VII. Poland: Nato's Front Line State

Abstract

As Poland approaches its twentieth anniversary as a member of NATO, the sense of insecurity at the Alliance’s eastern flank is growing. When Poland joined the Alliance in 1999, the dominant perception was that NATO would provide Poland with full security guarantees. Over subsequent years, as NATO focused on out-of-area missions, Poland was determined to demonstrate to its Western allies that it could act as a security provider. However, since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Poland has led the argument in favour of boosting the Alliance’s presence on its eastern flank. Decisions taken at the NATO Warsaw Summit in 2016 went some way to meeting these expectations, but fell short of providing the eastern flank with adequate deterrence. The war in Ukraine has put Poland back into its historical geopolitical dilemma as a state in an unstable security environment and lacking meaningful natural borders to hamper a large-scale conventional invasion. Poland’s sovereign statehood, built around the principle of rejoining the West, may be directly threatened as the result of Russia’s actions in Ukraine, the expansion of Russian nuclear capabilities in the Kaliningrad exclave that directly borders Poland, and the increase in military incidents in the air and waters of Northern Europe. In essence, this means that Poland has again become a front line state, which certainly narrows its diplomatic options, although its relative importance for the West could grow. As Russia’s military build-up in Kaliningrad and its aggressive exercises (which include simulated nuclear attacks on Warsaw) intensify, Poland will naturally prioritise its own security and the security of its nearest allies, particularly in the Baltic. While over the last ten to fifteen years, Warsaw was expected to show its commitment to making a mark beyond its immediate neighbourhood –