Preemption is the right of any nation in order to preserve its national security.

However, preemptive war is a tactic, not a strategy.

When used as a strategy, preemption dilutes diplomacy, creates an atmosphere of distrust, and promotes regional instability.

Alan Tauscher, former US Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs.

Hello and welcome to When Diplomacy Fails, Episode 27.2, The Swedish Jeluges, Part 2.

Last time we examined what brought Sweden to its position in 1655.

This involved assessing the reign of Queen Gristina and explaining why she abdicated in favour of her cousin Charles Gustav.

With Charles Gustav's accession secure,

we then turned to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Sweden's enemy of the past and present,

had introduced you to Bogdan's Cossack Revolt, a struggle which the Poles proved unable to quash, and which would eventually lead in late 1653, to an opportunistic Russia

heating the calls for aid from the Ukrainian Cossacks.

We ended the episode with the Russian Declaration of War on Poland.

We will now follow on from that declaration and examine why Poland was so susceptible

to its immense loss and prestige over the coming years.

I will now take you to the year

roughly 1653.

I'll now take you to the year, roughly 1653. God And is the head of Mitha, Medita Mater Eugenica

Mater Eugenity

Omba

Lestalea The Cossack Revolt was a wider series of fundamental problems within the Polish state.

Having diluted the power of its monarchs

for years and increased as a result the powers of its local magnates in each of the principalities,

...