Beware. The Slavs are coming.

The Twentieth Century was a Slavic century
The Slavs won the last two world wars and their tide is still rising.
 
I love historical maps. If you look at a series of historical maps over a period of a thousand or even thousands of years you can see the rise and fall of nations and empires simply by viewing the changes in the territory they control. If you apply this very simple analysis to maps that are both pre- and post- both of the world wars you will see that the Slavic people were very clearly the winners of both. Prior to the First World War much of Central and Eastern Europe was controlled by two large German run empires, the German and Austro-Hungarian empires. By the end of the war the Austro-Hungarian Empire had been replaced by the Slav controlled states of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Poland (plus Austria and Hungary) and the German Empire had also ceded some territory to the newly recreated Poland. By the end of the Second World War Poland had taken over even more, formerly German, territory.
In future centuries I have no doubt that some historians looking back will say that in Europe the story of the 20th century was the story of the Slavs. They were the people whose power was steadily growing through the century. And if you think ‘Well the maps are misleading, the Slavs were just the accidental beneficiaries of historical circumstance,’ then I would draw your attention to the Russian revolution; the event whose intellectual, philosophical, and political repercussions virtually shaped the history of every other nation of the world through the rest of that century. Need I point out that the Russian revolution took place in a Slavic state.
Indeed, the true accidental beneficiaries of history in the 20th century are the Americans and the Anglosphere. They have leapt forward while the ‘Great Tussle’ was going on elsewhere. And the great tussle of the twentieth century, by the way, was not between the Soviet Union and the USA so much as it was between the Slavic and Germanic peoples.
The Slavic territorial advances of the twentieth century were just the most recent chapters in a struggle that had been going on for centuries. The Slavs were the dominant people of Eastern and Central Europe by the 6th century AD having spread west in the wake of the westward moving Germans, but the German’s made many attempts to push back to the East over the intervening centuries. Charlemagne’s campaigns are one famous early example; and the activities of the Teutonic knights form another. In general, though, the Germans were not able to shift the Slavs from the territory they had settled on, although with the advantages of their more advanced civilisation they often did come to control them. Hence, the appearance of so many Slavic states in place of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of the First World War was not on account of a sudden mass migration of Slavs into the area, but rather a removal of German overlordship from a population that was already Slavic. The humiliated Germans pushed back again after their losses in the First World War. They managed to gain control of a great deal of the German inhabited regions of Czechoslovakia and then launched the invasion of Poland which precipitated the Second World War. Eventually, though, they were repelled and lost even more territory to the Slavs. The end of the Second World War also included the removal of large ethnic German populations from many regions of both Poland and Czechoslovakia thus increasing the proportion of Europe inhabited by Slavs. During the Cold War, Slavic control extended even further than their settled populations with the virtual Russian control of East Germany marking the historical high point of Slavic power within Europe for the last 800 years. Since then, with the reunification of Germany, Slavic control has receded, although Slav inhabited territory has not.
Not only were the most significant territorial wars of the Twentieth Century conducted between Germans and Slavs, one might even say that all of the intellectual running in the twentieth century was carried on between Russia and Germany as well. Marx, after all was a German, so the German’s also have a claim to originating that great intellectual tussle of the Twentieth Century: the foment around the ideas of communism.
 
 
As Germany has this century resurfaced as the most powerful economy in Europe and Russia is struggling to deal with American hostility and low oil prices what makes you think Slavic power will trend up rather than down in the near future?
 
It is important to remember that Slavic power is not synonymous with Russian power. There are other Slavic countries in Europe, and it is in their policies that I see the source of their continuing rise. It is generally known that many Slavic countries have done well since the end of the Cold War. Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia stand out as having become countries with a good standard of living and education. The largest of these, Poland, has even become very significant politically and is charting its own independent course between the major regional powers of Germany, Russia and the USA. The Slavic countries, led by Poland, can already be seen to have the self-confidence to stand up to the European Union. Their refusal to accept hordes of refugees from very different cultures is a prime example of this. For many of these nations, having only recently gained control of a sovereign country for their people they are understandably reluctant to share it with others. In most cases these countries have a degree of cultural homogeneity that the Western European countries have already lost. That homogeneity therefore is a point of difference with the West and one that the Eastern European countries could well benefit from. Cultural homogeneity makes nation building a much easier task and with national pride comes a willingness to make sacrifices for the benefit of the country. Such national feeling has in the past made certain nations more formidable in war than other countries, it also leads to stronger community feelings between individuals with all of the intendant, though difficult to quantify, benefits which that entails. 
As an example of the benefits of strong nationalism, the Russia of today can be used. Russia appears to be surviving sanctions and economic difficulties with very little political unrest, and this appears to be the result of the peoples’ gratitude for what the Putin led government has done for Russia and Russian pride since the beginning of the century.
So, their attachment to nationalism, though it may well cause frictions and even war in some areas will, I think, be of overall benefit to Eastern Europe in the years ahead.
 
