- Hubert Walas
The geopolitical determinants of the RP.
When other countries have water fortified ports, mountains are inaccessible, we do have nothing. These fields and roads are spacious and excellent for the Polish enemies- this is how the geopolitical conditions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth were captured by Piotr Grabowski, a Polish writer of the XVII century. Almost 400 years have passed since then, however, Polish policymakers operate in the same space and face similar dilemmas. What are the geopolitical conditions of Poland today and what are they based on?
Polan Tribes
The history of Poland has been connected with the whole region of Central Europe since its inception. Polan tribes, which as a result of the baptism of Poland in 966, turned into the Polish State inhabited the areas of the Central European Plain - the area of large lowland tracts, with a small number of terrain barriers in the east and west. In the north-south direction, the area was well closed by the Baltic Sea in the north and the Carpathian Mountains in the south. The only breach here is the Moravian Gate - a sinkhole about 32 km wide and 40 km long between the mountain ranges of the Sudetes and the Carpathians. The Moravian Gate has been a link with the west and south of the continent for centuries. This way 1000 years ago Christianity came to Poland. The core of the state of Poland has always been the Vistula and Warta river basins. River systems in this region of Europe are distinguished by the lack of symmetry of the inflows. Rivers in western Europe, including the Rhine or the Seine, as well as in the continental east, e.g. the Volga river, have left and right tributaries of approximately the same length. However, the Vistula, Nemunas, Daugava, Bug or even the Dnieper river have much more developed right tributaries. In medieval times, water divisions were usually low, narrow and easy to cross, which made it very easy to connect them through canals. Such a coherent hydrographic system meant that the area was well connected and caused Poland to reach the east for centuries. The greatest obstacle in land communication in the east was the river systems of the Daugava and Dnieper rivers with adjacent forests, wetlands and swamps, in particular the Pripyat flood plain. The narrow corridor in this area is the Smolensk Gate. About 80-km long isthmus between the upper Daugava and the upper Dnieper rivers. The Smolensk Gate, which was also the border between the backwaters of the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea, has been a strategic point for centuries, whose control ensured and still provides an advantage to the political center that controls it. In 1772, when the first partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth took place - Russian tsarina Catherine I surprisingly was satisfied with a relatively small territory of partition. However, as she explained herself, she took what is most important - the Smolensk Gate. This area has been an advantage for Moscow for 250 years, as it is now located on the border between Russia and Belarus.
Empire in the East
The initial dynamic development of the Polish state was stopped by the division into smaller feudal powers in the 12th and 13th centuries. However, the reunification of the country during the reign of Władysław I Łokietek and the conquest of Red Ruthenia by his son Kazimierz Wielki - the last ruler of the Piast dynasty, expanded the Polish operating theater. Operating in the area of the Black Sea catchment area caused Poland to begin to develop on the Baltic-Black Sea bridge - a narrowing of Europe, between the western peninsula of Europe and the continental heartland in the east. Furthermore, the Union in Krewo with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1385 started 400 years of stability in this area. Now it can be seen as an excellent geostrategic movement. The progressive rapprochement with Lithuania in the east, which reached its apogee in 1567, when, as a result of the Union of Lublin, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was established, caused Poland to orientate itself towards the east-west direction connecting the nations of Poland, Lithuania, Ruthenia - now Belarus and Kievan Rus - now Ukraine.
The Fall
Due to the few terrain barriers and the ease of marching of troops, the Baltic-Black Sea bridge area has been a key area for establishing security architecture in Europe for centuries. All the great European expansions ranging from the expedition of the Polish Crown Hetman Stanisław Żółkiewski to Russia in 1612, which ended in the occupation of Moscow, to Napoleonic expeditions to the east in the nineteenth century, ending with Hitler's march to the USSR - took place along the corridor of the Central European lowland. The significance of this area for all regional players, combined with the devastating wars in the 17th century and the inefficiency of the Polish authorities in the 18th century finally led to the partition of Poland between Austria, Prussia and Russia, which was completed in 1795.
