In issues 169-170 of Bimonthly Arcana, Professor Kazimierz Dadak, an economist who teaches at Western universities, analyzes the political situation in Poland after a year of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The scholar in Arcany has been publishing for years and repeatedly reveals to the Polish reader non-obvious financial prospects, new opportunities or missed opportunities of our country in the struggle for prosperity and efficient economy. This time, the scientist expresses valid concerns about whether the government is making good use of the growing role of the Republic of Poland in the current crisis. A debate on how we can strengthen our position is needed and Professor Dadak’s voice is certainly an added value here, however, it is impossible to agree with one statement of the author – in the pages of Arcana the voice sounded very reassuring that with the current weakness of the Russian Federation, Putin’s empire, its military expansion does not threaten us.
Meanwhile, things are not so obvious.
Let’s look at the professor’s arguments:
Despite the extremely meager results of the battle so far, there is a repeated expression on the Vistula River that if Russia defeats Ukraine, it will immediately run further west. How could Russia, unable to defeat a country that was only two positions higher than Poland in the Global Firepower 2022 ranking, attack the entire NATO (because an attack on Poland automatically means the start of military operations against the entire Alliance )?
The scholar admits that Ukraine’s existence is in our national interest, but the approach of Russian troops to our borders in terms of security would not change anything:
After all, we border Russia and somehow no one is saying that we are threatened by a Russian invasion from the Królewiec Enclave.
In the event of a confrontation, as the economist assures,
Although it probably sounds incredible to compatriots, Poland’s victory is beyond dispute at this point.
For example, in the Arcana we read of “overestimating the power of Russia”, which, with its weaknesses, would not have the resources for an additional war.
von Clausewitz expressed this idea even more clearly when he stated that “no one starts a war – on the contrary, no sane person should do that – without first realizing what he wants to achieve with certain military actions and how he wants to carry them out (ed. KD)”
Russia specifically
Professor Dadak has repeatedly enumerated the economic mechanisms of different parts of the world in the Cracow’s Bimonthly, but in the case of Russia, the invasion of Ukraine and the security of the Polish “wise man, the glass and the eye”, he sees only figures that are not sufficient to describe specific Russian policies. The question of how Russia would rush west if it is unable to defeat Ukraine is worth answering. After switching the economy to war mode, after easily assessing the situation in which Poland seems to be the cornerstone of security in the region, after rebuilding its combat capabilities and above all because of ideological hatred towards our Poland, the Kremlin would can attack using different methods. And Professor Kazimierz Dadak underestimates Russian decision-making, civilization-conditioned emotions, hatred and ideology. The same hatred that rationally ordered Hitler to take trains from the Eastern Front, where they were so badly needed to send Jews to Auschwitz. It is not the logic in totalitarian heads that decides, but their fanatical reasons.
The professor quotes Clausewitz as if the rational view worked in the Russian case. Recall that a year ago Putin with an army of 150,000 invaded a vast country of 40 million people and wanted it to fall in three days, without simply “realizing what he wants to achieve with certain military actions and how he intends to carry them out to feed”. The Prussian military theorist assumed – as follows from the quote – the “common sense” of the decider, as we currently watch the Russians lose tens of thousands of people to occupy part of a ruined city with perhaps two thousand elderly residents living in basements. Those are the “sound senses” in the Kremlin.
The collapse of Ukraine would be a catastrophe
The professor also claims that there is no military problem with the “Königsberg enclave”, when the exact opposite is true. The Suwałki region, which lies between Belarus and Belarus, is the Achilles’ heel of the entire NATO, and concerns about the impossibility of defending this area, which forms the bridge from the West to the Baltic States, were expressed, for example by General Hodges, President Toomas Ilves or analysts at the RAND Institute.
This means that the proximity of the Belarusian border to Kaliningrad poses a real threat to NATO’s eastern flank. Extending the border with Russia by 535 kilometers in the collapse of Ukraine variant would mean that Poland would fall into a permanent threat from Przemyśl to Olsztyn, from the Bieszczady mountains through the Polesie forests to the lakes of Warmia, and the new situation would force us to spend even more on border security, army expansion and military training. The collapse of Ukraine would change everything in Poland, it would make us the Israel of Europe, with a furious, unpredictable enemy hundreds of miles along its borders.
Different types of war
The “undisputable victory of Poland” does not seem so indisputable either. Yes, the Ukrainians themselves – and I heard it dozens of times during my 160 days in wartime Ukraine – imagine us as a military force that would defeat Russia alone, I am not discouraging them from this mistake, but there are also powerful factors of our weakness. Let us remind you that our elite is brimming with cops, fools and political careerists who join everyone in opposing the current authorities. A member of the European Parliament from Poland supports Lukashenko in the illegal transfer of immigrants across the eastern border, a coalition of parties in the Sejm opposes supporting Ukraine in this war, and the vast majority of the opposition defend the highly suspicious and disturbing ambiguity of German policy towards this war.
A Russian attack on Poland would look different from the one on Ukraine – maybe it would be confined to a small area, after which a local obstructionist in Warsaw would take care of our defense from the inside? Perhaps a series of pre-election provocations will turn our political system upside down? Perhaps a hybrid strike would help our German partners avoid getting involved in Article 5 of NATO, which doesn’t sound as clear-cut as we’d like.
In conclusion of Professor Dadak’s text, in which he points out many correct steps to be taken, it is worth clarifying that this is not about overestimating Russia’s power, but about appreciating the power of Russian hatred and ideology. Logic and calculation are not a good yardstick by which to judge Kremlin fanatics.
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Source: wPolityce