Opinion With the Russian invasion, the spotlight is on Poland’s role in European politics

C Raja Mohan writes: Unlike a divided Germany that did not have full sovereignty and was troubled by its status as the fulcrum of the Cold War, Poland has risen to the occasion

It is Poland that occupies the hot seat today. (Illustration: C R Sasikumar)

C. Raja Mohan

New DelhiMarch 30, 2022 11:30 AM IST First published on: Mar 29, 2022 at 03:43 AM IST

As President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine turns into a “total war” between Russia and the West, Poland has emerged as the new geopolitical node of Europe. At the end of his visit to Europe last week, US President Joe Biden delivered a major speech in Poland’s capital, not only condemning Putin’s aggression but also calling for his ouster from the Kremlin. “For God’s sake, this man can’t remain in power”, Biden concluded his fiery speech in front of a medieval Polish castle in Warsaw. Biden’s comments at the very end of his speech also reinforced the repeated US affirmation that the West has no quarrel with the Russian people and that the problem is Putin’s overweening ambition and unprovoked aggression.

White House officials sought to walk back Biden’s remarks by “clarifying” that he was not calling for “regime change” in Russia and that his remarks were not part of the written text. But it is not easy for leaders to take back powerful words, once they are uttered. Biden’s remarks will only confirm the Kremlin’s fear that Washington is bent on regime change in Russia. There is no doubt now that the prospects for any near-term political reconciliation between the West and Putin’s Russia have dimmed significantly.

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The Kremlin was quick to remind that the US president does not decide who rules Russia. It also sent even a more powerful message by bombing Lviv, the western city of Ukraine close to the Polish border. Many European allies are flinching at Biden’s idea of a total war with Putin’s Russia. French President Emmanuel Macron was among the various European leaders to dissociate themselves from Biden’s remarks. But as Biden sets a bolder, and highly risky, agenda for the confrontation with Russia, some in Europe are certainly cheering him on. Most of those seeking a decisive confrontation with Russia are in the belt of European states running down the spine of Central Europe from the north to the south. They also form the eastern flank of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

The Central European nations have long been viewed as peripheral to European geopolitics. They were treated as passive buffers between Russia and Western Europe. The Central European peoples were forever at the mercy of more powerful neighbours to the east and west, especially Russia and Germany, that repeatedly invaded, divided, annexed, and subjugated them.

Not any more. The Central Europeans are now finding their voice. The Russian war on Ukraine has now given the central European states an unprecedented political role in shaping the region’s future. They no longer accept a secondary status to the traditionally dominant West European powers in the regional hierarchy. Nor are they willing to accept Russia’s claim for a veto over their national security orientation.
For the Central Europeans, the Russian invasion is a “we told you so” moment. Unlike the establishments in Western Europe and North America that saw Putin as a rational actor and Russia as a weak regional power, the Central Europeans never stopped warning about Moscow’s abiding geopolitical ambitions. The source of their caution was deep-rooted suspicion of Russian intentions based on their own tragic experience with Russia’s regional hegemony over the centuries.

Last June, for example, they shot down a move by Macron and the German Chancellor to have a European summit with Putin after Biden met with Putin in Geneva to explore a broad political understanding with Russia. They feared that any accommodation between Russia on the one hand and the US, France and Germany on the other, will inevitably be at the expense of Central Europe.

They have long objected to Germany’s deep commercial and deep energy ties to Russia, as empowering Putin and giving him strategic leverage over Europe. In the last few weeks since the Russian invasion, they have sought to shame Germany for its reluctance to provide military assistance to Ukraine. They are egging on NATO to raise military support for Ukraine and calling on the US and EU to expand the scope of economic and other sanctions on Russia.

If Germany was at the epicentre of the Cold War divide in Europe, it is Poland that occupies the hot seat today. Unlike a divided Germany that did not have full sovereignty and was troubled by its status as the fulcrum of the Cold War, Poland has risen to the occasion.

Poland has already taken more than two million refugees from Ukraine in the last month. With a long and shared history with the people of Ukraine, the Poles have opened their homes and hearts to the Ukrainians. Most of the weapons supplies to Ukraine flow through Poland. Warsaw is also eager to transfer more advanced weapons like fighter aircraft to Ukraine to blunt the Russian offensive. If the Poles do not hide their deepest resentments of Russia’s historic domination — whether Tsarist or Communist — over Central Europe, the Kremlin can’t temper its condescension towards Poland. On the eve of Biden’s visit to Poland, Russia’s former president and a trusted aide of Putin, Dmitry Medvedev, lashed out at the Polish elites as a “community of political imbeciles” afflicted by “pathological Russophobia”. Russia, of course, has its own memories of the Polish-Lithuanian imperialism. Medvedev reminded Poles of Russian success in rolling back the occupation of Moscow by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 400 years ago.

Even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Poles and Central Europeans have been enthusiastic supporters of a stronger role for the US and NATO in Europe. They have had little faith in the visions for European “strategic autonomy” from Washington; they had no confidence in the will and capability of Western Europe in standing up to the Russian challenge.

The Trump administration had sought to exploit the differences between “old Europe” in the west and the “new (central) Europe” liberated from the Russian sphere of influence at the end of the Cold War. The Democrats, however, scoffed at Trump’s enthusiasm for the socially conservative Central European elites. But the Russian invasion of Ukraine has seen the Biden Democrats embrace Central Europe and elevate Poland to the centre of their European calculus.

In Warsaw, Biden predicted that the conflict over Ukraine will be a prolonged one between Russia and the West. If that assessment is right, the strategic significance of Central Europe at the heart of this confrontation will endure. Russia’s war in Ukraine is also bound to propel Poland to the front ranks of European powers. Warsaw’s impressive economic performance in the last three decades and its leadership in shaping the sub-regional institutions in Central Europe have steadily elevated the geopolitical salience of Poland.

For far too long, Central Europe has been a blind spot in India’s worldview. The east-west framework that defined India’s European policies had little room for “Mittle Europa” — or Middle Europe — that straddled this divide and defied the Cold War certitudes. There have been efforts in the last couple of years in Delhi to end the neglect of Central Europe.

As the “New Europe” regains its political agency, Delhi needs a better appreciation of the persistent political cleavages in the heart of the continent. These contradictions will not only shape the outcomes of the war in Ukraine but also the long-term evolution of European geopolitics.

This column first appeared in the print edition on March 29, 2022 under the title ‘At the centre, Poland’. The writer is Senior Fellow, Asia Society Policy Institute, Delhi and a contributing editor on international affairs for The Indian Express.