An Emerging Giant: a new superpower is on rise in Europe

The European continent has been dominated by France, Germany, and the United Kingdom since the fall of the Soviet Union, but a new superpower is quickly rising in Eastern Europe. Poland is poised to become the next leading nation in Europe.

Poland is a country that's often overlooked in the grand scheme of power politics of the continent but this Eastern European nation has been on the rise for the last three decades and some experts believe that Warsaw could be the capital of the region's next major superpower.

Life in Poland has changed drastically ever since the country gained independence after the fall of the Soviet Union. Understanding what life was like for Polish people living at the time is hard to know but The Telegraph’s Daniel Johson provided a good overview in May 2023. 

“When I visited Poland as the Telegraph’s Eastern Europe correspondent in 1989, its cities were drab, decayed, and ringed by hideous communist-era buildings. Shops were barren, expectations were low and life was hard,” Johnson wrote, adding that Poland was much different today.  

“Yet nowhere else in the Soviet empire did people's power prevail so triumphantly as in Poland,” Johnson added.” The land of lost causes became the vanguard of liberty—and prosperity.” 

Poland’s economy emerged strongly from the Covid-19 Pandemic according to the data from the London School of Economics but that really shouldn’t have been a big surprise since the country has been on a growth trajectory for the better half of thirty years.

Prior to the pandemic, the Polish economy had been growing unwaveringly for 28 years, something an October 2019 Financial Times article noted when presenting data on the country’s financial situation in the wake of The Law and Justice Party’s reelection. 

“Poland is the poster child for a successful transition,” explained Beata Javorcik, the Chief Economist of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, at the time. 

Javorcik added that within 30 years Poland had transitioned from a country that suffered shortages in nearly every sector to one that was “joining the club of rich countries,” and Poland has gotten so wealthy it's now expected to overtake Britain’s economy by 2030. 

In February 2023, Labour Party Leader Keir Starmer used data from the World Bank to forecast that with its 3.6% average annual growth, Poland would pass Britain by the end of the decade according to Sky News. But what has Poland done with its new wealth?

One of the big changes taking place in Poland has been its transforming leadership role on the continent, with officials in the country taking on a strong position against Russia after Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine.

“Poland led the lobbying effort to impose tough sanctions against Russia and to back Ukraine with strong political, economic, and military assistance,” wrote Politico’s Arndt Freytag Von Loringhoven, adding that the country’s done a lot more to help than most. 

Poland has been the main conduit of aid to Ukraine according to Loringhoven and also gave 300 of their own tanks to their embattled neighbor. Polish officials were some of the first to travel to Kyiv and the country has taken in thousands of Ukrainian refugees. 

According to the official website of the Polish President, Poland ranks first in GDP among all countries that have pledged assistance to Ukraine with a military aid contribution worth €3.23 billion euros ($3.43 billion dollars).

"At the beginning of the war, when it was really very difficult to get help for Ukraine, when everyone was afraid and reluctant, the Germans gave helmets, we gave tanks," Polish President Andrzej Duda said in August 2024 according to the Polish President's website.

The changing geopolitical situation in Eastern Europe coupled with the realities of Russian imperial aims changed Polish security and has led the country’s leaders to proclaim a new era in its military history where the nation needed to be able to stand up for itself alone. 

“The Polish army must be so powerful that it does not have to fight due to its strength alone,” former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on the eve of Poland’s independence day according to a Politico report on the nature of the country’s military power. 

The war in Ukraine prompted Poland to increase its military with a target size of 300,000 by 2035 compared to Germany’s 170,000, Politico reported. Polish forces stood around 150,000 soldiers at the time of the report with a 30,000-strong territorial defense force. 

All of Poland’s military changes have made the country increasingly important to their American allies with one U.S. Army official in Europe telling Politico: “Poland has become our most important partner in continental Europe.” But what comes next?

With a strong economic base to draw from and an increasingly sophisticated modern army, Poland has become one of Europe’s most promising new superpowers. Having flexed its diplomatic muscles over Ukraine, we might see Poland rising even higher soon. 

On October 15th, 2023, the citizens of Poland elected a new government into power, one that promised to reverse the country's democratic backsliding after eight years of the country's conservative and nationalist Law and Justice Party the Associated Press reported.

"The recent Polish elections have reshaped the nation’s political trajectory, with important implications for the future of Europe," wrote Robert Benson of the Center for American Progress. But what exactly will that trajectory be? More than a year on from the election, Poland is thriving.

As Europe’s traditional power players start to recede from centerstage, will Poland fill the role once held by Germany, France, or Britain? Or will the country’s leaders chart their own course inside of the European Union? Only time will tell but there’s little stopping Poland’s rise now. 

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