Political Geography in the Time of a New Hundred Years’ War: 1914–2022 and Beyond

History can be divided in various ways: into even, “academic” centuries, uneven ages, eras of international orders, periods marked by economic revolutions, and geological epochs, with the Anthropocene crowning the course of history, etc. However, a different outlook is also possible. The genetic link between World Wars I and II was observed many years ago. It gave rise to the narrative of the new 30 years’ war: from the shots being fired in Sarajevo in 1914 until the arrangements made in Potsdam in 1945 (Davies 1998, pp. 957–958; Encyklopedia PWN. Kalendarium dziejów świata 2006, p 346; Solarz 2012, pp. 63–64). World War I failed to resolve the rivalry between the great powers — while Germany and Russia yielded, their ambitions were not curbed. World War II was the result of their endeavours to revise the order developed in Versailles and Riga. Once again, however, this great conflict ended without a final resolution. Although Germany was defeated and forced to undergo changes, the other aggressor was among the victors and its appetite was not dampened. Therefore, the incomplete victory of the free world brought about the third part of the global conflict — the Cold War, which was de facto World War III in disguise, kept cold only due to the destructive potential of atomic weapons. In this way, the 30 years’ war turned out to actually be a 77 years’ war (1914–1991), an “almost hundred years’ war” (Solarz 2012, p. 64), which ended with the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. In the early 1990s, it seemed that the great world war cycle had ended, with the free world having overcome two imperialisms (German and Russian) and two totalitarian regimes (Nazi and Soviet). However, the war in Ukraine — or rather, its 2022 escalation — showed that we have been sorely mistaken. The end of the Cold War meant, in fact, the recreation of the international order in the shape after World War I, with Russia in the role of the Weimar Republic, humiliated by its defeat in the Cold War (World War III), temporarily steeped in a great crisis, striving for a political and territorial rematch and the reconstruction of the third Russian Empire. Thus, the year 2022 seems to be opening the fourth clash in the hundred years’ world war (1914–2022?), World War IV, after a relatively peaceful pause at the turn of the millennia. Russian imperialism was either jointly responsible or directly responsible for every dramatic turning point in the world's history over the last 110 years — Sarajevo, the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, the iron curtain, the aggression against Ukraine. What awaits us behind the next turn of the rushing stream of history that we are passing through right now? Is it possible to apply an effective remedy with respect to Russia, analogous to that used with success against Germany in 1945, but this time in a 5xD version — demilitarisation, denuclearisation, de-Sovietisation, democratisation and disintegration into occupied zones or independent countries with the prospect of reunification after at least 45 years? Is a non-imperial, peaceful Russia, entering into partnership-based relations with closer and more remote neighbours even possible?

The new iteration of the war in Ukraine is a reminder of the importance of political geography as a field of geography. By analysing the relations between politics and space, it teaches us that no international arrangements and orders are permanent, empires pass, countries are born and die, borders shift and even the most perfect political systems degenerate. The texts included in this volume of Miscellanea Geographica were still created during the period of the post-Cold War pause, when full-scale war in Europe seemed improbable. The new iteration of the global conflict might bring about changes in the research field of political geography by altering the focal points of interests among political geographers. Hence, this volume of the journal is, in a way, a memento of the peaceful post-Cold War interval in Europe… and in political geography.