Poland Fears Betrayal

[Ryan Ruck]

Poland Fears Betrayal

The U.S. has expressed a willingness to barter away missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic. Now the Polish foreign minister says he hopes his country doesn't regret trusting the United States.

The Brussels Forum is a privately organized high-level meeting of the most influential North American and European political, corporate and intellectual leaders to address pressing challenges currently facing both sides of the Atlantic.

One of the pressing issues discussed at this year's conference was whether the U.S. is serious about bartering away plans for missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic in exchange for vague Russian promises of using its influence on Iran regarding its move toward developing nuclear warheads to put on its long-range missiles.

On Sunday, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski noted that Poland had taken "something of a political risk" in agreeing to the deployment of 10 ground-based interceptors on its territory. "When we started discussing this with the United States," he said, "the U.S. assured us they would persuade the Russians that it was purely defensive and it would be a noncontroversial decision."

Now we are wishing the Iranians, whose missiles our ground-based interceptors are designed to intercept, a Happy New Year and suggesting to the Russians that if they can do something about Iran's nuclear and missile programs, we would reconsider our missile defense plans and saw off the limb our Czech and Polish allies have climbed out on.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates did not ease our allies' fears when he said at a NATO meeting in Krakow, Poland, on Feb. 20, "I told the Russians a year ago that if there were no Iranian missile program, there would be no need for the missile sites."

This comment came not long after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev threatened to deploy SS-26 Iskander missiles in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, situated between our NATO allies Poland and Lithuania, targeting the Polish site.

The Poles and the Czechs, who have known true freedom for only a short time after enduring both Nazi and Communist oppression, have experienced the consequences of diplomatic betrayal — first at Munich and later at Yalta.

They sense another betrayal coming in a deal with a belligerent Russian aggressor willing to wage war with the former Soviet state of Georgia, as well as threaten the Ukraine and use the Ukrainian pipeline to starve energy-dependent Europeans of natural gas.

"We hope we don't regret our trust in the United States," Sikorski said to an audience of senior world politicians and other leaders.

At the same event, Rep. Ellen Tauscher, who is expected to be named the new U.S. undersecretary for arms control and international security, repeated the administration line that a missile system would not be deployed until it was "proven" to work. It is easier to give away an "unproven" system.

Missile defense has already proved to be eminently workable and successful. According to the Missile Defense Agency, since 2001 there have been 37 successful hit-to-kill intercepts out of 47 attempts, an astounding 80% success rate. We've even shot a decaying and dangerous spy satellite out of the sky.

Former Missile Defense Agency Chief Gen. Trey Obering III has said that after dozens of successful missile intercepts, "Our testing has shown not only can we hit a bullet with a bullet, we can hit a spot on a bullet with a bullet."

Unilaterally scrapping European missile defense could shatter the NATO alliance as we retreat to a Fortress America behind our own ground-based interceptors and Aegis-equipped missile defense destroyers and cruisers.

The basis of NATO's purpose and existence — collective security — would be shredded as we showed a willingness to sacrifice allies for diplomatic convenience. Either we all hang together or we all hang separately.

Our Polish and Czech friends have to wonder: Are we the next Georgia? Are we about to trade away the trust of our allies and our collective security for another empty promise of peace in our time?

[wallis]

"Betrayal" is a very strong word, and as it is used in a political context, it carries connotations beyond the dictionary's use. It is certainly a plea: "Don't forget us!" After all, not only do they have short-term memories of the USSR's barbaric treatment of them but long-term memories as well of hundreds of years of warfare and being pawns for the powerful monarchs that once ruled Europe.

IMO, Nato has never really been that strong an organization. France is in, then it is out; then it is in again with stipulations, then it is out. Apparently, they are back in again but not with much enthusiasm. Nor can one really count on their support, given their political history and their ties with the ex-USSR and now Russian Republic.

Even our closes ally, Great Britain, has not always been that close. I remember when I was negotiating the sharing of radar information in Berlin with the British (when Berlin was a divided city), our British cousins were very hesitant on sharing information and to what extent.

Remember how long and vociferously Nato debated and argued over going to "war" after 9/11. Had the United States actually been attacked? Did the terrorist attack on the towers in NYC constitute an attack on a Nato member, as defined by the Nato treaty?

I suppose I can sympathize with the Polish and Czech people. They have to rub elbows with old enemies every day. While the U.S. has to think more strategic (or global) in trying to maintain an uneasy peace in Europe (including the Russian Repbulic), Poland and the Czech Republic put tactical concerns first. After all, they do not maintain global forces or have that much political clout globally.

