01 ISSUE IV
MARCH 2025
MARCH 2025
The Polish Doctrine
Russia’s aggression has forced Poland to reconsider its role in Europe’s stability. Internal turmoil and conflicting views on how to best leverage its position and national interests will shape the Polish response.
By Alex Rossen
Medyka is a small rural town with a native population of about three thousand people. The unassuming farming commune lies in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship of southeastern Poland. Until recently, life in Medyka could be described as idyllic. It is also on the border with Ukraine. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Medyka has transformed into one of the busiest border crossings in all of Europe.
Geopolitics focuses on how geography explains international affairs. It shows how politics is underpinned by physical and spatial realities—realities like the 529-kilometer strip of land that separates Poland and Ukraine. The Polish-Ukrainian border is one of the most important staging grounds in protecting regional European security interests from Russian state aggression. The majority of the world’s aid being sent to Ukraine, including aid from the United States, has passed through here. So too have 3.5 million Ukrainian refugees – 53 percent of all Ukrainian refugees around the world – left Ukraine via this crossing. According to Eurostat, Poland (993,015 people; 23.2% of the EU total) ranks second among EU countries hosting the highest number of beneficiaries of temporary protection from Ukraine. Germany is (1,170,250; 27.3%), and Czechia (394,985; 9.2%).
These contributions cement Poland’s status as one of the world’s most important intermediaries to one of the most consequential conflicts in geopolitics today — rivaled only by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Moreover, through its successful overthrow of the USSR-backed satellite government in 1989 and its electoral defeat of the Law and Justice Party (PiS) in 2023, Poland has long demonstrated that autocracy is neither inevitable nor infallible. This powerful wave against democratic backsliding has propelled Poland into a highly influential position within EU and NATO politics. Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government, currently leading among NATO members in defense spending as a percentage of GDP, has been behind impassioned calls for its European allies to increase theirs as a response to the security threat posed by Russia. Poland’s crucial role in Europe’s democratic stability also rests on the anticipation of how it will use its term in the presidency of the Council of the European Union to direct agenda, and on the potential paradigm shifts that Poland’s own domestic presidential election might introduce.
Driven largely by its own threat perception, Poland intentionally chose security as the guiding theme for its agenda in the EU Council Presidency. To buttress its vision for transnational security cooperation, the Polish government must restore faith with its European partners in a faltering consensus that the Kremlin’s assault on Ukraine is only part of a broader assault directed West. Yet with the next Presidential election on the horizon, the country once again faces significant internal turmoil about how to leverage its position effectively—split between dueling interpretations of what the Polish national interest is. The center-right PiS party suffers a crisis of identity, weighing its past allegiance with US President Donald Trump against its firmly anti-Russian stance. There is little indication which side of the fence they will fall on, as major PiS officials continue to evade questions on this topic. Looking further right, the Confederation Party’s candidate bolsters a much tougher stance against Ukraine, a more open diplomatic approach to Russia, and hints at a potential affinity with President Trump. The economically-libertarian, socially-conservative party continues to close the gap with PiS in new polls.
The Confederation Party undertakes a lot of risk with its rhetoric on Russia and Ukraine. To an extent, supporting a heavy-handed military response against the Kremlin Russia is considered “safe.” Poland has spent 40 years behind the Iron Curtain, and that memory still stings. The slightest whiff of affinity with the Kremlin is enough to sink most politicians. Fighting against resistance from the current PiS-elected President Andrzej Duda, the Civic Coalition (KO) focuses its alliance-building efforts more immediately due West—with NATO and with the EU. Progressive and leftist agendas — represented by small parties like Nowa Lewica and Razem — have been sidelined as a result of the current state of emergency vis-a-vis Russia. It is unusual for progressive parties to support military industrial growth, but these are unusual times for Poland. According to Jacobin, the Nowa Lewica party has a proposed policy package that includes a “Polish Defense Doctrine” which would redefine the country’s strategic interests, place a strong emphasis on repelling Putin’s invasion, and call for more defense and military industrial spending. One meaningful detail that sets the small leftist parties apart from their opponents is that they support expanding the rights of Ukrainian refugees where all other parties including the center-left KO seek to curtail them. However, they face a challenging election season. Both parties combined are projected to only win two percent of the vote between them.
KO, which is favored to win the Presidency at the next elections, has ambitious visions for their roles in their alliances in Europe and NATO. They have put up Warsaw mayor Rafał Trzaskowski as their candidate for the election, who said that “there is a certain vacuum of leadership [in Europe] now that Poland is trying to fill.” The geopolitical positioning of Poland adds a certain plausibility to Trzaskowski’s claim. What’s more, with France and Germany taking steps back, the stage is indeed set for Poland to increase its leadership presence within Europe. The coming Presidential election will largely decide how the Polish government will use that position to influence the future of democratic security in Europe.
ALEX ROSSEN holds an MA in International Affairs from The New School.