Poland deserves US gratitude, not censure
Tom Rogan
Significant protests underline Polish concern over their government’s controversial policies related to the judiciary and eligibility for political office. The U.S. and Poland’s other democratic allies should privately make clear their disagreement with these policies.
Still, the U.S. should be cautious about overdoing its criticism. Poland unquestionably remains a democracy. Its government freely won a significant majority in the last parliamentary elections in 2019 (the next election takes place later this year). Proportionate concern is the appropriate response.
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The need for balance matters for a simple reason: Poland is a very close American ally with a pro-American population. It is increasingly becoming a European Union powerhouse, with its economy likely to be larger than that of the U.K. by 2030. Poland is also taking the Eastern European lead to bolster Ukraine’s defense and protect NATO’s eastern flank. Unlike so many European governments, Poland offers no equivocation in the face of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression.
And unlike the governments of so many wealthier European economies, Warsaw puts its money where its mouth is. Poland spends more than 3% of its gross domestic product on defense and plans to reach 4% of GDP spending in the near future. Most NATO members still do not exceed even the 2% of GDP minimum target they pledged to pursue way back in 2014. Poland is also a voice for American concerns at the EU.
To his credit, President Joe Biden recognizes Poland’s profound value as an American ally.
In February, Biden made a point of traveling to Poland over other European nations in salute of Warsaw’s leadership on Ukraine. And while Poland is led by a socially conservative government like that of Hungary, unlike Hungary’s Viktor Orban (a leader who supposes himself a nationalist strongman but is actually Beijing’s favored European pet), Poland’s President Andrzej Duda and its Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki value their allies more than their corrupted wallets.
Top line: America must keep Poland on its side.
I note this point because others disagree. In a New York Times op-ed on Tuesday, Jaroslaw Kuisz and Karolina Wigura of the Berlin-based Center for Liberal Modernity argue that the U.S. must now put heavy pressure on Warsaw. They argue that Biden should publicly condemn the Polish government over its reform program. Then comes their real cruncher: “Washington could make financial assistance — last year, the United States invested $288.6 million in Poland’s military — conditional on compliance with democratic standards and the rule of law.”
This would be the very height of folly. Notwithstanding Poland’s own investment of vastly more money in its own defense, or its support for Ukraine and other U.S. interests, any sanction along these lines would immediately alienate Warsaw. Beijing would be the beneficiary.
China sees Poland as a prospective Eastern European linchpin that it can lure out of the U.S. orbit in furtherance of Xi Jinping’s ultimate objective: namely, his displacement of the post-1945 U.S.-led democratic international order with a Beijing-led order of feudal mercantilism. In stark contrast to France, however, Poland has shown that it ultimately stands with America on China-related concerns rather than with the latter. As the defense analyst Patrick Fox observes, Kuisz and Wigura’s op-ed shows ignorance about the necessary prioritizing of interests in foreign policy.
Kuisz and Wigura conclude by referencing Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness. They suggest the book’s broken villain, Kurtz, is somehow a metaphor for what Poland is becoming. I disagree. A better metaphor is that Poland has, by its leadership in Europe’s defense, made itself the Henry V of Shakespearean lore. After decades of suffering Russian imperial arrogance, Warsaw is now firing aces past Moscow’s corrupted hand. Take a line from the play. Delivering the Dauphin’s insulting gift of tennis balls to Henry — a suggestion that Henry is a silly playboy, not a bold king — the French emissary is educated by Henry on the Dauphin’s error:
“And tell the pleasant prince this mock of his
Hath turn’d his balls to gun-stones; and his soul
Shall stand sore charged for the wasteful vengeance
That shall fly with them….”
Poland recognizes the historic stakes and has the spirit to help Ukraine vanquish a familiar enemy. Were more European governments to follow Poland’s approach, Ukraine’s democracy would be safer and the U.S. military could focus more assets on the Pacific. Warsaw thus deserves America’s private honesty about democratic concerns, but a far greater measure of American gratitude, support, and respect.