Joe Biden and Donald Tusk
Under the Obama Administration, the bilateral Polish-U.S. relations have reached its lowest point since the collapse of the Soviet Union and Poland’s political reorientation to the Western democratic communities. Historically, those relations have never been so immaterial even under Obama’s Democratic predecessor Bill Clinton, who despite having strong leftist leanings, kept a reasonable strategic outlook at the U.S. role in the European balance of power.
The cancellation of the Bush’s antimissile defense shield in Poland and Czech Republic was an open slap in a cheek to those two European nations. The Obama’s decision was not agreed or even consulted with the respective Eastern European governments, which were left surprised and unprepared to battle domestic media and opposition’s accusations. The style and timing of the delivery of Obama’s decision (the anniversary of the Russia’s invasion of Poland of 1939) showed a lack of diplomatic style or perhaps even a deliberate disrespect for those two European countries, which in the past made major deals with the Bush Administration (Obama’s ideological opponents).
Nevertheless, the problem that appeared in the bilateral relations is far more serious than it looks at the first glance.
From Poland’s perspective, it presently makes little sense to invest in a transatlantic alliance with the United States, because such an alliance proves to be fully dependent on the political ideology of a politician in the Oval Office.
George W. Bush was a President with a neoconservative view of strategic relations and he treated Russia as a possible competitor and challenger on the international scene. For that reason, Poland played an important role in positioning the U.S. against Russian dominance in the region. However, Barack Obama is a completely different type of an ideologist. He is willing to sacrifice any smaller regional alliances to improve relations with bigger Russia. He is a neosocialist in that sense and is willing to support any foreign governments if they are ideologically close to him. He already proved that by supporting leftist Manuel Zelaya in Honduras, although Zelaya was a part of a larger regional alliance against the United States led by Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.
The second reason against Poland’s investment in the alliance with the U.S. is actually the Obama’s health care reform, which should be passed by the Congress this year.
As the Congressional Budget Office estimated, the reform would increase taxes in America by over half a billion of dollars, but even despite this increase, it would still create a budget deficit of above 800 billion over the next decade. Ironically, it is bad news for Central Europe because should the reform go forward, the U.S. will eventually become a European-like country, where the majority of the federal budget is spent on providing social benefits to its citizens (in this instance health care benefits).
If the reform is implemented, it will be impossible for the U.S. to maintain two or three war theaters outside of its borders, should the necessity arise, because of the budget limitations imposed by the health care plan.
As a matter of fact, presently it is impossible for Europe to remilitarize itself and assume responsibility for its own security because of the social-benefits systems that are adopted in many countries across the Continent. And so it will be financially impossible for the U.S. to provide military assistance to Europe in a situation where the U.S. federal budget is predominantly consumed for the health care benefits purposes. The situation will only worsen over time because the population of America is projected to almost double during the next four decades therefore increasing the number of people dependent on the U.S. federal funding.
So what is there left for Poland? Well, perhaps the time has come to adopt a different approach to the transatlantic alliance with the United States and to re-examine America’s role in Central and Eastern Europe.
Under the Obama Administration, the U.S. political influence in Europe will erode and is unlikely to be restored anytime soon in the future. Poland needs to heavily invest in its own security and search for opportunities to recreate strategic importance for that part of Europe. Poland’s close alliance with Lithuania and the Czech Republic could be crucial and perhaps those three countries should begin a process of much closer and faster integration within the European Union, as compared to the integration with the rest of the members.
Poland needs to answer “the German question” as well. The answer should be: a stronger and more effective approach to the European integration as a larger process. Poland should support the creation of a federal pan-European political system that could effectively assume responsibilities in the most important areas of the military and energy security, foreign relations and harmonization of the legal systems of all the member states. If such a system is created, for example in a form of the President of the European Union, it should be originally assumed by Germany so that the Germans can start thinking about Europe in terms much broader than merely a romantic and strategically unsubstantiated alliance between Germany and Russia.
Poland should also relocate its financial and economic resources away from the American counterparts and more to the European partners. In particular, the idea announced last month by the Ministry of Defense that the Polish Government would conduct a public bidding for the creation of the antimissile defense system in Poland (excluding any favorable treatment for the U.S. companies offering the Patriots antimissile batteries), was a step in a proper direction. It would allow the European companies to enter Polish military industry and make it more Europe-oriented.
Poland should also withdraw its troops from Afghanistan. It took America two years to enter the biggest of all wars – the Second World War, but it took countries like Poland and others, just few weeks to make a decision to send troops to Afghanistan. It is not to say that the war in Afghanistan is not important from a strategic perspective, but it is to argue that the Afghan war was neglected by the Bush Administration and is being continuously neglected by the Obama Administration as well. Since assuming the office, Obama has met with his field commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, only twice, including one meeting for the public relations purposes in front of the TV cameras in Denmark. The public opinion in the U.S. is divided whether to continue that war or not, while General McChrystal requested 40,000 more troops but received none so far.
From Poland’s perspective, the war in Afghanistan made sense only for the purpose of maintaining a close alliance with the United States, which eventually resulted in the plan of the Bush antimissile defense shield to be placed in Eastern Europe. However, since that plan was already cancelled, there is little left for Poland to sustain its position on the war in Afghanistan. Also an argument that NATO should play a more important role in Afghanistan is a fake one as it is a war that no government is particularly interested in fighting, including the Obama Administration as well.
