
Originally Posted by
terraj
Well, firstly, because Poland faces Russia. The north European plain has no natural boundaries—the boundary now is drawn on the line Poland/Russia/Belarus/Ukraine—and Poland is the key if Russia is not to return to central Europe, which it may not want to but it may wind up doing that kind of en passant.
Now, the United States is extremely interested in Poland, and that has a certain impact on a country. When a country becomes of fundamental strategic importance to the world's leading power, able to make massive economic concessions and technology transfers, that has a real consequence.
As an example, I'll give you South Korea. If I said to you in 1950 that South Korea would be one of the most robust, dynamic economies in Asia, you'd laugh. Why did that happen? Well, it happened because South Korea was of fundamental interest to the United States. The United States had to make certain of the viability of South Korea. South Korea benefited wildly from that relationship.
Another example is Israel. There was no intrinsic reason why Israel would have emerged as anything but an economic basket case save for the financial and economic transfers the United States chose to make
GEORGE FRIEDMAN