Why Some Countries Fight So Hard to Stay Independent

Poland’s foreign minister has remarked that his country would “eat grass” before ever becoming a Russian colony again. The phrasing was dramatic, but the sentiment behind it is instantly recognizable to societies that live in the shadow of a dominant outside power. Across the world, peoples and states often confront the same structural dilemma: how to carve out real independence when either your geography or a global superpower’s ambitions make you vulnerable.

Poland’s modern strategy is to lock itself firmly into the orbit of a distant protector. Its security rests on anchoring itself to the United States and on the guarantees provided by NATO, which together offer it a credible shield against Russian power.

In Latin America, generations of movements in Venezuela, Cuba, and many other countries have pushed back against U.S. power not only out of ideology, but out of a long struggle to loosen the grip of a superpower in their immediate neighborhood and over their societies. The drive for autonomy runs deep among many, yet it constantly runs up against economic dependence, security pressures, and political constraints that tie much of the region to Washington. The result is a recurring push and pull between asserting independence and managing the realities of living beside a dominant state.

Iran presents another variation of this dynamic. The Islamic Republic’s quest for deterrence, regional strategic depth, and its own military capabilities is inseparable from its history of foreign intervention. Since the nineteenth century, Iran has been invaded, coerced, and partitioned by outside powers. Russian and British dominance shaped its modern political identity, and the 1953 coup cemented a deep suspicion of dependency on external protectors. The state’s determination to develop its own security architecture is often explained strictly through ideology, but its roots run far deeper. It reflects a long memory of vulnerability and a belief that real security must come from within rather than from any alliance or umbrella, including in a modern context where the United States has repeatedly tried to impose its own security architecture and a lasting hegemony through military force.

Taiwan faces a different but related predicament. Its project of democratic self-rule exists under constant pressure from a vastly more powerful neighbor. At its core, Taiwan’s political identity is shaped by a determination to avoid absorption into a larger power whose vision for the island is fundamentally at odds with its own.

The Palestinians inhabit perhaps the starkest version of this condition. Their national movement is defined by the pursuit of self-determination under overwhelming military domination. Every political strategy, from negotiation to resistance, takes shape within the confines of a landscape controlled by a far stronger state.

These cases differ widely in culture, ideology, and political systems, yet they follow the same basic logic that political theorists and international relations scholars have long identified. States and societies often resist domination by the closest hegemonic power and instead look for safety either by aligning with a more distant patron or by building enough internal strength to deter coercion.

This helps explain why Sikorski’s comment resonates. It captured a universal human impulse: the refusal to be subordinated, even at high cost. Yet that cost is also the reason why many people ultimately would rather accept the orbit of the very hegemon they confront. In Iran, Poland, Ukraine, Venezuela, and Cuba, the calculus is often painful. Autonomy demands sacrifice, and dependence offers tradeoffs.