The focus of this work is narrower than the title implies. It is actually a close study of the policies of Poland's first noncommunist foreign minister, Krystof Skubiszewski, who served all four Solidarnosc-based governments, 1989–93, and thus set Poland on its present course. Joshua Spero abundantly praises Skubiszewski for pursuing policies that not only safeguarded Poland's interests but kept Central Europe out of the traps of the interwar period.

As Spero sees it, Skubiszewski made pragmatic and rational choices for a “bridging” strategy, “a new form of alignment” of cooperative behavior with all neighbors, deliberately making Poland into “a pivotal middle power” (p. 24). Bridging, according to the author, is distinct from such traditional strategies as 1) forming alliances to balance the power of threatening states, 2) joining or bandwagoning with stronger states, or 3) trying to stay neutral between two dangerous neighbors. Instead, a middle power could build a series of bridges to all neighboring states, calming their fears and drawing them into stable regional arrangements.

Skubiszewski, who was 62 when he took office, had a Harvard Ph.D. and was a world-respected professor of international law at the University of Poznan. Earlier Polish thinkers had pointed to a bridging strategy. Emigré journalist Juliusz Mieroszewski proposed that a post-Communist Poland renounce any claims to neighboring countries—and Poland had once possessed much of Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine—as part of Polish independence from the Soviet Union. Poland's 1957–58 Rapacki Plan (named after Foreign Minister Adam Rapacki), by calling for the denuclearization of Central Europe, also showed a middle power seeking room to maneuver by calming regional tensions.

Spero massively details Skubiszewski's bridging policies in several areas:

1. He supported German unification in return for Bonn's settlement of the Oder-Neisse line as their common border. This led to German support for Poland's admission to NATO in 1999 and the European Union in 2004.

2. He helped set up the Visegrad Triangle of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, building a sense of Central European solidarity and shared aims.

3. He renounced any claims to Poland's old territories in Lithuania, Belarus, or Ukraine, thereby easing the transition with the weakening Soviet Union.

4. He negotiated the departure of Soviet troops stationed in Poland, along with the demise of the Warsaw Pact and Council for Mutual Economic Assistance.

Spero makes a good case that Skubiszewski was a clever and meticulous statesman in getting Poland out of the Soviet grasp, and in a nice way. The author, however, does not develop “bridging” as a foreign policy category, except for Poland in 1989–93. Comparative cases could be interesting. Have other states—such as Czechoslovakia and Hungary during the same time period—practiced it? Was France under de Gaulle engaged in a bridging strategy? Is Japan—which attempts to maintain good relations with China, Taiwan, Vietnam, both Koreas, and the United States—a bridger? Does bridging describe Polish foreign policy since Skubiszewski? He always aimed for Poland to join NATO and the EU. If this was a bridge, it tilted sharply westward.