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Central Europe Woke Up, Others Went Woke

Poland and other Central European countries are in a position to assist the U.S. to meet its strategic challenges.

Jan. 16, 2025 – In “Nations Prepare for a Post-European World” (Global View, Jan. 7), Walter Russell Mead contrasts European decline with American renewal. How right he is—but his analysis applies only to Western Europeans.

Central Europe is successful in most categories he mentions. Poland, for example, has the most dynamic economy in Europe. Central European countries aren’t “woke” and they didn’t buy into disastrous climate policies nor generous welfare states. Poland resisted mass-migration policies—except for Ukrainian refugees—and maintained skepticism on the European Union’s centralizing tendencies.

Poland recognized hostile Russian intentions years ago and freed itself from dependence on Russian gas. It supported Ukraine early on and transferred virtually its entire military arsenal there in the first weeks of the war. It welcomed American presence on its territory as a strengthening of the eastern flank of NATO as well as the conduit of its aid to Ukraine.

In short, Poland and other Central European countries are in a position to assist the U.S. to meet its strategic challenges in Europe and, to some extent, globally. The goal of the coming Trump administration thus isn’t to “resuscitate Europe,” whose elites refuse to change their approach, but to ally itself with Central Europe, which shares its outlook and strategic assessment and has some of the most pro-American electorates in the world.

Lucja Swiatkowski Cannon
Institute of World Politics
Washington

PHOTO: A man rides a bicycle near a monument outside Minsk, June 21, 2010. Photo: Agence France-Presse/Getty Image

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/central-europe-woke-up-others-went-woke-poland-russia-war-ukraine-4515767c?mod=opinion_feat4_letterstoeditors_pos2