Another element of growing Slavic power will be their continuance of their westward push. The Slavs have been gradually pushing west for centuries and I see the hordes of Slav workers who poured into Britain and other Western countries at the start of this century as a continuation of the same trend. Consequently, politicians in Britain, France and Germany know that they have to consider the views of significant Polish minorities while politicians in Warsaw have no such concerns. Overall, this increases the relative power of the Slavic populations in Europe.
 
The downfall of Russia should also not be taken as a downfall of Slavic power. I am not at all convinced that Russia is about to deteriorate from its present position, but even if it did most of the likely beneficiaries of such an event would be Slavic states. And, in the event, they would probably be Slavic states with a great deal of support from the United States behind them. If one thinks about the reconstruction of Japan and Western Germany after the Second World War; a Poland or Ukraine with such backing could quickly become very influential.
 
Climate change is also a phenomenon which appears to be working in favour of the Slavs.
If the Earth is warming, and the North Pole is warming at the fastest rate, then this could significantly improve agricultural yields in Russia and increase the percentage of land where human habitation is viable. As Russia has more land above the Arctic Circle, and immediately adjacent to it, than any other country; it is the country, of all the countries on Earth, which stands to gain the most from a warmer climate. Less ice in the Arctic Ocean could also open up Russia’s northern coast to more maritime trade making that coast more economically productive, and militarily strategic, as well.
Poland too stands to benefit from a warming Northern Hemisphere. With a coastline on the Baltic, a sea which often freezes over in winter, Poland could gain all-year round maritime access and even an increased beach-tourism industry, not to mention longer growing seasons for its already fertile plains.
 
In conclusion
I feel that the facts on the ground indicate that the Slavs are quietly improving their position in Europe while the West is concerning itself with other matters. The presence of large numbers of Slavs in many of Western Europe’s major cities, where not so long ago they were almost non-existent, is an indicator of their growing influence. In similar vein, the fact that Slavs are now noticeable as tourists in places like Australia and South-East Asia also speaks to the fact that incomes and living standards in their home countries are improving to positions where they are comparable with Western countries. The evidence of the map is also telling, in that it shows that Slavic governments control a greater portion of Europe than at any time (with the exception of the Cold War period) since the 11th century. The map also shows that Russia is the biggest country in the world and has increased in size recently with the addition of Crimea. There is talk of the possibility of Russia losing territory in Europe in the next decade, but even if this were to occur, the beneficiaries of such a collapse would most likely be other Slavic states. Global warming is of geo-strategic benefit to the Slavs, as well.
Lastly, the fact that large numbers of Slavic migrants are settling in Western Europe, yet the Slavic nations keep their own countries migrant free and culturally homogeneous suggests that Slavs will have a voice amongst the many divergent cultures in Western countries in the future whilst those countries will have no voice in the culturally harmonious Slav homelands. All these trends suggest to me that Slavic influence and power in Europe is set to increase in the coming decade, rather than the reverse.
 
Before leaving off …
I would also like to point out that almost everything that has been said here about the Slavic countries, applies as well to most other non-Slav countries of Eastern and Central Europe. Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Romania do, for the most part, possess the same advantages and attitudes as their Slavic neighbours and they therefore have the potential to benefit in the same way. Indeed, the similarity in their attitude to nationalism has led the governments of Hungary and Poland to become virtual brothers-in-arms on certain issues within the European Union, and they, along with Putin’s Russia, are now looked to as examples of how countries should be run by many nationalist groups throughout the West and the rest of the world; a clarifying example of how these countries are already gaining influence in the world while the attention of the West’s governments remains focused elsewhere.