We, and maybe two or three other folks were way ahead of the curve on this one. One sticking point might be Belarus:
The Polish Commonwealth in 1635 in red:
And Kaliningrad might be tricky, being Russian (since 1945) and all. As for the Czech Republic, Poland has already laid claim to a bit in the north and rumor has it the same is true for the south-facing slopes of the High Tatra in northern Slovakia, the better to expand the skiing and snowboarding industries.
note: trying to figure-out where Kiev and Smolensk are on this map to double-check this isn't post-the-1667 Treaty of Andrusovo. I think we're good.
From Foreign Policy, March 26, 2023:
A political construct created nearly 700 years ago offers solutions for Europe today.
In 1386, the last pagan ruler of Lithuania, Jogaila, married the child queen of Poland, Jadwiga, then in her early teens. The marriage created a political union between Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which encompassed large parts of today’s Belarus and Ukraine. By doing so, it solved a twofold problem. One, it helped bring the vast Eastern European territories, including lands of the former Kyivan Rus’, into the fold of Western Christendom. Two, the union addressed the immediate security concern facing both Poles and Lithuanians: the threat of Teutonic Knights.
The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth would go on to become one of the largest countries in Europe and a fascinating laboratory of political governance, studied in some detail by the United States’ founding fathers, particularly in the Federalist Papers. After the end of the Jagiellonian dynasty, it transformed into an electoral monarchy, similar to the city-states of Italy yet operating on a vastly larger scale. The commonwealth’s legislature and local diets followed the principle of unanimity—not unlike the European Council does on many issues today. The commonwealth’s atmosphere of religious tolerance and freedom enjoyed by its nobility provided a stark counterpoint to the absolutist monarchies of Western Europe—not to speak of the tragic history that followed the commonwealth’s demise in 1795.
What if a similar political solution were available to the problems facing Ukraine and Poland today?The argument for an explicit political union between the two countries is not based on nostalgia but on shared interests. To be sure, due to four centuries of common history within the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, much of today’s Ukraine (and Belarus) shares far more of its past with Poland than it does with Russia, notwithstanding claims of Russian propagandists to the contrary and notwithstanding the fact that the relationship was oftentimes highly complicated, as illustrated by events of the 17th-century Deluge—most prominently by the Khmelnytsky uprising and its conflicting interpretations by Poles and Ukrainians.
Fast-forward to the present and to the near future, however. Both countries are facing a threat from Russia. Today, Poland is a member in good standing of the EU and NATO, while Ukraine is keen to join both organizations—not unlike the Grand Duchy of yesteryear, eager to become part of mainstream, Christianized Europe. Even if Ukraine’s war against Russia ends with a decisive Ukrainian victory, driving degraded Russian forces out of the country, Kyiv faces a potentially decades long struggle to join the EU, not to speak of obtaining credible security guarantees from the United States. The poorly governed, unstable countries of the Western Balkans, prone to Russian and Chinese interference, provide a warning about where prolonged “candidate status” and European indecision might lead. A militarized Ukrainian nation, embittered at the EU because of its inaction, and perhaps aggrieved by an unsatisfactory conclusion of the war with Russia, could easily become a liability for the West.
Imagine instead that, at the end of the war, Poland and Ukraine form a common federal or confederal state, merging their foreign and defense policies and bringing Ukraine into the EU and NATO almost instantly. The Polish-Ukrainian Union would become the second-largest country in the EU and arguably its largest military power, providing more than an adequate counterweight to the Franco-German tandem—something that the EU is sorely missing after Brexit.
For the United States and Western Europe, the union would be a permanent way of securing Europe’s eastern flank from Russian aggression. Instead of a rambling, somewhat chaotic country of 43 million lingering in no-man’s land, Western Europe would be buffered from Russia by a formidable country with a very clear understanding of the Russian threat. “Without an independent Ukraine, there cannot be an independent Poland,” Poland’s interwar leader, Jozef Pilsudski, famously claimed, advocating a Polish-led Eastern European federation including Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine—basically a recreation of the medieval commonwealth.
This is not fantasy talk. Early on during the war, Poland passed legislation allowing Ukrainian refugees to obtain Polish ID numbers, giving them thus access to a host of social and healthcare benefits normally reserved for Polish nationals. The Ukrainian government vowed to reciprocate, extending to Poles in Ukraine a special legal status not available to other foreigners. With over 3 million Ukrainians living in Poland – including a sizeable pre-war population – the cultural, social, and personal ties between the two nations are growing stronger every day.
There is also one obvious precedent for a political union that significantly upended the balance of power in the EU and jumped through many of the obstacles that a prospective Polish-Ukrainian Union would face: German reunification....
....MUCH MORE
Previously:
No, not the covid masks, it sounds like March at the earliest before those are to come off and the Poles can breathe the sweet air of freedom rather than the stinky "I should have brushed my teeth better" mask breath.
