Poland and the #Ukraine Crisis

Putin's making Ukraine's neighbors anxious, especially Poland.

An interesting piece from Professor Padraic Kenney, at the New York Times, "Why Poland Cares So Much About Ukraine":

The phrase "Poland mobilizes its military forces to the border" does have the ring of historical significance to it. #WorldWar2

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) March 2, 2014

For the last quarter-century — the first time in modern history — Poles have not faced an existential threat from the East. But within living memory, Poland lost its eastern provinces when Hitler and Stalin carved it up in 1939; in 1945, the loss became permanent in a redrawn Poland that now included former German lands. So invasions, dismemberments and wholesale remappings of nations are not implausible to Poles. The idea that Vladimir V. Putin, Russia’s president, could simply send his troops to occupy and effectively annex territory from Ukraine without real provocation may have seemed fantastical from farther away, but not from Warsaw.

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