(Photo: Pixabay)
It touches on the deepest security concerns.
East of the Elbląg-Kraków line the physical space of the region forms a triangle, the base of which is expanding as you move deeper into the former Russian empire, and the Russian cordon forces for its defense are inevitably thinner and thinner in retreat. This gives the opponent of Russia the opportunity to choose the direction of strike and take advantage of the chosen directions.
Therefore, the vast space of the Polish War Theater from the Elbląg-Kraków line, before it reaches the current borders of Russia, is already thousands of kilometers wide and further widening, with the terrain as flat as a table, and behind the Smoleńsk Gate the very layout of the area “invites” to seize Moscow.
At the same time, however, for the offensive from the west, there is the ever-present issue of ever-longer communication lines throughout the entire area from the Vistula valley to the foreground of Smolensk and Moscow beyond. The power of Napoleon and Hitler was exhausted within this very area. The Poles came to Moscow on that route in 1605, 1610 and 1812, the Swedes after 1708. The French in 1812, the Germans marched there in 1914-1917 and again in 1941-42.
In the Northern European Plain, Russia had three options. The first was to use strategic depth, resulting from space and climate, to drag enemy forces in and exploit vastness of the western buffer zone of the Russian empire, and then destroy the fatigued and overstretched foe (Napoleon, Hitler, the Swedes and their Poltava defeat). But then there is a serious risk that the enemy will be able to defeat Russia, though. Added to this the downside is the total destruction of the western provinces of the empire – as can be seen until today from the times of II World War.
The second option was to face the enemy with large forces on the border and have the attrition fight. This strategy was tried in 1914-1917 and it did seem like a good idea at the time, given Russia’s more favorable demographics than Germany and Austria-Hungary, but it turned out to be a trap due primarily to the shaky social conditions within the empire, where the weakening of the apparatus of coercion and control may cause the collapse of the regime, as it actually happened with fatal consequences in 1917.
The third option was to push the borders as far west as possible, creating more buffer areas as was aptly done during the last phase of the II World War and the Cold War. In this way for example, Poland was limited to its core heartland area without its Eastern buffers in modern Belarus and Ukraine and with the German territories added to it in the west and north, which made Poland entirely dependent on the Soviet Union – as the guarantor of security of the postwar communist regime. This strategy seemed attractive to the Soviets for a long time because of its great strategic depth of the huge continental empire and the enhanced opportunity to increase the economic resources of the empire from exploitation of the conquered but better developed western buffer areas.
Following the brief times of utter decline of Russia during the Yeltsin era the new Putin regime has been regaining the imperial posture and imperial footprint. It embarked on the new generation warfare over control of key locations in the eastern buffer zone using the full toolbox of limited warfare arsenal so well known in Europe since the Middle Ages. effectively putting hands on Crimea, Donbass, Belarus, Caucasus, Transdniestria.
The rulers of Kremlin understand very well that basically they have three above options and will never feel sufficiently secure. So far, they have decided to make sure that in contingency they might exercise option no. 1 which was not even clear after Yeltsin rule. That was the scale of Russia’s demise that Putin wants to reverse. It is going to be the long game.
Poland is a pivot in this game. Due to geography no other power can replace Poland in its role of containing Russia in its expansion west. It is still to be seen whether Poland will take up this role.
Strategy&Future
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