Polish Missile Defense Help Might Come at a Price

Polish President Lech Kaczynski indicated Tuesday that his nation would expect some level of military assistance for housing U.S. missile defense interceptors, the Los Angeles Times reported (see GSN, July 17).

Poland is “trying to raise its stature a bit by increasing its assertiveness,” said Janusz Bugajski, director of the European Democracies Project at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. 

“There’s a little more underscoring of national interests regardless of what America’s interests are.  They have to show that they are getting something out of the deal,” he added.

The missile defense plan has incensed Russia, Poland’s neighbor to the east, though the United States has insisted the missile shield is meant to defend against an Iranian threat. 

A disquieted Russia has in recent weeks announced its planned withdrawal from a key conventional arms treaty, flown bomber sorties near British airspace and suggested that it might point nuclear missiles at Europe if the plan goes forward (see GSN, July 16).

However, Polish approval of the missile defense deal over Russian protests would cement U.S.-Polish friendship, the Times reported.  Poland is “probably the most pro-American society in Europe,” Kaczynski said. 

U.S. assistance could involve upgrading Poland’s aging Soviet-style military equipment, experts said.  Kaczynski could also be seeking a deeper intelligence partnership with the United States, they added.

“The question is will Poland get some specific bilateral security guarantees from the United States” without going through NATO, Bugajski said (Ann Simmons, Los Angeles Times, July 19).

Kaczynski may have set his heart on acquiring batteries of U.S. missile air-defense missiles or other military technology but comments he made while visiting this week the United States have fueled opposition to the missile deal in Poland, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, July 2).

The Polish parliament must approve the missile defense plan before installation can begin.  Kaczynski said in Washington, however, the deal was “largely a foregone conclusion.”

Such statements might erase whatever bargaining leverage Poland has, commentators said.

“The president made a colossal mistake,” wrote Bartosz Weglarczyk in the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza yesterday.  “I think the decision slipped out of him by accident.”

Kaczynski’s confidence in the missile defense system might rest upon assurances President George W. Bush could have given him during a private meeting Monday, a Polish lawmaker told AP.

“I understand that during the negotiations with Bush something has happened, something we don’t know yet, something that convinced our president,” said Senator Radek Sikorski, former Polish defense minister. 

“I believe that Bush must have said:  ‘Listen, we will give you the Patriots,’” he added, referring to advanced U.S.-made Patriot missile interceptors (Vanessa Gera, Associated Press/International Herald Tribune, July 18).

Germany too might be moving toward offering support for the missile defense plan, which also involves placing a radar base in the Czech Republic, Reuters reported yesterday (see GSN, March 14).

“I am not against Mr. Putin but also not against the idea,” said German Chancellor Angela Merkel in a semiannual news conference. 

“I have always said that one cannot say there’s no threat coming from Iran,” she added (Reuters/Javno, July 18).

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