In 2004, as director of the Foreign Policy Planning Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I went on a consultation tour in the Middle East. I was supposed to fly from Syria to Israel,…
Despite Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, Ukraine did not sever diplomatic relations with Russia. It did so only in February 2022, when Russia officially recognized the separatist Donbas republics and launched its aggression. Ukraine…
When, prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Western leaders, especially Americans, tried to dissuade Putin from aggression, they evoked the prospect of severe, painful sanctions that Russia would bring on itself…
The NATO Strategic Concept, adopted at the end of June 2022 in Madrid, made the doctrine of deterrence the core of the Alliance’s functioning. Crisis response and collective security work remain important areas of NATO’s…
Most Western analysts indicate that the state of confrontation and tension in relations with Russia will continue for many years, regardless of the outcome of the war in Ukraine. Even if one succeeds in breaking…
A Polish diplomat experienced distress in his post in Moscow in the mid-1970s. He stood on the stand among the diplomatic corps. When a military parade started on Red Square and dozens of tanks, armoured…
As late as March 8, 2022, two weeks after the invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Foreign Ministry had the courage to call (via Interfax) upon the United States to return to the principles of “peaceful…
Sometimes passivity can be made a virtue. Countries that do not have the resources (military, economic, political) at their disposal to effectively react to the actions of other states that do not correspond to their…
When Putin gave a major speech in Munich in 2007 in which he signalled a confrontational and neo-imperial course, some Western politicians did not take his program seriously. But a large group of politicians and…
Polish autarky proponents are, of course, fully aware that today, in times of globalization, isolationism may be merely a desperate attempt to preserve the possibility of unwavering control over society. Globalization breaks down barriers and…
