Intermarium 2.0
Since the start of the current phase of the war in Ukraine, the newer members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have displayed much more enthusiasm for the Alliance than the founding states. This suggests the possibility of a near future in which most of the states of “Old NATO” go their own way, leaving a “New NATO” running from the Baltic to the Black Sea.
Plotted on a map, such a coalition would bear an uncanny resemblance to the federation proposed by Józef Piłsudski in the years immediately following the First World War. This Intermarium (from the Latin for “between the seas), Marshal Piłsudski believed, would protect the smaller countries of Eastern Europe, not only from the threats posed by either Germany or Russia, but also from the nightmare scenario of an alliance between Germany and Russia.
Credits: The map of “New NATO” is an adaptation, by the author, of an original created by Alexrk2. The map of the Intermarium plan of 1921 is the work of GalaxMaps. The publication of both maps is governed by the standard Creative Commons License. The portrait by Jacek Malczewski is in the public domain in both Poland and the United States.