At the same time, this lament by Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski is also very one-sided. Even with the intent on showing Defense Secretary Gate's comment as being one of exacerbation, this article lacks the other side of the coin. In fact, this article smacks of the U.S. totally abandoning Poland and the Czech Republic.

The other side of the coin, which is not represented at all, has to show that the U.S. is actively engaged in European politics. There is no real abandonment of either nation, as if the U.S. and Nato would turn their heads while the Russian bear feasts on their carcasses.

To equate Georgia on an equal footing is not quite fair, either. Georgia has, more or less, a long history with Mother Russia. It was independent, then subservient, then a Soviet republic, and once again an independent nation. Moscow feels that the Georgians are Russian and belong in the Russian sphere; in the same way, Moscow feels that the Ukraine has always been a part of Russia and should not be operating as an independent nation.

But Poland and the Czech Republic have maintained a lot of autonomy for hundreds of years. They were prizes awarded the USSR at the end of WWII. They were coerced to create Communist governments, at the heads of each were rather ruthless leaders. And, the USSR presented to the world a false persona that these nations were independent but joined hip-to-hip with the great Communist revolution and movement. Polish and Czechs have long labored to resist and finally overthrow their Communist taskmasters; yet, they did not always have even a trickle of support from the West in their struggle. The West feared a thermo-nuclear war more than the instability created by the old Soviet Eastern Bloc breaking up and becoming independent nations. In fact, I would be willing to go out on a limb and state that Washington preferred Eastern Europe to remain under Russian influence, because the volatile situation was far easier to handle or deal with.

Regarding the last part of the article, I am positively sure that there are many in the American political arena who would celebrate should the U.S. finally leave Nato. It's Cold War purpose is over. It never really worked as a military force, even when two allies (Greece and Turkey) were at war with each other. And with both world wars still fresh in the minds of the people, there was (and maybe still exists) a great reluctance in sending European troops to fight a foreign war, such as in Bosnia. [It is akin to the problem Lawrence of Arabia had to face when one Arabian clan had to seek out blood-vengence on another--never to end; so Lawrence ended up dispensing vengence to end any blood feud.) So, Nato often looks to the U.S. for dispensing justice, as there will be no recall from Europe to continue any blood-feuds that still exist.

Russia flexes its military muscle in a way that is not characteristic of the United States in modern times. Sure, the U.S. used to flex its muscle similarly in the past. The first attempt was with the Monroe Doctrine. Then, our involvement in Central and South America, most notably our war with Spain fought in Cuba. Korea was a situation whereby we had to respond, even though we did little for South Korea before the outbreak of hostilities and after the Armistice. (It was Germany who helped President Pak Chung Hee, after the U.S. rebuffed his requests for assistance to develop South Korea.) We were dragged into Vietnam by the French, who would not surrender their occupied territories of Germany, and then, if there was on upside outcome of that war, it helped turn the tide of many third-world countries of going Communist. Granada was a joke. Somalia was an invite to disaster.

The latest flexing of muscle could be Iraq. But it was not so much as the U.S. flying bombers over a sovereign's territory or chasing blue-water fleets and submarines to provoke a response. (The classic tales of Soviet and American ships tailing each other, submarines lying on the bottom of sovereign waters, actually kept the peace and prevented any escalation of hostilities that surely would have resulted in a very different and primitive world.) The United States felt it was attacked, and Sadaam had flouted his nose at a very inept United Nations and those sanctions that were supposed to keep him in line.

The United States felt it was in the right to act as the world's policeman and do what the UN could not do. While the media and the politicians around the world decried the American invasion, privately the politicians were already scheming on how to divvy up the "new world" after Sadaam's demise.

And, the United States plans to leave Iraq one day. It will not be a territory or a state in fifty or so years. It is a nation-building action. Quite unlike our Russian cousins who use their military to create a nation-aggregate action.

"Betrayal"? No. Just a plea to not forget "us." "Abandonment"? Not in this lifetime. And while the Polish and Czechs have to understand that they are basically pawns in the never-ending global struggle for domination (including political, economic, cultural, and the like). But pawns can also be very powerful pieces on the classic Chessboard. Their continued existence to pursue a livelihood for their people are assured. It's just that this does not make sensational news, nor does it stir up people's emotions to support hidden agendas that are far more dangerous in design and scope.

[Malsua]

Now the Polish foreign minister says he hopes his country doesn't regret trusting the United States.

The problem is, we've got a marxist anti-American pres__ent right now. If he could betray your entire country and boil your children in a pot to get elected, the fires would light and the water would boil.