Faithful Ally

Will America defend us?

Poland behaves in its relationship with America like a special care ally. The unknown facts connected with the Patriots negotiations show that our safety policy is ruled by our phobia of Russia and childish dreams of weapon and bases.

There were gingerbreads as a farewell gift. In the middle of December the third shift of American Patriot batteries left Toruń and headed for Germany. The Americans were supposed to do more training, but cars with launchers kept getting stuck in the snow at the firing ground. And it was all for the best — if Patriots had stayed till the end, they might have got stuck in the railway Christmas chaos. Fifteen Polish soldiers (the total number of soldiers trained during the program) were introduced to various secrets of the weapon Poland can’t afford anyway: mainly driving the platform, as more thorough initiation is forbidden by the American act on export control. The Americans, on their part, were having fun. “All soldiers love Polish cuisine. They are all praise,” said the spokesman of the battery, Cpt. Janusz Szczypiór. That’s an astonishing achievement as for the most important project of country’s safety.

The Patriots farce is the pathetic result of a whole decade of trying to keep the Americans in Poland longer. Since the accession to NATO Warsaw has been trying to make Washington confirm the alliance by placing its military forces in Poland — that was the reason for participating in successive American wars. The accession to the anti-missile shield project was also driven by the hope that soldiers would come together with the missiles. America, in turn, has from the very beginning opposed the idea of mass military presence — it understands Poland’s historical experiences, but it doesn’t see any threats that would justify sending big troops; besides, it has an agreement with Russia that there will be no permanent NATO bases in Central Europe. Poland, unable to persuade the Americans to satisfy its expectations, resorts to escalation of demands and emotional blackmail. America, not able to mitigate Polish fears, manages them with the lowest cost possible.

Patriot aimed at Law and Justice

“The Americans have understood that the border constituted by Odra river should be crossed. So that Poland is efficiently protected from the first hours,” said Donald Tusk in August 2008. After the six-month-long negotiations the new government announced victory: In exchange for accepting an anti-missile protection base the Americans agreed to send a single Patriot missile battery to Poland in three months. In accordance with the agreement, the visits are supposed to be military trainings; besides, an American supporting garrison will have been established by the end of 2012. However, it isn’t stated in the document that the battery itself will remain in Poland for good, or that it will ever defend Polish airspace. Nevertheless, the government claims that the agreement increases Poland’s safety and opens the way to continuous American presence.

The alleged success is supposed, above all, to weaken the position of Law and Justice. The Patriots agreement shows voters that the Citizens’ Platform can negotiate better with America and can assure that Poland would save its face if a future U.S. government gave up the shield project. The Americans kept resisting for long but the concession didn’t cost them much — George Bush’s government’s term of office was ending, so the obligation was made for the next government. Moreover, its form isn’t legally binding. Although the shield agreement itself was concluded as a detailed intergovernmental contract, the Patriots provisions are placed in a general declaration of strategic cooperation which doesn’t even require signing. The Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs must have known that the realization of such a document depends entirely on the goodwill of the next government in the White House, but it didn’t find it necessary to inform the Polish public about this fact.

The Americans, not seeing any military advantages coming from just one battery, assume that the Poles want to become familiar with the equipment before deciding to buy it. For them Poland’s wish is inconvenient mainly for logistic reasons: In spite of the opinion that the U.S. has plenty of weapons, only one American Patriots battalion is stationed in Europe. Most batteries are stationed in warfare regions or in places with a risk of missile attack. Europe is not such a place; besides, the countries that host U.S. troops have their own air protection systems. Poland urgently needs a new system but can’t afford it. The government apparently thinks that if they persuade the Americans to comply with the Patriots agreement, they would be obliged, after giving up the shield project, to leave one battery in Poland and to sell others with a discount.

