“The Narrow Corridor” of American-Polish Relations

“That’s what makes us democracies, not just by the words written in constitutions or in the fact that we vote in elections, but the institutions we depend on every day – such as rule of law, independent judiciaries and a free press." According to Mr. Obama, these are the values the American-Polish alliance is based on. These words the American President addressed to Andrzej Duda, the President of Poland at the recent NATO summit in Warsaw; these words might have passed unnoticed in the world, but in Poland, they created an uproar. They unequivocally stated that Poland has anti-democratic tendencies, which has already long been discussed in Europe. The current state of Polish-American relations is considered to be nearly the worst in recent history. At the same time, one cannot say there are reasons for serious disagreements or a personal dislike between the leaders.

“That’s what makes us democracies, not just by the words written in constitutions or in the fact that we vote in elections, but the institutions we depend on every day – such as rule of law, independent judiciaries and a free press." According to Mr. Obama, these are the values the American-Polish alliance is based on. These words the American President addressed to Andrzej Duda, the President of Poland at the recent NATO summit in Warsaw; these words might have passed unnoticed in the world, but in Poland, they created an uproar. They unequivocally stated that Poland has anti-democratic tendencies, which has already long been discussed in Europe. The current state of Polish-American relations is considered to be nearly the worst in recent history. At the same time, one cannot say there are reasons for serious disagreements or a personal dislike between the leaders.

The synchronization snare, or a trap for Sancho Panza

When Barack Obama became President, one of his key foreign policy tasks was to normalize relations with the key European partners, especially with France and Germany. His predecessor faced their refusal to support the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, yet he was supported by NATO neophytes, and by Poland first and foremost. That earned the Eastern European partners not only compliments from George W. Bush and members of his administration, but they, as a “new Europe,” were rhetorically contrasted with the “old Europe.”

Still, the Americans did not limit themselves to compliments only, since the condition of Poland’s participating in the Iraq campaign was US aid in rearmament Poland which continued its costly transition to NATO standards. In particular, there was a contract for purchasing American F-16s, concluded in April 2003 and entailed a no-interest loan and guarantees of serious investments from American companies. At the same time, the Polish public started discussing hosting American military bases in the country.

Even when it became obvious that the US had started the Iraq campaign on false pretenses and Saddam Hussein’s government had not been developing any WMD, the Polish authorities preferred to remain part the coalition. Besides demonstrating their allied loyalty, participating in the Iraq campaign was important for gaining experience of joint action with the US.

REUTERS/U.S. Missile Defense Agency/
Leah Garton
Prokhor Tebin:
Europe under Aegis

In its relations with the US, Poland never forgets to provide small services.

Besides, Poland has always striven to take an active part in the dialog on the Middle East and Iran, positioning itself as a serious player in international politics. For a while, the conflict in the Middle East even became a key issue of the Polish-American agenda. Poland traditionally believes that the US is not only a trustworthy ally, but also provides important support for the transatlantic mechanisms of security policy.

In its relations with the US, Poland never forgets to provide small services. For instance, before the start of the “Desert Storm” operation, Polish intelligence helped to secretly evacuate American agents from Iraq and from the occupied Kuwait, and after the war, it was Poland that represented the US interests in Iraq since American-Iraqi relations had been severed. Subsequently, until July 2012, the Polish embassy similarly represented American interests in Syria.

However, in its relations with the US, Poland does not confine itself to either small services or even to the military cooperation: Warsaw strives for complete synchronization with Washington’s politics. The example of Polish-Russian relations is particularly telling. In 2001, after a meeting in Ljubljana, there was a short thaw in Russian-American relations, and soon, a similar process started to pick up steam between Russia and Poland. Vladimir Putin was warmly received in Warsaw, and when newspapers wrote about his visit, they spoke only about the friendship of the two presidents. A little less over a year later the idyll was shattered by Moscow’s special stance on the Iraq question. The relations with the US and Poland ran on a parallel downward track during the “Orange revolution” and the 2008 Georgian crisis exactly until Washington and Moscow announced a “reset” of their relations in 2009. Immediately afterwards, Poland announced it was increasing the volumes of gas it purchased from Russia and began negotiations, and in September 2009, the-then Prime Minister of Russia Vladimir Putin visited Poland and signed several bilateral agreements of a symbolic nature: on navigation in the Vistula Bay, on bringing irradiated radioactive fuel from Poland into Russia, and a couple of months later, an agreement on border region cooperation. It is important to remember that the negotiations were conducted at the level of the heads of government, that is, between Vladimir Putin and Donald Tusk, while Lech Kaczyński was then Poland’s President. And again, in synch with American politics, in 2013, after the death of the Polish president, there appeared signs of a cooling down in Russian-Polish relations, and November 11, 2013 became a symbolic watershed: Polish nationalists attacked the Russian embassy.

