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Originally Posted by Targan
I'll have to dig out my Traveller 2300 books. That would tell us what happens to Poland in the (very) long term. I can't remember if Poland is mentioned in the 2300 timeline after the Twilight War. I know that by 2300 Germany is still broken up into a number of independent states and the Ukraine is also independent.
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I looked at 2300 fairly recently, and I don't recall much detail at all (thus my disappointment). It's there, so it didn't get swallowed by Russia+Germany again. That's at least the good news. It's not a space-exploring country, and it's not in the orbit of the French Empire, either.
Germany's multiple states ends very near the 2300 date, IIRC. Before that, it was split about 5(?) ways, with pro-French Bavaria being the strongest, British-backed Hannover being another.
Ukraine is independent in 2300, and it's a minor player, but due to its French ties it's more of a player in space than Russia.
SO, it seems to me that the norm for devastated European nations is for small statelets to form, and those to coalesce back into approximations of their previous forms. Where some other nation is more intact (read: France) sizable chunks might be kept separate.
My not-too-deeply-thought vision is that marauder kingdoms and cantonments are the immediate future for Poland. Krakow and Silesia are going to be the biggest of the small fry, and they are right next to each other. Some kind of fight between them (with Fr. Niekarz and the Black Madonna as kingmaker?) is due soon, and may determine the biggest fish in the whole pond. The module, I think, points to the players deciding to try to link Krakow and the WL, and knocking off the King.
The Americans in XI Corps' area, and Soviets all over the place, are either going to disappear into the local society or drift home. I can see battalion-size chunks form up and walk out over time. Certainly, some batch of Americans will get some boats and try to coast-jump their way to Britain, at least.
Since Germany got split up, and at least two of the successor states had French and British backing, I wonder if another piece (like Saxony or Brandenburg/Prussia) might develop some Polish ties (willingly or not).
I don't think the Baltic states are still in the 2300 map (I could be wrong), so the Russians may have gotten them back. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth might make a comeback, certainly the Poles might try, but the real power of that union was the Lithuanian lords' domination of Ukraine and Belorussia. Since a play to retake those would run into a much stronger Russia than historical, and Kiev apparently gets some French backing (via Odessa?), that seems less likely.
OTOH, it strikes me that a Polish ploy to keep Russia busy would be to arm and feed some of those batches of ex-Soviet soldiers, and pack them off to the east. "You boys want a marauder kingdom? Great. Go play outside."