Dilemmas of Poland’s foreign and security policies in the post-Cold War period in the context of its geopolitical location between Russia and Germany

Abstract

The research objective of this paper is the presentation of the influence (significance) of the geopolitical factor in Poland’s relations with the Russian Federation (Russia) and the Federal Republic of Germany (Germany) in the post-Cold War period, first and foremost the influence on the shares of convergent and divergent (contradictory) interests of Poland and the two countries, as well as relevant dilemmas concerning Poland’s foreign and security policies. The main research thesis is that the geopolitical factor remains one of the chief determinants of Poland’s relations with Russia and Germany despite the changes taking place in the international system (e.g. the acceleration of globalisation processes) in the last few decades. In the post-Cold War period, however, it affected Poland’s relations with Russia in a much more negative way than it did the Polish-German relations. The German problem in its traditional sense of a hazard source diminished considerably in the Polish foreign policy in the abovementioned period, while the significance of the Russian problem increased. The decision makers of the Polish foreign policy viewed Germany first and foremost as a partner and an ally (within NATO), while Russia was seen as the main hazard to Polish security, including a military hazard in the form of a direct invasion. Wishing to present more detailed matters, the paper brings to the fore i.a. the issues concerning the essence of the geopolitical factor in the foreign policies of countries, certain conditions of Poland’s geopolitical location in the post-Cold War period, the main stages of Poland’s relations with Germany and Russia in that period together with their characteristics, the main areas of divergent interests in Poland’s relations with Germany and Russia in the second decade of the 21st century, the similarities and differences in Poland’s policy toward Germany and Russia in the post-Cold War period as well as the main dilemmas of the Polish foreign policy toward the end of the second decade of the 21st century stemming from Poland’s geopolitical location between Russia and Germany. One main conclusion formulated on the basis on those deliberations is that Poland’s geopolitical location between Russia and Germany does not doom Polish relations with the two countries to a confrontational nature for historical reasons. The geopolitical factor is not an independent prime mover; it does not entail geopolitical determinism which automatically eliminates the possibility of influencing Poland’s geopolitical situation by subsequent Polish governments. The geopolitical location does not determine eternal enemies or eternal friends because one can derive various conceptions, programmes and objectives of the foreign policy from the same geopolitical location of Poland.