The world stage looks completely different from a small country. Global powers may transform geopolitical tectonics, but other players have been having to figure out how to survive in the rift between the two.
Over two months, the Trump administration threatened allies, tariffs and trade wars, dismantling foreign aid and silent American voices. President Trump scolds Ukrainian president in Oval Office and retains military aid and intelligence sharing. The United States joins Russia, North Korea and Belarus, opposes a resolution from the United Nations General Assembly that calls for Russia to withdraw troops from Ukraine immediately, Mr. Trump has treated Russian President Vladimir Putin is a reliable discussion partner.
Trump’s foreign policy doctrine is becoming clearer in the outline at least. Mr. Trump’s America tries to lead a great nuclear power in the world that can do everything possible. They choose their influence, the size of their territory and the shape of their boundaries. For other great powers, Mr. Trump’s approach may be understood as a deal or a realist. But for many smaller democracies, Eastern Europe, South Asia and East Asia, for decades, they have compared their destiny with the United States they believe can allow them to continue to exist near the borders of Russia or China, Trump’s doctrine is betrayal of foreign policy.
Since the fall of communism, many small and medium-sized countries in Eastern Europe, including the Baltic States, the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary, have adapted to the strict standards of liberal democracy. These countries wrote and revised the Constitution, democratized political life, established a market economy, and signed trade agreements. Some even agreed to install U.S. military bases or CIA secret prisons. The Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary joined NATO in 1999, and later. This adaptation is imperfect – considering the “inliberal democracy” of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Hungary and the eight-year rule of the Polish nationalist nationalist law and justice party, it was not over until 2023, and the overall direction of travel is always clear: through modernization and the scope of the Democratic Party is more stable, becoming the largest democracy and democracy, becoming the largest Democratic Party, becoming the largest leader, a world beyond, and a world beyond. (Remember the difference, as is the case with South Korea and Taiwan in Asia.)
This belief in Western ideas requires a level of diplomacy to forget early betrayal. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who annexed the Sultanish region of Czechoslovakia in 1938, said it was “a quarrel between a distant country, we know nothing.” In the 1930s, it seemed easy for Mr. Chamberlain to ignore that a totalitarian state was taking land from the Democrats, but these countries did not forget. Many small countries also caused scars when betrayed at the meeting held in Yalta in 1945, leaders of the great powers determined their fate without consultation, while the redistricted borders tore up the families.
Yalta has entrusted Eastern Europe to the cruel decades behind the Iron Curtain. But in the early 1990s, after the fall of communism, the newly escaped democracies chose to believe once again that connections with the West (which are freshly polished and shining) would bring freedom, wealth and stability.
Now, Western ideas have been divided into two parts. Half belongs to Mr. Trump and other predatory populists. The other is composed of people who still believe in liberal democracy, and the right to respect international agreements and the right to states to self-determination.
For now, small countries that invest a lot with the United States find themselves in a geopolitical trap. Especially for Ukraine, Mr. Trump’s words and actions have triggered almost existing panic. But Russia’s other direct neighbors also need a new plan: a coalition of democratic values.
The EU seems to be crucial to this effort. For countries that are already members, including Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Romania and Estonia, the question of how to move forward is simpler. The EU is also the aspiration of those countries that have not yet membership but have candidate status. As in the 1990s, integration would require adaptation and change – first, in military spending, when the group developed a plan to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to recapture the continent. (Here, Poland is already a model.)
But Europe is just part of the answer to Mr. Trump’s policy of betrayal. Countries like Canada and South Korea cannot join the EU but will still seek security alliances with countries that still have democratic values - Canada is getting closer and is negotiating to join the group’s military expansion.
This is the end of a chapter. But, in the alliance of security and values, there will be another: it sounds strange, perhaps the first time in history there are two Wests.
Jaroslaw Kuisz is the author of “The New Politics in Poland: The Cases of Post-Traumatic Sovereignty” and is also the editor-in-chief of Kultura Liberalna in Poland once a day. Karolina Wigura is a professor at the University of Warsaw. They are research partners at the Oxford Institute of Global and Regional Studies and senior fellow at the Center for Free Modernity in Berlin.
Times are committed to publishing Variety of letters To the editor. We want to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. These are some Tip. Here is our email: letters@nytimes.com.
Follow the New York Times’ opinion section Facebook,,,,, Instagram,,,,, Tiktok,,,,, Bruceky,,,,, WhatsApp and Thread.
