Foreign Policy and European Integration

Iran emerges from the war with Israel and the US strengthened, regardless of the costs it has incurred. Unless a permanent collapse in negotiations occurs, it can recover its losses very quickly, and given its potential, it has a chance of becoming one of the world's largest economies within a few years. Crucial in this context is not the nuclear issue, but the high-stakes game over the Strait of Hormuz.

What do Poland and the Republic of Korea (ROK) have in common? Despite the distance between the two and the fact that they are representative of and stand as the most successful nations economically, politically and militarily in their respective regions of the world, despite the two nations being the products of two entirely different cultures, the answer to that question of what they have in common is “a great deal.”

The Union Civil Protection Mechanism was created as a tool for fast, targeted assistance between neighbours in response to events that exceed a single state's capacity to respond – from fires, floods and earthquakes to industrial accidents, chemical contamination or man-made disasters. The last two decades, and especially the events of recent years – the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine – have tested it in ways its architects never anticipated: not as a single, closed-ended event, but as a prolonged, multidimensional crisis with no clear end point.

In late March 2026, a month after the outbreak of the war with Iran, Volodymyr Zelensky toured Jeddah, Abu Dhabi, Doha and Amman in three days. With Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Jordan he signed defence cooperation agreements providing for joint investment, joint production and the sharing of experience and solutions in defence against missiles and unmanned aircraft.

In recent months we have been witnessing a very significant shift in international relations. What is changing is the way states build their position in the international system. A growing number of middle powers no longer organise their entire strategy around a single centre, nor do they treat relations with competing great powers as mutually exclusive.

Few countries have reversed course on energy policy as decisively as Sweden. In the space of just a few years, the country has moved from planning the gradual phase-out of nuclear power to placing it at the centre of its long-term energy strategy.

The reality of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, rising defense spending across Europe, and the Benelux countries’ commitment to strengthening EU capabilities (particularly in the context of expanding the defense industrial base and scientific research, as well as cross-border military projects), have made these countries a valuable direction for Poland in the coming years for developing new forms of cooperation and investment, as well as a point of reference and an opportunity to mutually benefit from best practices and experience.

On June 13, Yoon Suk Yeol, the former president of the Republic of Korea (ROK), was sentenced to two years in prison after being found ‌guilty of illegally receiving opinion polling services worth $179,800 for free from a political broker. Just four days earlier, on June 9, ROK Supreme Court upheld his seven-year prison ‌sentence for obstructing authorities attempts to arrest him over his short-lived imposition of martial law in 2024.

The summit in Ankara will deliver contracts, memoranda, and letters of intent, yet it will not clarify what Europe lacks most acutely — its own answer to the question of the long-term direction of the transformation being undertaken. At the root of the contemporary identity crisis lies not a deficit of financial resources but the absence of a shared European strategic culture, which Ankara may throw into particularly sharp relief, proving that material rearmament is outpacing the ability to define directions for joint action.

The information space has become one of the key dimensions of contemporary political and geopolitical rivalry. States, political organizations, media, and non-state actors increasingly compete not only for control over territory, resources, or military capabilities, but also for the ability to shape public perception, the interpretation of events, and citizens' trust in public institutions. As a result, information, and subsequently narratives, have become an essential element of state security and resilience of democratic societies.

The Republic of Korea (ROK) has become a key European defence partner – and has achieved success in this regard to a level that was perhaps previously not thought possible.

Around a decade ago at the Singapore Air Show the executive of a major US defence company told me more than once “my best sales agents are the Chinese. Every time they make a public show of steaming their aircraft carrier out for sea trials or commit another one of their violations of some nation’s territorial waters or build up another one of their artificial islands – that’s when my phone starts ringing. Other nations in the region suddenly want to know how soon they could have some US-made military hardware, especially if they are EDA [Excess Defence Articles].”

Second half of May 2026 was a busy time in Asian diplomacy

On June 25-26, the next edition of the Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC 2026) will take place in Gdańsk. It is the world’s largest event dedicated to the reconstruction of Ukraine, bringing together politicians, business representatives, and financial institutions from dozens of countries. It will focus on five main areas: business, human resources/demographics, local governments and the European Union, as well as security and defense. The recovery of Ukraine does not merely mean the physical rebuilding of war damage. It can be divided into two dimensions: soft and hard reconstruction.

Armenia's repositioning over 2025–2026 is the deepest geopolitical reconfiguration this state has undergone since it gained independence in 1991.

The Warsaw Security Forum led a high-level Nordic-Baltic-Polish parliamentary delegation to Washington D.C., highlighting the Northern and Eastern Flanks as NATO’s most accountable group.

Hybrid threats, particularly foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI), have become a permanent feature of Europe’s security environment. As a result of their direct exposure to destabilization efforts, the B5 countries - Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, and Poland - together with Ukraine, have developed practical response mechanisms, which may serve as an operational foundation for further development of the European Democracy Shield (EUDS).

On 12 May 2026, more than thirty participants convened at the offices of Wardyński and Partners on Aleje Ujazdowskie in Warsaw for a meeting of the National Security Industrial Club (NSIC) and the Casimir Pulaski Foundation, dedicated to drone and counter-drone systems as a challenge for Poland's security.