Europe’s New Frontline: Poland, Hybrid Threats, and the Future of Security

What can Poland’s history and experience tell us about the future of European and transatlantic security?

Situated on NATO’s and the European Union’s eastern flank, Poland has emerged as a key actor in Europe’s response to a rapidly changing security environment. The challenges facing frontline states today extend far beyond conventional military defense. Cyberattacks, sabotage, disinformation, weaponized migration, radicalization, and foreign influence increasingly blur the boundaries between war and peace and between domestic and international security.

Drawing on her forthcoming chapter in the Springer volume Power Politics in Transition: Europe’s Strategic Realignments in a Changing World, Dr. Katarzyna Maniszewska will use Poland as a case study to examine the interconnected nature of contemporary security threats and their implications for NATO, Europe, and the broader transatlantic community.

About the Speaker

Katarzyna Maniszewska, Ph.D., is a Polish international relations scholar specializing in security threats. She is an expert at the Terrorism Research Center and a lecturer at Civitas University in Warsaw and the University of Bialystok. A 2024 Kosciuszko Foundation Fellow, she conducted research at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University and was awarded the 2025 Fulbright-NATO Security Studies Award. She is also an expert for the EU Knowledge Hub on Prevention of Radicalization and has authored academic books, including Towards a New Definition of Terrorism (Springer, 2024). Dr. Maniszewska serves as President of the Kosciuszko Foundation Alumni Association.