetting that the Soviets had executed Polish communist leaders, dissolved their party, invaded the country, and murdered 22,000 POWs and intellectuals, burying them in the Katyn’ forest (April 1940).
And yet, that “Western betrayal” – which, as we have seen, undeniably occurred – was forgiven in 1999 when Poland became one of the first former Warsaw Pact countries to join NATO, exposing the U.S.’s broken 1990 promise to Gorbachev not to move the alliance “an inch” eastward. Warsaw then applied for EU membership with three clear aims: 1) to dilute Germany’s influence, 2) to serve as America’s Trojan horse, and 3) to reap economic benefits. Even as it approached the eve of EU accession (in 2004), Poland didn’t hesitate to side against Germany and France during the 2003 Gulf War, especially when Moscow joined Berlin and Paris in opposing Washington. At that moment, Poland became, by size and historical weight, the symbolic capital of Donald Rumsfeld’s “New Europe,” in contrast to the Franco-German “Old Europe.”
Poles have learned by experience to always distrust Germany, and to always fear Russia. But if Germany and Russia align, all alarms go off. This was proven in 2006 with the Nord Stream gas pipeline deal between Berlin and Moscow: then-defense minister (now foreign minister) Radek Sikorski called it a “gas Ribbentrop-Molotov.” Poland’s attempts to break that energy alliance were tireless, and constantly supported by the U.S. When Nord Stream was bombed in September 2022, Sikorski responded by tweeting: “Thank you USA.”
In the second half of the 2010s, the nationalist Law and Justice government revived the so-called “Three Seas Initiative,” a project that echoed an old idea from the 1920s by Marshal Józef Piłsudski, then head of government. His similar “Intermarium” vision imagined a federation of Poland, the Baltic states, Finland, Belarus, Ukraine, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia, reclaiming (and expanding across the Black, Baltic, and Adriatic Seas) the legacy of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
The most salient historical legacies resurfacing in today’s transitional phase are threefold: hostility toward Russia; hostility toward Germany; the desire to shield against the ever-present Russo-German threat by seeking protection from whichever distant power seems strongest. In this context, “enmity” toward Ukraine becomes a side issue, one that can be politically wielded in different directions. Moreover, it overlaps with a broader identity-driven trend, often xenophobic and sometimes openly racist, which is far from unique to Poland’s borders.
After the 1795 partition (and disappearance), Poles looked to Napoleon as their savior. Indeed, in 1807, he created the Duchy of Warsaw – not to honor his mistress Maria Walewska, as fairy tales claim, but to build a buffer state between Russia and Prussia and to fund his military campaigns. Fairy tale or not, it ended badly: the Russians reclaimed Warsaw only five years later while pursuing Napoleon’s shattered army, and the story ends there.
When, 105 years later, Poland was reconstituted, its government sought protection from what seemed to be Europe’s two major powers at the time: France and Britain. That, too, ended poorly. By abandoning Czechoslovakia in 1938, France and the UK virtually gave Berlin a green light to invade Poland. While they indeed declared war in response, they 1) failed to prevent the invasion, 2) waged only a “phoney war”, and 3) stood idle during the Soviet invasion from the east. Winston Churchill even claimed the Soviet advance was “clearly necessary for the safety of Russia against the Nazi menace.”
In 1990, when the Warsaw Pact was still in place, Krzysztof Skubiszewski, the foreign minister of the first Polish government free from Russian yoke, visited NATO headquarters in Brussels. It was the first cautious approach to the United States, a bid for security, not just from a Russia at that point close to collapse, but also from a then reunifying Germany. For the third time, Warsaw sought guarantees from a powerful but distant ally. As we know, history doesn’t teach us anything.
Like Napoleon nearly two centuries earlier, and like the British and French in the 1920s, the Americans were interested in Polish security only insofar as it served their own security. In August 1944, Washington had refused to support the Warsaw Uprising; at Yalta in 1945, Roosevelt accepted the Soviet sphere of influence over Poland; and on July 5 that year, Truman withdrew recognition from the London-based Polish government-in-exile, handing Warsaw over to Moscow. Starting in 1947, the local Soviet puppet regime launched a propaganda campaign around the “Western betrayal of Poland”, conveniently forgetting that the Soviets had executed Polish communist leaders, dissolved their party, invaded the country, and murdered 22,000 POWs and intellectuals, burying them in the Katyn’ forest (April 1940).
And yet, that “Western betrayal” – which, as we have seen, undeniably occurred – was forgiven in 1999 when Poland became one of the first former Warsaw Pact countries to join NATO, exposing the U.S.’s broken 1990 promise to Gorbachev not to move the alliance “an inch” eastward. Warsaw then applied for EU membership with three clear aims: 1) to dilute Germany’s influence, 2) to serve as America’s Trojan horse, and 3) to reap economic benefits. Even as it approached the eve of EU accession (in 2004), Poland didn’t hesitate to side against Germany and France during the 2003 Gulf War, especially when Moscow joined Berlin and Paris in opposing Washington. At that moment, Poland became, by size and historical weight, the symbolic capital of Donald Rumsfeld’s “New Europe,” in contrast to the Franco-German “Old Europe.”
