On March 22, 2023, Jacek Bartosiak's book "The Best Place in the World. Where East Meets West" hit bookstores. In this book, the author presented the geopolitical situation of Poland between the East and the West.
Jacek Bartosiak and his latest book (Source: YouTube)
Jacek Bartosiak is one of the most famous geopoliticians and visionaries in Poland, who demands agency from the political elite in Poland, opening a political debate for the Polish society and reforming our state.
The book I'm reading right now is a perfect illustration of the Polish political system, which has been going on unchanged since 1989 in the post-communist mental system that cannot be reformed.
The previous book "The Army of a New Kind" is another example that Polish society is ready to break free from the lack of a vision of a modern state of the current political elites, whose main goal is the Polish-Polish war and staying in power.
After 1989, the political goals, i.e. joining NATO and the European Union, were achieved, but without a guarantee for Poland's development in the heart of Europe. So we are in the middle of Europe without a vision and a plan of what Poland is to be like in 25 years, becoming a second-class partner for Germany, being practically the workforce for simple assembly plants of semi-finished products for the benefit of the German industry.
The war in Ukraine and the repulse of Russian troops from Kiev caused the current world order to collapse, and after Putin's ultimatum and the declaration of Sweden and Finland to join NATO, it created a new situation for the countries of the Intermarium.
Due to the balance of power and security policy in this part of Europe, it is important to strengthen NATO's eastern flank and develop infrastructure along the North-South line with Poland as the focal point of this geopolitical project. This also requires the release of the economic potential of Poles and building a strong state not only in the military but also in the economic sense. After all, a large army must be maintained and its flywheel must be the innovative Polish economy.
Capital for the development of Intermarium infrastructure may come from the United States, but for this to happen, the author of this most important book written after 1989 must understand that Poland should be considered not only in terms of 40 million Poles, residents of Poland, but also on the basis of "connectivity" we must add another 20 million Poles living outside Poland.
Neither the Warsaw think-tanks nor the political elites have any vision whatsoever of how to win over this community to support the Polish raison d'état in the strategic countries, such as the United States. The creation of a pro-Polish lobby in the US should become a strategic target of the Polish state: with the goal to press for American help in building the Intermarium, support NATO's eastern flank, support reparations from Germany, or help reform the Polish army.
The narrative created in Poland about the breakdown of the American Polonia is, as Bartosiak says, the result of there being no efficient decision-making center in Poland, and that Polonia is being tossed "from wall to wall" by various centers of power in Poland and their factions.
It is interesting that such projects as the one of Mr. Bartosiak, Igor Janke, and many other journalists, are ultimately, to a large extent, financed by the Polish diaspora.