To a somewhat smaller degree, yet clearly enough one could also see the Polish politics following in the wake of the American one in Europe. Warsaw rapidly travelled the way from an enfant terrible of the European politics of the last decade to a confident and fairly loyal partner of Brussels and Berlin. One could and should find various reason for such a turn of events, but the key reason is precisely Barack Obama’s administration’s turn to its European allies from the “old Europe” camp. Yet, despite a more positive engagement in European processes, Warsaw failed to shed the reputation of “America’s Trojan horse in Europe,” as Jacque Chirac imaginatively put it.

These thoughts make one recall the leaked phrase Radosław Sikorski, former foreign minister, said in a conversation with Jacek Rostowski claiming that Polish politicians get nothing from pleasuring Americans. Mr. Sikorski claimed that an alliance with the US gives Poland a fake sense of security and pushes it to a quarrel with Germany and Russia without giving anything in exchange. Mr. Sikorski also believed Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s and defense minister Tomasz Siemoniak’s politics a mistake stemming from Poles’ very low national self-esteem.

Without going into the specifics of the Polish mindset, it should be noted that Poland’s following in America’s wake is partly justified. Traditionally seeing international politics in terms of conflict and competition, the Polish leadership strives to side with the strongest party, having soundly sized up Washington’s possibilities compared to Europe and even to Moscow. The American foreign policy resource is capable of scaling Polish politics up, bringing it to a level, which, under other circumstances, it could not have achieved.

A crisis in bilateral relations

Dursun Aydemir / Anadolu Agency / East News
Mikhail Troitskiy:
Russia and NATO after the Warsaw Summit

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama’s new strategy introduced confusion into the American-Polish relations. In 2012, the concept of a Pacific rebalance was introduced as one of the key tenets of the US revised military strategy “Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense.” It happened against the background of a detente with Russia and of China’s growing influence. Poland perceived the changes with deepest regret and perplexity. Washington shifted its attention away from Europe, which threatened Poland with the loss of its hard-earned place in the regional politics and with weakening its positions in Europe.

Mr. Sikorski’s sad words reflected the crisis in the bilateral relations, which was known and understandable to international politics actors, but it was nicely dressed up for the public. The crisis did not even stem primarily from the shifting focus of the American politics (which was partly a bluff aimed at the European partners). Apparently, the previous agenda of Polish-American relations was exhausted. In the 2000s, Poland and the US mostly cooperated in the military missions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, and Lebanon. On the whole, these actions had a positive effect on Poland’s reputation, but as time went by, it became apparent that going further down that road was pointless. In 2013, President Bronisław Komorowski spoke about the need “to draw far-reaching conclusions and change expeditionary policies.”

Despite Poland’s long-time desire to strengthen the regional dimension of its relations with the US, for a long while it could not achieve its goal. Washington rarely moves toward its partners, and it has its reasons. While maintaining close ties with Poland, the US attempts not to get carried away and lets other countries in the region see that the ties with them are important, too. At the same time, the US had no reason to be actively engaged in political activity in the region after a majority of the countries joined NATO. Even when in 2006 a discussion started concerning hosting the US missile defense elements, it moved slowly, and then it stopped entirely. In its talks with Russia, the US attempted to present its initiative as a response to Iran’s nuclear program, but this argument, weak as it had been, fell to pieces when Poland demanded that Patriot missiles be put in Poland for protection against Russia as a condition for hosting ABM interceptor missiles. The Polish diplomacy had to create artificial tensions, since Warsaw’s foreign political resources were clearly inadequate for maintaining the positive agenda of the American presence in the region: both economically, and in its European policies and politics, Warsaw is not of much interest for Washington.