Oskar Żebrowski, one of the precursors of Polish geopolitical thought, while emigrating during the partitions of Poland in the nineteenth century, in his work "Poland. Overview of the reasons for the rise and fall of the former Polish state” published in 1847 in Paris, returned to the concept of the Polish State as a keystone between east and west. In the Żebrowski concept, Poland was divided into the Upper part, i.e. the northern catchment area of the Baltic Sea, and Lower Part, the southern catchment area of the Black Sea. The whole area was separated by natural barriers: the Baltic Sea in the north, the Carpathians in the south, the Oder in the west and the Daugava and the Dnieper in the east. This idea will be modified differently for the next 150 years and will return to the thoughts of Polish leaders and strategists under different names: Intermarium, Third Europe, ULB Doctrine - but each time any attempt to implement it will fail.
The Yalta’s Creation
The current shape of Poland was established in the Potsdam and Yalta conferences, as a result of talks between the victorious powers of the Second World War - Great Britain, the USSR and the United States. The borders of the Polish People's Republic - the soviet satellite state of Poland, were defined by the Baltic in the north, the Carpathian and Sudeten ranges in the south, the Oder and Nysa Łużycka rivers in the west on, and the Bug river in the east. In this way Poland lost important cities in the east - Lviv, Grodno or Vilnius.
The Polish territory moved more to the west and decreased by 13% compared to the interwar period of the Second Polish Republic. However, the area has become more compact, which is more advantageous from a strategic perspective. From the west, the country has a relatively good defensive character - almost the entire border with Germany runs along rivers, from the south-west it is protected by the Sudetes, and in the north-west by the Bay of Szczecin. The capital of the country - Warsaw, lies far from this border. It looks different from a German perspective, the buffer area of Berlin - the main political and decision-making center - has never been wide enough, which caused anxiety about the threat from the Polish theater of war. At present, in times of peace and economic-military alliance, this is not, however, a priority for the geostrategic thought of German strategists.
From the north and south, Poland does not feel much danger either. Political centers there have friendly relations with Warsaw, moreover, terrain barriers - the high Carpathians in the south and the Baltic Sea in the north effectively complicate the potential expansion. Although Sweden has quite large military potential, and the Baltic Sea is not an impossible barrier to cross, as the 17th century showed - this scenario seems surreal at present.
The Eastern Challenge
It is the eastern direction that causes the greatest concern among Polish decision-makers. The Russian expansionism is what currently presents Poland's greatest strategic challenge. It’s focused on the entire eastern front - starting from the highly militarized Kaliningrad Oblast, through Moscow's satellite ally - Belarus, ending with Ukraine - which continues to be in a state of unofficial conflict with Russia. Moscow's goal in this area is to neutralize the Baltic-Black Sea bridge region, which means not allowing a situation where any Western center of power could influence the region too much. Both militarily, in the form of military bases, as well as politically. This is why Russia felt so threatened by Ukraine's Western return and decided to take a preventive attack on its eastern part. A similar scenario was realized in 2008 in Georgia.
Therefore, Polish geostrategy currently focuses almost exclusively on the east. Poland is indeed part of the European Union, and more importantly NATO - which theoretically determines Polish security guarantees. Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty says that an armed attack on one of the allied countries will be considered an attack on the entire alliance. Although the military and economic potential of NATO countries is many times higher than the capabilities of the Russian Federation and its allies, the shared interest of NATO members is highly questionable. Showing NATO’s dysfunction is also one of Russia's overarching goals on the international stage - especially in Europe. For now NATO is cemented by American military power, but its potential in the face of the geography of Central Eastern Europe is drastically reduced.
