In early September, around 20 Russian drones entered Poland’s airspace. NATO and Polish forces scrambled fighter jets to shoot them down, but not before several had traveled hundreds of miles into Polish territory. 

To Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, the incursion was not just a test of NATO’s resolve. It was a reminder of the precarious position of the alliance’s frontline states as the war in Ukraine grinds on for its third year, and as Donald Trump upends the basic bargain of the transatlantic alliance.

Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke to Sikorski on the morning of September 24 in New York, where he was attending the UN General Assembly. They discussed the ongoing threat from Russia and what it will take, in Washington and in European capitals, to prevent it from escalating. But more than that, Sikorski is grappling with a moment of sharp change in geopolitics—trying to understand both why the old order collapsed and how to navigate the new order just now taking shape.

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