How Donald Tusk sold the shield

A comedy of errors has started between Warsaw and Washington. Barack Obama won the election and, as was expected, stopped the building of the shield. Even though the head of Pentagon didn’t change, the Americans refused to send the first shift of Patriots until Poland signed the agreement on the status of American troops. The negotiations protracted until December 2009; Lech Kaczyński ratified the document in February 2010. Meanwhile, the Polish party became impatient and more and more insistently demanded that launchers come with missiles, that the missiles are armed and that the whole batteries constitute a part of the Polish air protection system. The dispatches from the U.S. embassy in Warsaw, revealed by WikiLeaks, are considered by the government as a proof of its assertiveness in conversations with the Americans, while in fact they are a proof of consternation of the latter resulting from the expectations of the Poles.

In the long dispatch from February 2009, the contemporary ambassador Victor Ashe tries to explain to his central office the growing gap between American intentions and Polish expectations. “The Poles understand the words ‘will include’ [common trainings on Patriots — publisher’s note] as ‘will not be limited to’ and expect that shifts of Patriots will strengthen the military forces of the Polish air protection. (…) After months of back and forth, we think the Poles now understand that the rotation battery will not be fully operational,” writes Ashe. “The Poles have not been told that the battery will rotate without actual missiles,” continues the diplomat and recalls the reaction of the vice-minister of defense, Stanisław Komorowski, who demands armament and not “pot plants.” Ashe appreciates his resolution but from the Americans’ point of view, the Poles demand something which is not in the agreement.

Moreover, there emerge numerous differences in the understanding of American presence in Poland after 2012. “The Poles believe that the permanent battery arrangement will have around 110 personnel (…) which is to say the Poles expect the ‘garrison’ to convert the rotation itself into a permanent presence [of the battery]. However, current U.S. planning appears to call for only 20-30 permanent personnel to maintain forward deployment equipment,” reveals Ashe’s dispatch. In other words, America doesn’t intend to place a battery in Poland; only a crew that would operate the battery, should it come here again. The ambassador warns: “The problem of ‘pot plants’ is much more complicated. Prime Minister Tusk ‘sold’ the shield to the public opinion, persuading people that, due to the Patriots agreement, it would increase Poland’s safety (…). We should be careful and not fall into this gap [between the plans and the expectations].”*

The Americans wanted to disentangle themselves from the troublesome obligation, but first they made a huge mistake: Obama announced resigning from the anti-missile base in Poland on September 17, 2009 — on the 70th anniversary of the Red Army’s treacherous invasion. Less than a month later, Alexander Vershbow, the deputy Defense Secretary, came to Poland to offer the Poles participation in a new conception of the shield. In the meantime he asked the Polish government to consider three equivalents for the visit of Patriots in 2012: the rotation of F-16 fighters once a quarter and the placement of a U.S. air force sub-unit in Poland; the rotation of C-130 aircraft carriers, also with a sub-unit; and finally, the transfer of a special forces unit from Stuttgart to Gdańsk or Gdynia. Poland chose the airplanes with the sub-unit, the creation of which will be announced by Obama during Bronisław Komorowski’s visit in the White House.

We Want Shoes

The government already knows that Patriots will not stay in Poland for good, but they do all they can to make sure the Patriots to come are armed. In February 2010, three months before the first rotation, Minister of Defense Bogdan Klich, in his conversation with the Undersecretary of State Ellen Tauscher, “noticed that the second rotation of Patriots will probably take place in the middle of the autumn presidential campaign and asked Washington to help with the management of the public opinion’s expectations,” as if armed missiles were able to increase the winning chances of the Citizen’s Platform candidate. Tauscher replied that arming a battery of Patriots would require the president’s decision, which Obama didn’t make. She also added that “[i]t would be important for Poland to work with the United States to cultivate realistic public expectations for future Patriot rotations.” As a result, in May Klich must welcome empty launchers in Morąg.

