Overcoming the burden of history in Polish foreign policy

A historical-geographical culture of threat to Poland's independence since about 1700 has produced an identity dominated by the need to regain or protect sovereignty and a problematic relationship between nation and state. Historically, Poland's rulers have faced key foreign policy choices between westward and eastward orientations and between resistance and accommodation. Since 1989 external threats have been transformed by a favourable European situation and by Poland's NATO and EU membership. The Poles have thus been able to recycle their historical memories and to harmonize their foreign policy identity and raison d'état with democratization and modernization imperatives.