Bilateral relations evolving on the anti-Russian grounds

The logic of Polish-American cooperation began to change around 2012, when the US began to lean gradually toward a confrontation with Russia. The crisis in the US relations with Russia, a coup d’état in Ukraine and the civil war that followed contributed to creating new regional meanings in the American foreign policies. Since 2014, the US-Polish relations evolved primarily on the anti-Russian grounds: it can be seen from the bilateral agenda, from the increasing cooperation within NATO, from active military exercises with the participation of Polish and American military close to Russian borders.

Washington, indeed, sees Poland as a very important and valuable partner, but it also understands that Poland will be ready to support American policies almost come hell or high water. This is the case when loyalty itself is probably more important than its derivatives. The relations between the two countries revolve almost entirely around security problems despite Poland’s clear desire to expand the range of cooperation issues. Moreover, many issues are approached in terms of security. As an example from the last decade, we could recall the widely discussed question of producing shale gas; the issue was served up in the context of the energy security.

American companies with significant experience in this area should have started working in Poland, and the topic itself was put on the agenda of the Strategic Dialog and the Economic Dialog, the bilateral cooperation institutions. A special conference and the Polish-American Energy Round Table were set up on the issue of producing shale gas. During Barack Obama’s visit to Poland in May 2011, the institutional architecture of the Polish-American cooperation of shale gas production was presented. However, when prices on energy sources were high, no significant progress was made, and similarly, no progress was made on another, even older issue: visa waiver for Poles wishing to visit the US. Citizens of most EU countries, even of those which are less friendly to the US in international politics, are bound by no restrictions. Including Poland into the US Visa Waiver Program was discussed during that very same President Obama’s visit to Poland in 2011, and Obama virtually promised to admit Poland to the visa waiver program, “I am going to make this a priority. And I want to solve this issue before very long. My expectation is, is that this problem will be solved during my presidency.” However, it was five years ago, and despite the still close ties and powerful support on the part of the EU, the question is up in the air, and its prospects are still vague.

EPA/CPL JAMIE DUDDING/Vostock Photo
Ilya Kramnik:
NATO Exercises: More Provocations from Poland

Expanding the interaction channels and cooperation areas could allow Poland to maneuver in its relations with the US and to move to a kind of “linkage strategy”

American politicians believe such a format of relations is optimal, since expanding the interaction channels and cooperation areas could allow Poland to maneuver in its relations with the US and to move to a kind of “linkage strategy” (using the terms of J. S. Nye and R. Keohane), obtaining concessions in exchange for cooperation [1]. Therefore it is not surprising that Washington ignores even moderate Warsaw’s demands which are natural for a close partnership.

A crucial, but not only partner

Given currently energized American politics in Europe, particularly in its eastern part, Poland faces new challenges. Since Poland’s geopolitical interests are limited to Europe and to a part of the post-Soviet space, and its partnership with the US is restricted primarily to security issues, Poland’s role in the American foreign policy planning turns out to be narrow both functionally and geographically. Otherwise, Warsaw has to play an auxiliary role, participating in the US operations on other continents etc. In the meantime, Washington efficiently mobilizes its eastern European allies, which, as it has seemed recently, nearly lost their automatic readiness to follow American politics. The role of America’s second eastern European partner is solidly attached to Romania, which hosts elements of the missile defense initially intended for Poland [20]. The regional significance of the Baltic countries is also on the rise, despite the fact that it is based almost exclusively on the geographical factor coupled with their governments’ loyalty. As regards Prague and Budapest’s alienation from Washington, it had been previously useful for Polish diplomacy as it increased the value of Poland as a partner. However, this period is apparently nearing its end, and under these circumstances, the US policy toward Poland will have to become less demanding and, as before, follow within the narrow “corridor” of security.

1. Robert O. Keohane, Joseph S. Nye. Power and Interdependence. Third Edition. Harvard University Press, 2001. Ch. 2. Realism and Complex Interdependence. Pp. 20-32.