The granting of the Kaliningrad Oblast to the Soviet Union, which was later inherited by the Russian Federation, is considered today a serious operational problem for Poland. Kaliningrad creates the Russian Anti-Access Area Denial bastion. The very existence of the oblast strongly influences the dislocation of North Atlantic Alliance forces, including the Polish army. Air-defense systems deployed in this small area threaten NATO's communications lines in land, sea and air. These include S-400 air defense systems, Bastion missile systems and Iskander missile systems - all with a range of approx. 400-500km. Bastion systems also allow launching Kalibr rockets, with a range of 1500km, which means that the entire territory of Poland is within the range of the Russian rockets. In this way, Kaliningrad effectively excludes the possibility of American aircraft carriers approaching the Baltic Sea, which means that NATO allied forces in the case of war can only come by land. Due to a number of logistic and operational problems, this effectively reduces the potential for military support by the alliance for Poland or the Baltic States. The area of Western Livonia has therefore been effectively casting a shadow on the Polish state for nearly 800 years, when the Teutonic Order was brought to this land.
The Belarussian eastern direction is not favorable for Poland as well. It is true that Belarus is not officially a hostile country to Poland. However, due to its deep dependence on the Russian Federation, the country is Moscow’s extended arm. It is likely that, in the event of a Russian offensive, Belarus territory would be made available to Russia. In this way, Moscow kills three birds with one stone. First of all, it bypasses the biggest barrier in the eastern theater which is the Smolensk Gate mentioned earlier. Secondly, Russian troops gain the ability to approach the Polish-Belarussian border, which is only 200km from Warsaw and thirdly closes the NATO alliance eastern flank to the bottleneck of the Suwałki Gate. That’s what the short 100 km Poland-Lithuania border is called in NATO's terminology. The only way for possible help to the Baltic States - Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Therefore, making the defense of the Baltic States extremely difficult, according to some specialists - impossible.
In the south-east, Poland borders Ukraine, whose Western European uprising has paid a high price. Ukraine shares a community of interests with Poland, which focuses on counteracting Russian expansionism, as well as a shared history, when the people of Kievan Rus were part of the Commonwealth. Although historical policy, mainly concerning events during World War II, divides some environments in both countries, now the nations are being brought closer together. According to various estimates, up to 1.5 million Ukrainians currently live and work in Poland. Such grassroots social movements mean that potential geostrategic agreement with Kiev is not excluded. However, this requires strong political will from both countries and the definition of real conditions for cooperation based on solid geoeconomic foundations. So far such moves have not been made.
Between Russia and Germany, under Washington’s umbrella
Currently, due to the changing nature of demilitarized Germany in the last half-century, Poland does not feel threatened by Berlin. What's more, after 1989, Polish policymakers decided to pursue and ultimately to plug into the European economic system under the patronage of Germany - the European Union. This geoeconomic movement allowed Poland to develop faster and catch up with Western countries. At the same time, however, it confirmed the junior status of Poland's partner in relations with Germany. Polish economy depends on cooperation with global companies based in Germany, however, its participation in the German supply chain mostly consists of semi-finished products and simple components.
Russia is also seeking a political and economic agreement with Germany over the entire Baltic-Black Sea bridge. The Nord Stream project, whose main beneficiaries are Berlin and Moscow, is a manifestation of the deepening German-Russian partnership. Nevertheless the dynamics are opposed by the United States, for which such consolidation of power would pose a serious threat to its external domination in Europe. The geopolitical context determined by the Berlin-Moscow axis has, therefore, become one of the decisive factors prompting many Polish decision-makers to seek support not only in NATO and the European Union but also in a direct, bilateral alliance with Washington. This is particularly noticeable in the current ruling political class in Poland.
Three ways
The whole picture shapes three geostrategic possibilities for Warsaw. The first is an even greater cooperation with the US. Washington could potentially support the region militarily and economically to balance the influence of Berlin and Moscow - giving a real basis for the popular concept of Intermarium. However, the political will of US policymakers for making such a move is decisive here. The second is the continental option, rapprochement with the European Union, and in particular with Germany. This is certainly the easiest way, as Poland is already firmly connected to the German economic system. However, this would be equal to accepting the role of Berlin's subordinate partner. The last option is the riskiest option of balancing German, Russian, American, and perhaps Chinese influence by creating independent policy in the region, preferably while maintaining the alliance with the US. It is a vision absent in these areas for 250 years and requires a mental change from Polish political leaders, thus unlikely. One thing is certain, regardless of the path chosen, Poland's location in the world will not change and will continue to affect the lives of Poles.
