A Letter From Poland: A Geopolitical Analysis

Dutch television recently broadcast a compelling documentary which makes the case that the Russian government was responsible for crash of Polish flight Tu-154 which killed 96 people last April, including the Polish president, much of his cabinet, military leaders and other Polish political elites. It's mostly in English with English subtitles for the rest.  You can stream it below.

To date, there is little proof that the Russians were behind the disaster, but that is largely due to Moscow's refusal to allow the Pols to send their own investigators or to examine any of the plane wreckage, as it crashed within Russian territory. Circumstantial evidence like this incriminates Moscow. The geopolitical realities of the region provide the Russian government with a substantive motive for this kind of mass murder. Furthermore, the Russians have both a historical and recent history in the political manipulation of its neighbors.

As I mentioned in my last article, according to UN projections, worldwide population growth is going to begin to decline around the year 2050, but nations like Germany and Russia are already beginning to see serious and economically devastating reversals in their overall population. Russia is expected to lose approximately five percent of its population in the next 10 years due to low birth rates, a loss of roughly seven million people. By 2050, Russia will have lost over 20 percent of its population. No nation can survive that kind of instability without fracturing into separate nations, which many areas of Russia would already like to do. Given Russia's increasing instability and already insufficient infrastructure, the likelihood of political collapse comparative to that of the Soviet Union increases.

To counter this otherwise inevitable collapse, Russia must push it's economic and political influence on its western and southern boarders. Since 1991, it has seen its power decrease immeasurably. Former soviet states have joined NATO, and Russia sees its window for action narrowing. 

Belarus is already a close ally with Russia. Poland and Ukraine are more resiliant to Russian influence and have tried to resist. Georgia to the south has repeatedly been a target as well, culminating in a war in 2008. The recent Wikileaks cables said Chinese diplomats expect Russia to overthrow the Georgian government within the next year through direct or indirect action. There have been other examples of Russian aggression in recent years. The pro-western Orange Revolution in Ukraine threatened to allow it to fall under the protection of NATO. State controlled Russian news agencies and covert political maneuvering between different factions helped defeat the movement before it gained sufficient strength to fully break away from Russia's influence.

But Russia's strongest vitriol is reserved for Poland. It's strategically the most important of all of the former soviet states, its a NATO member, and its population is highly resistant to Russia's economic and political leverage. It is more strongly allied with the United States than any other eastern European nation. In addition, its population is much more stable than its neighbors and it's likely to become a significant regional power in the way that Germany is now. Russia sees them as their greatest medium term obstacle.

So Russia has the ability, motive, “criminal” history and historical precedent to make it a prime suspect in the Polish disaster. Expect further developments within the next few years.