The Strategic Leadership of Eastern Europe

The war in Ukraine has reshaped Europe’s geopolitical architecture by shifting the continent’s centre of gravity eastward. States once perceived as the periphery of the Alliance have become its operational core, translating proximity to danger into strategic initiative. Poland and the Baltic countries, long aware of their exposure to Russian pressure, have internalized the lessons of history and drawn the logical conclusion that security cannot be outsourced. For them, deterrence is not an abstract policy but a condition of national survival. The war confirmed that the cost of preparedness is lower than the cost of rebuilding after aggression. Consequently, these countries have built military, industrial, and civil systems explicitly designed to function under threat. Their strategic realism and speed of adaptation contrast sharply with the inertia of Western Europe, where the assumption of perpetual peace still shapes political instincts.