But the expectations, exceeding the rotations of Patriots, belong to politicians, not to the public opinion. This is proved by the dispatch on the visit of Senator Carl Levin in Warsaw in May 2009. Witold Waszczykowski, the contemporary Head of the National Security Bureau in President Kaczyński’s government, told the chairman of the Senate commission of armed forces that Poland wants “shoes on the ground,” i.e. mass military presence that would not only “stop” a potential attack, but also “frighten away” potential attackers. When asked whether Poland believes the repeated NATO guarantees, he answered, “We still have some doubts.” On the other hand, Sławomir Nowak, the contemporary head of Tusk’s cabinet, “pondered on the fact that 10 anti-missiles and one Patriots battery do not constitute the impressive presence Poland hoped for.”

Special Care Ally

Polish dreams on American bases fall on the time of the greatest reductions of U.S. presence abroad. In 2004 Donald Rumsfeld presented a plan to repatriate 70,000 soldiers, as well as resigning from large Cold War bases in favour of smaller, flexible footholds. America’s great allies strongly opposed and Rumsfeld’s plan was suspended. The threat of cuts returned a year ago when America started the great saving — in December, the cross-party commission for deficit reduction recommended Obama close one-third of the bases. “The decision concerning two of the four combat groups stationed in Europe will be made in the next few months,” says Ian Brzezinski, Rumsfeld’s Defense Undersecretary, expected to get a high position during the rule of another Republican president.*

Even if the Americans were establishing new bases, it’s not very likely that they would choose Poland. From their point of view Central Europe is safe; currently real dangers appear in Asia. The nuclear North Korea constitutes an immediate threat to Japan and South Korea, while Iran may shoot missiles at Israel and Saudi Arabia; that’s why the most military help is given to those allies. Poland’s argument that it is equally threatened by the reviving Russia and, therefore, deserves similar help, is an offense against common sense. There are two explanations: Either Poland has a distorted sense of safety, or it tries to burden America with its obligation to protect its own territory. The former means that Poland is a special care ally; the latter places it in row with demilitarizing countries from Western Europe.

Poland’s problems are fears, not real threats. To amend this, Obama has repeated his alliance guarantees for Poland a couple of times; he also carried through the updating of NATO’s so-called contingency plans in case of an attack on Poland. He gave up the Cold War shield and brought about an improvement in relations with Russia; at the same time, he also invited Poland to participate in a new anti-missile program that is much more future-oriented. It is possible that in 20 years portable anti-missile launchers in Poland will be more significant than permanent aircraft bases in Germany.

However, the Americans aren’t ready to help the Polish army out or to pay for its modernization. If Poland still feels threatened, it must create an efficient army and buy modern weapon itself. The offer of aircraft rotation shows that the Americans are ready to train the Poles.

Assertive immaturity

The main source of Polish disappointment in contacts with America is the assumption that an alliance is a “quid pro quo” transaction. All leaders from the last decade kept going to Washington, intending to make some deal: Some of them asked for oil contracts in exchange for participating in the war in Iraq, while others demanded Patriots for accepting the anti-missile shield. Some of the negotiations were hard, others soft; all leaders had promised results and came back with nothing. For 10 years, no one has told politicians in Warsaw that it’s not proper for a self-respecting ally to go begging in Washington and that making demands may be an act of bravado. Nobody has noticed that America bargains only with dictators whose support it must buy; with friends, it acts on the basis of trust. That’s why, in America’s opinion, Poland questions the very nature of the alliance by not trusting safety guarantees.

The Poles got rid of illusions concerning America; similarly, the Americans start to perceive Poland in a more realistic way — they see an assertive but immature country. On one hand, it boasts about the alliance with America. On the other hand, it puts this same alliance in danger due to political differences, as was shown during the shield quarrel. Poland wants to be an important player; at the same time, it concentrates entirely on false appearances and empty symbols, as is proved by the Patriots struggle.

In Poland there is no consensus on the matter of national safety because politicians prefer to quarrel about it, arousing and mitigating imaginary fears. As was said by a certain European diplomat in Poland, the Poles have a tendency to magnify insignificant facts, which results in politicians being forced to take part in projects they don’t support — like transporting unarmed missiles through the whole country.

*Editor’s Note: These quotations, accurately translated, could not be verified.