![]() Polish-German relations are at a low point. ![]() This reconciliation is where the Biden administration should concentrate its diplomatic efforts, rather than focusing only on individual European countries. Therefore, it is in Washington’s vital strategic interest that Warsaw, Berlin, Paris, and Brussels reconcile and work together in shaping Europe’s future security order. This is a problem for Washington, which needs strong partners that can constructively shape the European agenda, especially as it turns its attention and resources to the Indo-Pacific. More recently, Poland lost some of its strategic credibility when it banned grain imports from Ukraine. It is in constant conflict with the European Commission in Brussels, which has withheld billions of euros from Warsaw over serious rule-of-law concerns. The reasons that Warsaw punches below its weight are familiar by now-and entirely self-imposed. Poland, however, is nowhere near fulfilling its potential as a strategic actor. French President Emmanuel Macron favored relations with the Kremlin even as Russia was about to invade Ukraine, which is one reason Central and Eastern Europeans don’t trust Paris today. Although Germany is now Ukraine’s second-largest military donor after the United States, it is not at all clear that Chancellor Olaf Scholz sees a German leadership role in militarily deterring Russia. Meanwhile, Germany and France no longer have the monopoly on EU leadership that once made them the United States’ preferred strategic partners. Add a dynamic economy that has become the European Union’s sixth-largest, and Poland is a major European power in the making. Warsaw’s warnings about Moscow, long belittled in Paris and Berlin, have proven uncannily prescient. Poland is engaged in a massive buildup of its armed forces and was one of the first countries to come to Ukraine’s aid with major weapons deliveries that helped to fend off the Russian invasion. It could emerge as a bulwark of Western defense against a revanchist Russia trying to claw its way back into the heart of Europe. 15, the country has all the makings of a new European power. ![]() As Poland prepares for parliamentary elections on Oct.
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