Nadchodzi Trzecia Wojna Światowa – book review

Struggling to recall how I have learnt about the book, but beyond all doubt I immediately ordered it in the district library of Ursynów. To my surprise, the wait was not particularly long after a mere few weeks I was notified I could borrow it.

Th recently (autumn 2021) published volume is a transcript of extended conversations between Jacek Bartosiak (expert in international politics with focus on military issues) and Piotr Zychowicz (historian). The two men hold unbiased discussions in which they keep to themselves their private political views (the latter is a right-wing ardent anti-communist) and brush aside their prejudices. The outcome is a detailed, substantive analysis of superpowers in the contemporary world and how the spheres of influences might reshape in the coming decade.

The book rests on a paradigm that the era of post-history in which carnages of the First and the Second World Wars are not going to repeat, in which only local military conflicts are conceivable, but the highly developed countries enjoy peace, is drawing to a close. The authors claim something is about to give in less than a decade. They cite China’s ambitions to take over the dominant role from the United States as a major motive and dissect several other aspects as minor reasons potentially leading to a clash that could spill worldwide.

The script has prompted me to revise my views on armament spending, which for years I had considered mostly useless. My notion would have held true had there been no enemy to Poland, which most likely is a naïve claim. Modern, well-equipped and professionally-trained army with continuously updated contingency plans is like an insurance policy. A country pays the insurance premium to scare off enemies.

The authors are critical in their assessment of how Poland has handled its military policy over the last 30 years and cannot point at any government over that period that stood out positively. The unconstrained trust in the alliance with the United States, thoughtless armament spending just to stick to NATO’s requirements or for the sake of showing of earmarking a certain percentage of GDP for the military purposes, excessive purchases of aircrafts and other equipment from the United States to flatter the America – all that is slated by the experts.

Mr Bartosiak and Mr Zychowicz also take a look at the history of Poland around WW2, its subjugation to allies who turned their back on my country. The bitterly admit Poland should have focused more on its vested interests, rather than relying on allies and acting like a saviour of the world, sending its soldiers to shed blood for other nations. Drawing on those experiences, they insist Poland should curtail its dependence and reliance on NATO and be as self-supporting as it can, while staying united with Western Europe and strengthening this alliance wisely.

My read of the book coincided with Russia’s preparations to invade the Ukraine. I have pinned some hopes in good job of intelligences of several countries which foiled Mr Putin’s plans. Maybe it was naïve to think an action which everybody expects to happen is less likely, but the war should be about taking the enemy by surprise. Some experts claimed the invasion was unlikely during the Olympic Games, traditionally the time when warfare was on hold. They give an example of 2014 when the Crimea invasion occurred after the end of the event in Sochi. I suppose Mr Putin no longer gives a damn. Weather might play a bigger role. The north-eastern swathes of Ukraine are swampy and frozen ground would make it easier for heavy vehicles to move, so the time might be running out. On the other hand, some pundits say the positive temperature anomaly of 10 Celsius degrees might be conducive to Russians. Regardless of which version is right, it is disturbingly certain turbulent times are ahead.

Hospitality put to the test

Abortion, in-vitro, gay marriages, separation of the state and the Church… The list of discords between Poles has grown long for a while and this month attitude towards migrants joint the catalogue of divide lines. Actually the problem has not come out of the blue, but the influx of migrants and / or refugees to Hungary has triggered disputes how United Europe should face the challenge and how Poland should behave in order to protect its interests with encroaching European solidarity.

I used the terms ‘migrants’ and ‘refugees’ as they both show up in the discussions, yet should not be mistaken for each other, nor used interchangeably. In simple words, the former term generally refers to people who strive to settle down in another country to seek a better life, while the latter term describes people who had to flee their homeland because they had been persecuted there or because their country is war-stricken.

The scale of discord was best observable on… facebook. As I learnt, among my (so-called) friends I have both avid supporters of openness towards migrants, calling for greeting them with open arms and playing host to as many of them as possible, as well as extreme-right-wing freaks, posting one post after another decrying the migrants, displaying them as Muslim rabble (or would-be terrorists) assaulting Europe and attempting to set up their own rules here. The gap between the embracement and rejection for migrants was so wide that while I looked at posts from the two sides of the dispute, I wondered where the truth lies.

