Thriving with Allies

Polish roles in the First World War take center stage in a special section of this issue of JME. Although not a nation on maps of the time, many Poles considered themselves united as a people even if world opinion had not yet caught up with their self-perception. Warring coalitions’ answers to the key question – Who will recognize us as a nation? – provided Poles one compass for navigating the war’s obstacles and opportunities. It could not help but matter to Polish nationalists that the Central Powers had offered national recognition in exchange for joining the fight against the Allied Powers, who in turn had held out their own carrots. We know how the tug-of-war ends. US President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points and the terms of the Treaty of Versailles made it a priority to re-establish Poland as a recognized nation among nations.

The struggle for twentieth-century Polish statehood offers our own era a number of lessons. Many factors help countries and their militaries make the right ad bellum, in bello, and post bellum choices. Among the most important of those factors is the sanity check that dialogue among coalition partners provides and the strength as well as mutual encouragement that many hands can lend to any real or potential armed struggle. Should one country’s leadership threaten injustice by becoming too bellicose or retiring, fellow coalition partners can talk sense and persuade the erring member to resume a steady course. If and when war comes, the combined effort lends strength in the fray and stability post-conflict.

NATO, undoubtedly the crown jewel among current military alliances, now finds itself under threat from many quarters. Some demand more equal funding on penalty of abandonment while others imagine an ersatz all-European corps even though such a force could be either effective or affordable but not both. Some accuse their fellow NATO members of shirking while apparently ignoring the blood spilled in what will soon be twenty years of struggle in the only conflict that has ever moved the Alliance to invoke its Article 5. Arguably, all these critics miss the Polish lesson that plays a large role in this issue’s pages: wise nations work to ensure that individual and communal interests are mutually supporting rather than antagonistic. Coalitions are not foolproof, but they bolster just decision-making, before, during, and after wars. Recently, retired US Marine Corps General James Mattis noted with satisfaction that in his career of four-plus decades, his nation had never fought alone. “[N]ations with allies thrive, nations without them die.” (Mattis and Bing 2019, 170, 243).

Dr. Syse and I wish you pleasant reading!

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).