As Russian President Vladimir Putin watched the final stage of the massive Tsentr-2026 military exercise in the Urals recently, Chinese troops were training alongside forces from Russia, Belarus and other countries. More than 47,000 military personnel joined the exercise, which incorporated lessons from the war in Ukraine.

The symbolism extends beyond Chelyabinsk. From Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to Chinese military exercises with Belarus – and now China’s participation alongside Russian and Belarusian forces in Tsentr-2026 – Eurasian developments are connecting two strategic theatres once considered largely separate: the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific.

Against this background, a new strategic triangle is quietly taking shape among the United States, Japan and Poland.

It is neither a formal trilateral alliance nor necessarily another cold war. Rather, it may represent a new architecture of deterrence in what I described in my book as the long competition between the US and China – a contest conducted through trade, technology, diplomacy, military preparedness, alliances and competing visions of international order.

This peaceful war unfolds within what I call an age of “fragmented interdependence”. These nations compete strategically while remaining economically and technologically dependent upon one another. Yet the immediate catalyst for the Washington-Warsaw-Tokyo triangle lies less in China than in Russia.

Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine transformed Poland’s security environment. As a frontline Nato state bordering Ukraine, Belarus and Russia’s Kaliningrad region, Poland accelerated military modernisation and deepened its relationship with Washington. Warsaw has authorised preparations for negotiations on a permanent US military base; Poland already hosts the forward headquarters of the US Army’s V Corps in Poznan and major American infrastructure at Powidz.

Then the Indo-Pacific moved unexpectedly closer. In July 2024, Chinese troops conducted the Eagle Assault exercise with Belarus near Brest, close to Poland’s frontier. Beijing described it as counterterrorism training – not an operation directed against Nato, the transatlantic security alliance. Yet Chinese forces were exercising in a country that facilitated Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Tsentr-2026 now adds Chinese training alongside Russian and Belarusian forces on Russian territory.

That helps explain why Poland’s rapidly developing relationship with Japan deserves greater attention. The Warsaw-Tokyo connection is not new. During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, Polish independence leaders looked to Japan as imperial Russia’s adversary.

The most compelling humanitarian chapter came in 1940. Chiune Sugihara, Japan’s consul in Lithuania, issued transit visas that enabled thousands of Polish Jews to escape German-occupied Poland through the Soviet Union and Japan. Long before today’s strategic partnership, Polish and Japanese interests – and human destinies – were intersecting across Eurasia under pressure from great-power conflict.

In April this year, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi elevated bilateral relations to a comprehensive strategic partnership. Significantly, their joint statement declared Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific security to be closely interconnected, opposed attempts to change the status quo by force or coercion, condemned Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, and called for deeper cooperation with like-minded partners and stronger alliances with the US to enhance national defence capabilities.

This strategic logic was captured by Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski when he observed that “the defence of Poland’s national interest – including the defence of Polish sovereignty – often begins 1,000km from our borders”. His formulation helps explain Warsaw’s strengthening strategic partnership with Tokyo and its broader engagement with other Indo-Pacific partners.

Japan occupies the eastern maritime frontier of America’s alliance system – facing China and nuclear-armed North Korea. Poland occupies Nato’s eastern continental frontier – confronting Russian power and instability in Belarus. The US connects them.

Yet this is not simply an anti-China coalition. Poland maintains a comprehensive strategic partnership with China; Japan remains economically intertwined with China; and Washington simultaneously competes, negotiates and trades with Beijing. This apparent contradiction is precisely fragmented interdependence.

The US-Japan-Poland triangle may therefore be better understood as deterrence rather than containment: Poland contributing to stability on Nato’s eastern flank, Japan to the strategic balance in the Indo-Pacific, and the US connecting two increasingly interdependent security theatres.

Nonetheless, this deterrence may carry danger. If Washington interprets every Chinese initiative as expansion while Beijing sees every American alliance as containment, the security dilemma could transform peaceful competition into military confrontation. Poland and Japan can show that strong alliances need not require closed economic blocs and that deterrence can coexist with dialogue.

The 21st century may therefore be defined neither by another cold war nor – one hopes – by a hot war. Instead, it increasingly resembles the peaceful war I described years ago. It sustained competition for economic, technological, diplomatic and strategic advantage among powers that remain profoundly interconnected.

In this age of fragmented interdependence, the Washington-Warsaw-Tokyo triangle may become an important new architecture of deterrence. Its success should not be measured by whether America prevails over China or China retreats before America. Rather, the more consequential question is whether deterrence can preserve peace while the peaceful war continues – and whether great power competition can ultimately contribute to a more peaceful world.