Poles have learned by experience to always distrust Germany, and to always fear Russia. But if Germany and Russia align, all alarms go off. This was proven in 2006 with the Nord Stream gas pipeline deal between Berlin and Moscow: then-defense minister (now foreign minister) Radek Sikorski called it a “gas Ribbentrop-Molotov.” Poland’s attempts to break that energy alliance were tireless, and constantly supported by the U.S. When Nord Stream was bombed in September 2022, Sikorski responded by tweeting: “Thank you USA.”
In the second half of the 2010s, the nationalist Law and Justice government revived the so-called “Three Seas Initiative,” a project that echoed an old idea from the 1920s by Marshal Józef Piłsudski, then head of government. His similar “Intermarium” vision imagined a federation of Poland, the Baltic states, Finland, Belarus, Ukraine, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia, reclaiming (and expanding across the Black, Baltic, and Adriatic Seas) the legacy of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Map of the “Intemarium” hypothesized by Piłsudski. Source: Wikipedia
Map of the “Three Seas Initiative”. Source: Wikipedia
Unlike Piłsudski’s utopian scheme, the Three Seas Initiative was conceived more modestly as a simple consultative forum for affected countries. But in some circles in Warsaw, there was a not so secret hope of making it something more, especially after Ukraine decided to join in June of 2022. The ghost of the Republic of the two nations thus continues to loom. Yet the idea to “Make Poland Great Again” doesn’t match the country’s current reality, which lacks the ingredients that once enabled its greatness in the 14th century. If anachronism is, for a historian, “the most unforgivable of all sins” (Marc Bloch), for a politician it’s the fastest path to national ruin.
Nevertheless, in the 2020s, the Intermarium concept could be seen not so much (or not only) as a bid to rebuild Greater Poland, but as a possible alternative to the Franco-German axis. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the increased American military presence on the old Russian imperial frontier and NATO’s expansion to Finland and Sweden appeared to shift Europe’s center of gravity northeastward, encouraging Warsaw’s ambitions. But whether the goal is a new Greater Poland or leadership of “New Europe,” these are fantasies all the same. Even with its Baltic partners, Poland isn’t equipped for the role. Furthermore, this idea hides an ambiguity that could turn into schizophrenia: the old Commonwealth of the two nations was an active, offensive power in its part of Europe. Today (indeed, since 1795), Poland has been mostly passive, always in need of defensive reassurance.
From its dual Prussian and Russian legacies, Poland has inherited the belief that military strength ensures security. It now has the highest military spending in the EU (as a share of GDP) and the largest army in terms of personnel. True, military power is essential, but without sufficient economic strength, technological innovation, and strategic vision, military force can not go far (as demonstrated by Russia’s disastrous initiative in Ukraine).
With the arrival of the new “pro-Europe” coalition in 2023, Poland’s drive to build the largest army in Europe has not changed, but its geostrategic outlook has. And the responsibility does not lie solely with the new government. To begin with, popular enthusiasm for the heroic Ukrainians has waned considerably: firstly because their ability to defeat the Russians (which many Poles had initially believed in) proved to be an illusion; second, because the nearly two million Ukrainian refugees in Poland (58 percent of whom are aged eighteen to fifty-nine) are increasingly seen as draft-dodgers, shirkers and profiteers, much like virtually any other immigrant; and finally, because these two factors have helped lift the veil on a resurging “enmity” toward Ukrainians.
It goes without saying, however, that the most significant transformation is the global geopolitical earthquake centered in Washington. Who does the United States stand with? As long as American policy remains hostage to the whims of Donald Trump and his grotesque inner circle, no one – least of all the Poles – can answer that question. This only heightens the nervousness and uncertainty about the kind of relationship Poland should maintain with the country it has relied on for its security since the 1990s. Even the most apathetic or “Trumpian” Pole understands that if Washington decided Poland no longer had anything to offer, it would abandon it without hesitation. Is a new “Western betrayal” on the horizon?
The third reason is that Donald Tusk’s current “pro-Europe” government seems perilously inclined toward Germany, or at least toward an intangible “coalition of the willing” in a Europe that Chancellor Friedrich Merz in any case hopes to lead militarily. It is true that within that coalition Germany’s influence would be checked by the United Kingdom and France, but this does little to calm Polish anxieties, especially if the “willing” actually seek to distance themselves from Washington (even as the possibility remains that Washington might choose to distance itself from them).