Rather, this,
My other new favourite theory is that Ukraine will go Reverse Merger on NATO by agreeing to a “soft annexation” by Poland, to acquire NATO membership by stealth that way. Poland offering NATO-as-a-Service via actual citizen passporting.
— Izabella Kaminska (@izakaminska) February 13, 2022
....They laughed when we posted these in 2017:
- "Poland's Plan to Dominate Europe"
- Poland's Plan to Dominate Europe II
- Poland's Plan To Dominate Europe, III: Here Comes China
Who's laughing now? Huh?
I'm pretty sure he's speaking metaphorically.
At least I think he's speaking metaphorically.
God, I hope he's speaking metaphorically.
The quote is via the Office of Poland's President, Andrzej Duda from his speech last week:
President's speech marking the central celebrations of the National Day of the Third of May
It's down toward the end of the oration, where he talks about getting the Commonwealth back together (kidding)
....I hope that for decades to come, and God willing, for centuries to come, Ukraine will be a brotherly state to the Republic of Poland, the country where – as I hope President Volodymyr Zelenski prophetically said – there will be no border between them and ourselves; that there will be no border; that we will live together on this soil, rebuilding and restoring our shared happiness and strength, something that will enable us to withstand every danger, and that will deter any attack or threat in the future.
I have no doubt that the enormous potential lies primarily in people – both in Poles and Ukrainians, as well as in our neighbours: Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians. I firmly believe that we are capable of building here, in our part of Europe, a great community of nations – a strong community, as it should be, as our history has taught us.
Long live the nations of the former Commonwealth! May God protect them all and bring them happiness and prosperity! Long live Poland!
If the 'borderless' references are not metaphorical he risks this (please note, Polish flag is upside down, I did not draw it!):
I stole it. From The Fly, who appears to be quite the Russophile.
I've mentioned the long shadow of history along the current Polish and Ukraine and Belarus borders.
The example I used was the fact you could append the word 'massacre' to just about any city along those borders and have a search term that would result in multiple hits.*
But that was just referring to the 20th century stuff. In today's link the Russian interviewee is talking about the Commonwealth of 300 - 400 years ago as if it were yesterday and the Belarusian interviewer is right with him, and so I'm sure are the Belarusian audience.
Ditto for Poles and Lithuanians.....
And they seem pleased with their new Polish-Korean main-battle-tank joint venture.
(though Victoria Nuland has expressed a desire for regime change in Belarus, Lithuania seems easier)
We've been warning about this for years. From the "Poland Plans to Dominate Europe" series in 2017 to the Intermarium/Three Seas Initiative:
If interested see also:
"Poland Might Be Prepared to Do What the US and NATO Will Not"
"Poland's Ambassador To France May Have Gone Insane"
"When the Ukraine war spreads to a NATO nation",
"Poland sends first batch of Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine"
The
Russian commenters are talking about the Battle of Kursk and how good
it will be to see Russian tanks destroying German tanks once again.
That's not the way it's going to happen. As was shown in Syria,
the Leopard 2 is very good tank vs tank. A serious problem for Leopard 2
crews arises if the turret is attacked from above or if the rear of the
tank is attacked.
U.S. Army Mad Scientist Laboratory: "The Pivotal Role of Small and Middle Powers in Conflict: Poland and the War in Ukraine"
"Poland Will Have a Large and Modern Tank Army"
...And Helicopters, Poland Will Have A LOT Of Attack Helicopters":
Germany May Be Trying to Destabalize Poland But No Worries
Ukraine: Possible Futures
"The wicked weaponization of Ukrainian refugees "
"How you gonna keep 'em down on the farm after they've seen Wroclaw?"
"Are Ukrainian Farmers an Endangered Species?":
Probably.
Ex-CIA Head Petraeus On The U.S. Directly Intervening In Ukraine Scenario
"Poland's Plan to Dominate Europe"
Poland's Plan to Dominate Europe II
"Poland 'Will Not Get EU Recovery Funds', Warns Top EU Parliament Politician In Latest Attack"
For the sake of the Polish people I sure hope their leaders understand what they are doing.
Being
a stalking horse out in front of the U.S. and NATO and especially the
EU, is a very dangerous position. And in addition, they've accepted
something on the order of three million Ukrainians who crossed the
border, an extraordinary humanitarian act on a national scale, but one
that can't go on forever. So here's wishing the Poles the best....
Don't never, ever trust the Eurocrats. They are slime.Streeck: "The EU after Ukraine"
"Lithuania and Poland Want to ‘Recover’ Kaliningrad, Russian Analysts Say"
That would certainly shake things up
Opinion: Ukraine's future will resemble Partition of Rzeczpospolita