Polish-Romanian Relations in the 21st Century. Back to the Future?

In the early 21st century, Poland and Romania declared a strategic partnership. What prompted both states to seek a close political-military cooperation was Russia’s apparent return to its imperial policy, which both countries regarded as a threat to their national security. The Georgian-Russian war of 2008 and the intervention of Russia in Ukraine in 2014 contributed to the establishment of a Polish-Romanian strategic partnership which, as an aside, was announced on the 90th anniversary of establishing diplomatic relations between the two countries. Such cooperation could also be viewed as a throwback to the Romanian-Polish relations of the interwar period – but with a twist: whereas in the 1920s the fulcrum of the Polish-Romanian partnership was France, in the 21st century this role was assumed by the United States.