Posted on 01/15/2019 7:07:00 AM PST by CondoleezzaProtege
Berlin and Warsaw have very different ideas about how to respond to the challenge Trumps presidency poses to Europe. While Germany emphasises the need to strengthen Europes resilience and unity, the Polish response has been to embrace the opportunities of the new political reality and enhance its bilateral partnership with the US.
...Furthermore, the 2018 US National Defense Strategy defines Russia as a strategic adversary, in line with threat perceptions in Warsaw. In fact, the Polish government is much more enthusiastic about the direction of Washingtons current policy than that under Trumps predecessor, Barack Obama, who attempted to reset American-Russian relations.
Germany and France criticise American unilateralism for threatening the Wests unity, but Poland has other concerns. In Warsaw, political elites fear that America will betray Polish or European interests is weaker than their concern about the consequences of loosening transatlantic bonds. In other words, pushing European sovereignty as the medicine for the transatlantic crisis is seen as more dangerous than the disease it intends to cure. This scepticism about the direction of the western European debate about Trump and transatlantic relations only enhances Polands eagerness to strengthen its bilateral relationship with the US and position itself as Washingtons best ally in Europe.
(Excerpt) Read more at ecfr.eu ...
well, to be fair - FDR sold out the Poles in 1945 and Churchill acquiesced.
however Poland-Lithuania at one point was the largest European state in size and wsa the only power to ever conquer Moscow and seat their King as Tsar (1610)
That was true in 1939 but no longer. To the south Poland has the Carpathian mountains. To the north the Baltic sea. To the West the Oder-Neisse river borders. To the east Belarus and Western Ukraine are bulwarks. The Russian attacks on the Ukraine have ended up making Western Ukrainians as fervently anti-russian as they were anti-Polish. So a buffer state. And the Belarussians want to balance themselves between Mosccow and Europe
If he had succeeded then the eastern bloodlands might not have happened
pilsudski was harking back to the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth (1410-1791) which covered much of these lands. He himself was of Lithuanian origin but considered himself a Pole
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