This is the situation Poland arrived at during the May 31st election. Those who voted for the “pro-Europe” candidate Rafał Trzaskowski saw him as the guarantor of continuity; those who did not vote for him viewed him as steering Poland toward a pro-German, anti-American drift. The “Euroskeptic” candidate Karol Nawrocki appeared to his supporters as the defender of a close relationship with the United States, a firmer break from Ukraine (and opportunistic Ukrainians), and a balanced hostility towards both Russia and Germany. Both positions are thus riddled with deep uncertainties, independent of either candidate’s intentions and certainly beyond the electorate’s control. The razor-thin margin between them (370,000 votes out of nearly 21 million, or 1.8 percent) reveals not so much a neatly divided country as a profound uncertainty about its future prospects.
Poland’s ambitions to lead the New Europe, to become NATO’s new “Baltic pivot,” or to revive the Intermarium – despite the allure of each vision – are undermined by the stark reality that Poland’s future depends far more on Washington, London, Berlin, and Paris (not to mention Moscow and Kyiv) than on Warsaw itself.
Nevertheless, in the 2020s, the Intermarium concept could be seen not so much (or not only) as a bid to rebuild Greater Poland, but as a possible alternative to the Franco-German axis. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the increased American military presence on the old Russian imperial frontier and NATO’s expansion to Finland and Sweden appeared to shift Europe’s center of gravity northeastward, encouraging Warsaw’s ambitions. But whether the goal is a new Greater Poland or leadership of “New Europe,” these are fantasies all the same. Even with its Baltic partners, Poland isn’t equipped for the role. Furthermore, this idea hides an ambiguity that could turn into schizophrenia: the old Commonwealth of the two nations was an active, offensive power in its part of Europe. Today (indeed, since 1795), Poland has been mostly passive, always in need of defensive reassurance.
From its dual Prussian and Russian legacies, Poland has inherited the belief that military strength ensures security. It now has the highest military spending in the EU (as a share of GDP) and the largest army in terms of personnel. True, military power is essential, but without sufficient economic strength, technological innovation, and strategic vision, military force can not go far (as demonstrated by Russia’s disastrous initiative in Ukraine).
With the arrival of the new “pro-Europe” coalition in 2023, Poland’s drive to build the largest army in Europe has not changed, but its geostrategic outlook has. And the responsibility does not lie solely with the new government. To begin with, popular enthusiasm for the heroic Ukrainians has waned considerably: firstly because their ability to defeat the Russians (which many Poles had initially believed in) proved to be an illusion; second, because the nearly two million Ukrainian refugees in Poland (58 percent of whom are aged eighteen to fifty-nine) are increasingly seen as draft-dodgers, shirkers and profiteers, much like virtually any other immigrant; and finally, because these two factors have helped lift the veil on a resurging “enmity” toward Ukrainians.
It goes without saying, however, that the most significant transformation is the global geopolitical earthquake centered in Washington. Who does the United States stand with? As long as American policy remains hostage to the whims of Donald Trump and his grotesque inner circle, no one – least of all the Poles – can answer that question. This only heightens the nervousness and uncertainty about the kind of relationship Poland should maintain with the country it has relied on for its security since the 1990s. Even the most apathetic or “Trumpian” Pole understands that if Washington decided Poland no longer had anything to offer, it would abandon it without hesitation. Is a new “Western betrayal” on the horizon?
The third reason is that Donald Tusk’s current “pro-Europe” government seems perilously inclined toward Germany, or at least toward an intangible “coalition of the willing” in a Europe that Chancellor Friedrich Merz in any case hopes to lead militarily. It is true that within that coalition Germany’s influence would be checked by the United Kingdom and France, but this does little to calm Polish anxieties, especially if the “willing” actually seek to distance themselves from Washington (even as the possibility remains that Washington might choose to distance itself from them).
This is the situation Poland arrived at during the May 31st election. Those who voted for the “pro-Europe” candidate Rafał Trzaskowski saw him as the guarantor of continuity; those who did not vote for him viewed him as steering Poland toward a pro-German, anti-American drift. The “Euroskeptic” candidate Karol Nawrocki appeared to his supporters as the defender of a close relationship with the United States, a firmer break from Ukraine (and opportunistic Ukrainians), and a balanced hostility towards both Russia and Germany. Both positions are thus riddled with deep uncertainties, independent of either candidate’s intentions and certainly beyond the electorate’s control. The razor-thin margin between them (370,000 votes out of nearly 21 million, or 1.8 percent) reveals not so much a neatly divided country as a profound uncertainty about its future prospects.
Poland’s ambitions to lead the New Europe, to become NATO’s new “Baltic pivot,” or to revive the Intermarium – despite the allure of each vision – are undermined by the stark reality that Poland’s future depends far more on Washington, London, Berlin, and Paris (not to mention Moscow and Kyiv) than on Warsaw itself.
The opinions expressed in this article are of the author alone. The Spykman Center provides a neutral and non-partisan platform to learn how to make geopolitical analysis. It acknowledges how diverse perspectives impact geopolitical analyses, without necessarily endorsing them.