Poland's Curse

POLAND’S CURSE

People cannot choose their family members. Countries cannot choose their neighbours. Poland is a living testimony of that stark reality.

Indeed, Poland has been the victim of her Geography and has been bullied by her neighbours.

Poland sits in the middle of an East-West invasion highway.

in STRATFOR em http://www.stratfor.com/

Geographically, Poland is highly vulnerable: she sits right on the great North European Plain that stretches all the way from Northern France to Moscow. It is a long stretch of land deprived of major physical obstacles, but for a few large rivers, like the Rhine, the Elba, or the Vistula. Consequently, it has been the venue of choice for invaders charging East from the West, or stampeding West, coming from the East.

So, Poland has been frequently invaded, whether for the purpose of conquering the country, or just en route to somewhere else.

On top of Geography, come the neighbours:

* To the West, Poland has faced the Germans in several formats: Prussia, II Reich, Weimar Germany, III Reich, two Germanies and, finally, Germany.

* To the South, up to 1918, Poland had to contend with the Austrians, who led the powerful Austro-Hungarian Empire.

* To the East lie the Russians: Czarist Russia, the Soviet Union and present-day Russia.

Summing these factors we end up with an interesting statistical information: between 1795 and 1989, Poland was really independent for 20 years, between 1919 and 1939. A bit more than 10% of the time in almost 200 years.

When I first visited Poland in 1990, the Poles were terrified with the prospective German reunification and Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s apparent hesitation about recognizing the Oder-Neisse line as the German-Polish border.

When I went back to Poland in 2004, the Poles were buoyant with their NATO and EU memberships, and their fear of both Germany and Russia had receded. The former was integrated in the same international clubs that Poland had just joined and the latter was still recovering from the post-Soviet trauma.

Today, in 2014, the Poles are deeply worried about the fate of Ukraine and the pressure Russia has been exerting on her periphery and the sense of fear has returned.

Russia has reacted aggressively to what she perceives as a renewed Eastern push by the major Western powers and their prime organisations, NATO and the EU.

Russia has reacted in 2008 invading Georgia who capitulated in a week. Russia has reacted to Yanukovych’s overthrow with a swift takeover of Crimea, accompanied by increasing pressure on Kiev, via pro-Russian groups in Eastern Ukraine, natural gas price increases, nearby military manoeuvres and not recognizing the new government in Kiev. Furthermore, Moscow has been pressing and cajoling Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan to try to keep them in her sphere of influence or, at least, keeping the West at bay.

Historical victims of Russian (and German) expansionism like Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have been pushing for an increased NATO and US military presence in Northeastern Europe and near the Ukrainian border in order to bolster confidence in these borderlands about the West’s commitment to the safety and protection of the nations that stretch from the Baltic Sea (like Poland) to the Black Sea (like Romania). Warsaw has gone as far as demanding the dispatch of 10.000 American troops to her territory.

History is fascinating, but for countries like Poland it is not at all cheerful. In 2014, none of the major Western powers has the ability and even less so the will, to engage on a major military buildup along the old Soviet borders. Although there are obvious differences, the unwillingness draws an inevitable flashback to Czechoslovakia and Poland in 1938/1939. And this is not good news for the likes of Poland and Romania.

Washington, London, Berlin and Paris do not believe that Moscow is about to embark on a massive land offensive across Eastern Europe and certainly not to the point of crossing the Dnieper river. Indeed they did not believe that Germany and the USSR would do what they actually did in between 1938 and 1941 either. Of course today’s Russia is not the 1930’s USSR or Germany, but looking from Warsaw’s perspective it must be, at least, uncomfortable.

Whatever Russia’s ultimate plans and intentions, it is crystal clear that the US and NATO are NOT about to establish major military garrisons neither in Poland, nor in Romania, nor in the Baltic States. The reasons for this are threefold: political, budgetary and military.

Politically, the Western powers do not want to be seen as being too provocative towards Moscow, or to risk a skirmish or an incident with potential serious consequences.

Budget-wise, NATO members are generally cash-strapped, many of them stuck in steep austerity and they do not have either the financial capital, nor the political capital to march East, or anywhere else for that matter.

Militarily, the West is weakened by years of neglect aggravated by some more years of savage austerity. If Poland were indeed threatened by Russia (which she isn’t), NATO would struggle to find the troops and equipment to go to the rescue.

In the end, this is what Russia has been accomplishing: proving that she can make surgical low-risk military moves (Georgia, Crimea), put political, economic and energy pressure on her neighbours and sow instability, doubt and fear on them, that no substantial reprisal will come her way.

Eventually, this strategy may pay-off in terms of political acquiescence of an increased Russia’s role and influence in Central and Eastern Europe. It may not happen, but so far Russia is rolling and the West is recoiling. Even if the plot ultimately fails, the seeds of fear and insecurity have been sown and they will not go away for a long time.

Prussia, Russia and Austria, greedily slicing the Polish cake till it was over.

For a country like Poland that was partitioned to oblivion thrice in just 23 years (1772, 1793 and 1795) between Russia, Prussia and Austria; when it took Poland a World War for her  to resuscitate; after 20 years of freedom, another World War threw it into mayhem and serfdom for another 50 years, these events are not bad news. They are more like a curse revisited time and time again.