"Zeitenwende" : the retrenchment - or not - of "territorialism"?

Abstract

‘Zeitenwende’ as announced by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in relation to Ukraine suggests the retrenchment of ‘territorialism’. I discuss this with a focus on Poland. Western Ukraine has after all been Eastern Poland until becoming part of the Ukrainian SSR in 1939. Enlarged with Crimea, the same SSR declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 at a time when Poland was aiming to join the EU and NATO. Now, Poland is a conduit of assistance, military or otherwise to Ukraine. In due course she may need to reconsider her aspiration, as good as fulfilled now, for being a consolidated nation-state. The alternative in 1919 was something like the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth of old. That model may become relevant once more. If so, then this would be like my alternative – neo-medievalism – to a territorialism under which nation-states are the exclusive building blocks of the international order. Neo-medievalism stands for political action, including defence, no longer being the exclusive province of the territorial nation-state. If so, then thinking about the state as if it were the owner on behalf of the nation of its territory needs to adapt.