Strategy&Future

The Western (Vistula) Arm of Encirclement

Examining the Bolsheviks effort in 1920 to make Poland the bridge over which communism would pass to Berlin and points west, General Mikhail Tuchaczevsky perceived a frontal assault in the Brest – Warsaw Operational Direction as key to fixing Polish forces in defense of the capital, while an encirclement operation directed between the Narew and Bug Rivers would cross the Vistula River from the north and destroy the Polish Army when attacking from the northwest.

Over the past several years, primarily since Russia’s 2014 aggression against Ukraine, Western military experts have expressed concern over what was originally referred to as the “Suwałki Gap” most likely so as to draw out poorly understood lessons of the Cold War in yet another misleading analogy to the “Fulda Gap.”