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Also in response to @georgioz's parallel answer, if you predict that a bear will shit in the woods, then put on a jetpack and fly to the moon, the first prediction coming true does not make the second and third any more likely - even if you parade around any number of people who were absolutely insistent that the bear will never do any of the three things. There were many good reasons for them to go for Ukraine, and few reasons against (with the main ones, their revealed ineptitude and everything downstream from it, being one that they presumably were genuinely unaware of).
The military base reason loses weight if the base is already gone, and likewise none of those states have had Russian client governments since around 1990. Indeed, I think that in '91 it was eminently reasonable to expect a Russian invasion in the Baltics, but not in 2024. Conversely, if 30 years had elapsed after Maidan with nothing happening, the Russian bases in Ukraine were long gone, the ethnically Russian population thoroughly sidelined and Ukraine had joined NATO, I would also confidently predict Russia would not invade anymore.
What do you think was the reason, then?
Sure, Trump was also generally not predicted to construct the Torment Nexus. It seems like the maximally evil thing that is still somewhat plausible and more importantly demands concrete action from Western governments and citizens.
I don't think "the whole country believes this" is a particularly strong argument. There are some pretty out-there things generally believed in particular countries, and in the case of Poland there are entrenched interests quite interested in nurturing that particular belief. Don't most Poles also still actually believe that the Smolensk plane crash was orchestrated by Putin?
Well, I kept hearing from people that Georgia-Russia war is not going to happen, that supposed Russian invasion is fake and they are solely local rebels (in 2014), that Russia surely will not launch full scale invasion and any predictions about it is NATO hoax and vile russophobia and so on.
I am pretty sure that if Russia would invade Estonia people will keep telling me that idea of Russia invading Poland is absurd.
Revanchism for fall of USSR, attempt by Putin to secure his place in history and genuine belief that it will be a cakewalk.
Not claiming that, and I am aware of that. (anyone who thinks it is a strong argument should familiarise themself with what entire country believes in Russia, Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Japan and Canada - this should be enough for any person to bring several blatantly idiotic widely shared beliefs).
But I mentioned it that it is not some personal witchy insanity. At the very least it is a widespread paranoid reaction to our history.
Would need to recheck but AFAIK "most" was never true (not checked this one, prefer to not get irritated - Smoleńsk was so absurd humiliating fractal fuckup that it is hard to find something comparably embarrassing in Polish history).
Well, if PO, PIS, Lewica, Tusk, Kaczyński, Miller and basically all politicians and parties (and other groups) actually agree on something it is quite strong hint that either something is widely agreed to be actually a good idea or South Korean arms manufacturers deployed mind control beams.
Though actually "surely as fuck we do not want to be invaded by Russia again, and event faint chance of that is enough to go into alarm mode" counts as "entrenched interests" in Poland.
I think you are applying inappropriate Dunbarian intuitions to the output of an algorithm that feeds on billions of people here. "Someone said X" is really not a statement that is surprising or has any information content, and consequently "I kept hearing X" is not surprising either as long as some entity stands to benefit (clicks, engagement, whatever) from funnelling that opinion to you.
The third one seems plausible enough, but do you have any concrete evidence for the former two? Is there something you consider sufficient proof that the former were not reasons or at least not primary reasons, or is this an irrefutable belief?
That's fair, but where for one people paranoid overreaction to their own history might still be arguably adaptive as a meta-reasoning, it seems like insanity for others to go along with it.
I checked and apparently it's only about ~35% believing in it to ca. 45% not, though the last polls are from before the war and the tendency has been slightly rising. Mea culpa for assuming it is more.
It seems to me that playing up the Russian threat has been unambiguously good for Poland's position in European politics, since as long as they position themselves as an steadfast, and morally unassailable due to personal trauma, bulwark against Russia within the EU, this assures them American backing that is qualitatively almost comparable to that given to Israel, even it's quantatively far from the latter. During the PiS years there was tremendous appetite in the rest of Europe to punish Poland somehow, for ideological nonalignment, non-cooperation within EU structures such as refusal to participate in refugee redistribution, trade scuffles with Germany, environmentalist misdeeds etc.; somehow these never went anywhere, and more than once I heard sentiments like "cracking down on Poland would just give Putin what he wants" fielded to defend that. Now there is talk that Poland is or might become the strongest land army in Europe, and their overall prestige and weight has risen in particular at the expense of their other historic enemy to the West. Surely this is tremendously appealing to politicians, who dedicate their lives to the pursuit of prestige and power.
If appearance of various "it would be great to conquer Poland" and/or "we deserve controlling USSR-sized sphere of influence" would appear in Russian popular and official discourse as often as "we should reconquer Moscow/Lithuania/Ukraine" appears in Polish one.
Then I will worry less.
Not invading neighbours, not having dropping nuclear device on Warsaw as part of exercise scenarios etc would be also good step.
Unambiguously being sorry for numerous Russian invasions, massacres and meddling would be nice but even previous steps are dead head dreams, so...
More or less see above. Putting propaganda billboards with "Russia has no borders", Putin's face and Russian flag in background is not some strong evidence but doing this kind of thing consistently over years has convinced me.
Maybe it is selective presentation of facts but Russia has hardly bothered to counter it.
If I would feel ever in doubt I can go to official Twitter account of Russian government and feel reassured about treating Russia as suspicious, problematic, dangerous and lying.
Given high cost of failure* and relatively small costs of reducing risks it seems to be not a paranoid overreaction to me. But well, if I would be overly paranoid then I would claim this.
Bombing Moscow under "well, they will attack anyway so we can start" would be.
*underpreparation to WW II resulted in about 16% of population murdered, multiple years of murderous occupation and decades of colonial rule. And massive devastation of economy and several other major problems. Previous such failure resulted in 123 years of occupation and required world war to undo. Even with 1% risk of things going even a bit as badly as that - spending a bit more on defence seems a good idea.
It is not paranoia if they actually after you.
(to be clear, I am not expecting Russia to run death camps, but Mariupol-style devastation is bad enough)
It is such fuckup that overestimating how specific part of fuck up is going is hardly a major failure.
This would require either absurd overstretching of Polish resources or some comical failure across Europe including Russia. Several years of grinding down USSR reserves maybe could achieve this, but that seems quite unlikely scenario. Though Russia running out of tanks while invading half-failed state next door would still not be the stupidest part of this war.
Poland does not need larger army than Russia has, it needs to have large enough to fulfil it share of ensuring that invading NATO will remain scary enough. Or alternatively, powerful enough that invading Poland will be clearly stupid idea.
Also, ideally it would be small enough that no politician will get some ideas of invading neighbours (no trace of such ideas right now, but I would not underestimate stupidity of politicians).
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