Israel's aggression to Iran, to which they joined (all pointless from the point of view of their interests) The United States is an crucial event, even from the point of view of Polish-Russian relations.
Although the war effort in this conflict was temporarily suspended (for how long?), 1 can presume that retaliation by Iran and its allies is only a substance of time. Asymmetry of mobilization potentials, especially alleged surviving force and deficiency of popularity (in particular) Not only in the countries of the Global South, but besides in the Old Europe, Israel states that the proverbial “continuation will continue”. It is besides highly likely that the forces of this country will be exhausted more quickly, due to the fact that it is already a "second front" and that the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip will be wiped out very far away. The most crucial goal of the authorities in Tel Aviv is to bring the U.S. into its war, which will, of course, be interpreted as another defeat of the current president of this country; after all, he announced peace and was active in an objectively pointless war.
What does all this mean for us? The wicked claim that we will shortly learn that we have another “our war” and that, sooner than later, our “strategic ally” will order us to send our business troops, as he did twice in the close past (we participated in 2 aggressions on Iran and Afghanistan). However, these fears are rather exaggerated (for now) due to the fact that we will alternatively gotta wait a small longer for part of the land aggression against Iran, unless Iran's counterattack covers areas controlled by its enemies. I will not further argue with the malicious, but in this absurd planet (almost) anything is possible.
However, the possible effects of this aggression on our region are more important. The Russian-Ukrainian War slow but effectively transforms into a " rotten" regional conflict, which will be conducted mainly for the account of the European Union states: the United States policy – both the "war" in Joe Biden's time, and the "peaceful" 1 since January 2025 – has suffered a spectacular defeat, due to the fact that the only success of the US in the form of an economical partition of Ukraine (the alleged natural material agreement) may prove to be unstable. Russia is and will stay the most crucial player in this region of the world, and its importance will increase with the depletion of Western support resources for "the fighting (still) Ukraine". We – Poland have nothing to give, we pay only Ukrainian bills and pay her debts.
It is interesting to see how long there will be pro-war determination for German and French politicians to support American interests in Ukraine, even though the US is already in a customs war with the European Union? Rationally speaking, from the point of view of Berlin or Paris, throwing money at the support of current authorities in Kiev does not make any sense and only has a hold in admitting the failure of the east policy of 2022-2025. Ukraine has already given up what it was expected to give (primarily people), and the withdrawal of expenditure already incurred, which was drowned in Ukraine, is unrealistic: what was of any value (at least formally) took the Americans in the "raw contract". This war is likely to go further, remaining, as in the case of Yugoslavia, "unsolved conflict" or "painful wound", about which everyone will talk with concern and in a very serious tone, paying further bills of the Kiev authorities. Political change in Ukraine will most likely be the only rational way out of this crisis, but this is another story.
An even worse solution will be to affect us in this war, from which the West will be able to cut off later: that is to say, further regionalisation of this conflict.
Has it already begun – figuratively speaking – the dusk not only of the current policy of the east European Union (German), and thus the beginning of the end of their ruling presence in this region of the world? possibly due to the fact that the balance sheet of the last 3 years is negative for them (and for us) only.
For the sake of order, Russia is neither and will not be the winner in this war, but will stay the “enemy of the West”, to which we “belong”.
All historical analogues are mostly unreliable, but in the Prussian-German past of the last 3 100 years 2 variants of east policy have been developed: pro-Russian and anti-Russian. The second inactive adopted the current version of the alleged Mitteleuropa, which was implemented with variable "luck" from 1914 to 1918, 1939 to 1945 and from 1990 to today. The German Space (Raum) besides includes "independent" or anti-Russian Ukraine in this vision. Will Berlin quit the maximalist version of this plan? Perhaps: then the field of compromise with Russia will – as in the 18th century – be the expansion and strengthening of German power in the heart of Mitteleuropa, that is, Poland. Let me remind you that the Prussian authorities extended to the east in the 18th century only included Polish cultural areas (Warsaw became a Prussian city as a consequence of the 3rd Partition of Poland), and Russia seized lands that present belong to Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia and of course Ukraine. Let us presume realistic presumption that political-territorial ambitions of modern Russia are most likely smaller than in the 18th century, because, for example, Lviv and the full east Galicia have been under Habsburg power since 1772, i.e. objectively the second most crucial German state of that time. Can past develop?
Prof. Witold Modzelewski
Think Poland, No. 29-30 (20-27.07.2025)