If I had followed only my leftist ‘friends’ and turned off news feed from my right-wing ‘friends’, I would have shaped an opinion of migrants as of poor people who had to choice but to leave their property and lives they had led behind and escape their homelands to search for a safer home. The newcomers would enhance cultural diversity of Poland and after all out of purely humanitarian reasons, we should take them in.

Had I tweaked with the visibility settings and left in only news feed from my right-wing ‘friends’, I would have viewed migrants as uncivilised horde, made up mostly of men aged 20-35, invading Europe in uncontrolled way, living in camps resembling rubbish dumps, rioting with the police, slinging stones into trains, robbing food from trucks, wheedling out social benefits, etc.

So where does the truth lie? In between? With time both groups of ‘friends’ cooled off, while other, more balanced posts began to emerge. As it turned out, the picture cannot be painted with one of two colours, it is neither black, nor white. There is a variety of shades of grey and the problem of inflow of thousands of migrants has many facets and it is not as simple as advocate or straightforward embracing or rejecting migrants claim.

Among migrants there are refugees from war-afflicted regions, but many more migrants take the opportunity to search for easier life in Europe, whose leaders naively want to play host to everyone. As statistics of humanitarian organisations and TV footages reveal, most migrants are young men, who on one hand are potential conscripts, on the other hand who have been probably sent by their families for a mission to settle down and then help other family members move in.

I argue motives of majority of migrants are purely economic. They do not want to just live in a peaceful country. Had they wanted, they would have stopped in Hungary, Croatia, or Poland, but they treat CEE countries only as a transit areas on their way to Germany, Austria or Sweden, where they would live off generous social security benefits. Quotas on migrants allocation EU leaders intend to set are an absolutely flawed way to tackling the crisis, since they totally disregard reasons which bring migrants to Europe. Even if Mrs Merkel instructs Poland, by threatening to cut off the stream of subsidies, to take in 10,000 or more migrants, unless tighter border controls are instated, those migrants will eventually land in Germany, because they do not want to live in a poor country which can offer them fairly low allowances. The way European politicians handle the matter prompts comparisons to centrally planned economy or to allocating animals between zoo gardens, while all decisions are claimed to be made in the name of most humanitarian, lofty values.

While reading the above you might have the impression I might be intolerant to migrants. The impression might be misleading. I am not afraid of migrants, I appreciate cultural diversity, I respect different customs and religions, skin colour, etc. In my neighbourhood I run across several people from Belarus or Ukraine who came here in search for better life, often work in grey economy to earn money, rent the cheapest accommodation, eke out a living and the rest of the money transfer to their families abroad. In the corporate world I have worked with people from former USSR and even from Middle-East regions and they have all been competent and reliable workers. Sometimes I eat out in restaurants run by guys from Turkey or one of surrounding countries and although I am most fond of Polish cuisine, I hold dear their contribution to variety of eateries in Warsaw. Those people have one thing in common – they work, while by all accounts most migrants flooding Europe have no intention to take up any job, but aim to settle down in countries with most generous social security systems. This is who I am intolerant to – loafers, regardless of their descent.

Once I discarded political correctness, time to face another truth – attempts to bring in Western-style democracies to Arabic countries have been doomed to fail. People living there are from a different cultural circle and simply have not grown up to democracy. With time I more and more often think it would have been wiser not to bring down dictators who, surprisingly, better kept law and order, than setting up democratic systems which are rather a travesty of democracy and in terms of death toll prove inferior to dictatorship.

I wonder how the whole story unfolds. I wonder whether tightening border controls would put to an end Europe without borders established by Schengen agreement.

I wonder whether putting in walls on some of the borders will divert the stream of migrants to Poland and if it happens, how the Poland’s administration will cope with thousands of migrants heading for Western Europe, especially if Germany closes its borders.

I wonder whether Poles would see train stations occupied by migrants, or if A2 and A4 motorways will have one westward lane occupied by marching migrants.

I wonder whether the commotion will reduce the number of safe tourist destinations available for Poles.

I wonder whether travelling by car across Europe will be a safe as and easy as it used to be…

And I hope by spring next year it all straightens out…

For those seeking a fairly unbiased coverage, I wholeheartedly recommend The Economist’s column dedicated to migration crisis.