Hard Truth: Poland Needs America More Than America Needs Us
"This
alliance will never be one of equals: we will always need to maintain it more
than the Americans. So it has always been, so it will always be. Today we've
become victims of our own success. Washington no longer has to watch over
us."
Poland still needs a strong
alliance with the United States. The shield might have been its foundation; now
we simply need to look for something to substitute for it.
After the White House’s
decision to abandon plans to build an anti-missile shield in Poland and the
Czech Republic, relations between Warsaw and Washington will have to change.
The year 2009 seems to mark the end of a close and quite long-lasting alliance
- 9 years.
The alliance can and should
continue, but based on different principles. America is weakening, but it's still
the most important superpower in the world, whose interests and values
fundamentally coincide with our own. Nevertheless, due to the gap in power between
the two countries, this alliance will never be one of equals: we will always
need to maintain it more than the Americans. So it has always been, so it will always
be.
In the late 80s and early 90s,
an extraordinary thing occurred in our history - the interests of the great
power and Poland’s were perfectly aligned. Both countries were anxious to
deeply root democracy in Central Europe and in incorporating that part of the
Old Continent into Western Europe's political and economic structures.
Moreover, Polish diplomacy and Polish intelligence proved an important and highly-effective
U.S. ally in the Middle East and the countries that formerly belonged to the USSR.
Today we've become victims of
our own success. Central Europe is stable, belongs to NATO and the European
Union, there are no terrible threats and it continues to develop and enrich
itself. Washington no longer has to watch over us - it has far more pressing
problems in Afghanistan and Iran, and China and Israel - places we know less of,
and where, unfortunately, we have little hope of exerting influence.
The anti-missile shield could
have been the basis for a new phase in our alliance with the United States,
since for the first time we were to become part of our larger ally's system of defense.
Now we know this won't happen.
Without the shield, we must
find a new set of common interests with the U.S. We need to rebuild the
alliance between ours and the American intelligence services, which weakened
during the political turmoil of the PiS
era. [Editor's Note: When the right-wing Law and Justice party held power].
Our army should remain in
Afghanistan, since withdrawing would be seen in Washington as tripping up the president
on his most difficult and most important international call.
Poland should promote NATO
reform, because the future of the Alliance is seriously threatened by
sputtering cooperation in Afghanistan among allied countries and Europe’s
reluctance to take on responsibility for solving global crises.
For years, America has been
trying to persuade Europe to get more involved and Barack Obama will soon tell
his admiring West European allies that they're doing far too little. Poland
should support the U.S. position.
A strong NATO is in our
interests and in the interests of the Americans, because on matters of national
security, all countries must be ready for worst case scenarios, even if at the
moment they seem implausible. Both we and the Americans understand this, while
many of our allies in Western Europe no longer do.
Warsaw should squeeze as much
as possible out of the 2008
U.S.-Poland Strategic Declaration. Americans can and should participate in reorganizing
the Polish Army. Polish soldiers should take greater advantage of American
military academies than they do today.
In exchange, we can offer
further support to the Americans in NATO and help with Ukraine, which we know
very well and which many American experts see as a potential source of a
serious international crisis in the coming years.
Warsaw should also work within
the E.U. for the greatest level of cooperation possible with the United States.
In the face of the global financial crisis, such cooperation, particularly
economic, is at a premium.
Poland has never had a
problem choosing between loyalty to our allies across the Atlantic and those in
Brussels. Treating this issue as a dispute was and remains erroneous. Poland
has a role to play as a country that brings together these two giants. Such an outcome
is in the interests of both Europe and the United States.
