United States policy on the Oder-Neisse question in the 1960s as viewed by Zbigniew Brzezinski
United States policy on the Oder-Neisse question in the 1960s as viewed by Zbigniew Brzezinski

Summary/Abstract: This article presents the political ideas of Zbigniew Brzezinski as they relate to his position on United States policy over the question of Poland’s western border in the 1960s. The main goal is to show to what extent Brzezinski’s advocacy of formal US recognition of the Oder–Neisse border was linked to his aim of overcoming the Cold War division of Europe and the problem of national borders. Brzezinski’s position on the border issue is also examined in relation to his views on Polish–German and Polish–Soviet relations, as well as Polish nationalism and communist ideology. Accordingly, the question of the Oder–Neisse Line is addressed here with reference to Brzezinski’s comments on US policies towards West Germany, the Soviet Union, and Europe as a whole. The main sources are Brzezinski’s political commentaries,publications and archival material from the 1960s concerning Poland’s western border. However this study extends beyond the purely diplomatic history of the Polish border question, examining the relationship between Brzezinski’s views on the Oder–Neisse Line and his internationalist concept of European political and economic relations. It is demonstrated that Brzezinski’s support for formal US recognition of the Oder–Neisse border in the 1960s developed within the framework of American political, geopolitical and economic designs for Germany, the Soviet Union and Europe as a whole, against the background of the Cold War. Although his arguments regarding Poland’s western border contributed to a desirable increase in US political interest in Poland and Central and Eastern Europe, Brzezinski favoured a kind of European interdependence of states and the “Europeanisation” of Poland, rather than the restitution of its full sovereignty based on anti-Soviet nationalism. This distinctive universalist vision of Central and Eastern Europe, coupled with socio-economic determinism, appears to have profoundly affected Brzezinski’s positionon the Polish border question, which was based on the assumption that both the Cold War division of Europe and national borders would eventually diminish in political significance as a result of Western recognition.

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