(Washington Insider Magazine) -In an interview with Transatlantic Today’s Ryan Day, a Dr. Robert Czulda from the University of Lodz said that NATO is a pillar of Poland’s security and Warsaw has increased its deterrence system since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and there are ongoing hostilities in eastern Ukraine. He described Germany and France as wanting to have good relations with Russia, making Nord Stream 2’s reality difficult for Ukraine and Poland as transit countries. He added that “Russia has no interest in giving up the benefits it has gained in eastern Ukraine.” In neighboring Belarus, Dr. Czulda said that Belarus is becoming “more aggressive” with its tactics to suppress dissident voices, including minority Polish voices.
Ryan Day (RD): I myself applied for a Fulbright grant to Poland in 2020 under the premise of analyzing how Poland’s role in NATO has changed since 2014, with that year marking Russia’s annexation of Crimea. What are your thoughts on Poland’s current position in NATO? What has changed since 2014 and if you want to add, how do you foresee that role will evolve in the future?
Dr. Robert Czluda (RC):Regarding your question, the whole security environment has changed, unfortunately in a negative direction. Russia became more aggressive and was joined by Belarus – this year a regime in Minsk decided to kidnap a political dissident. But it was not the only incident – Belarus arrested political activists of Polish origins (there is a Polish minority in Belarus) – Andżelika Borys, who is the leader of the Union of Poles in Belarus, and Andrzej Poczobut – Polish-Belarussan journalist and activist. Now Belarus decided to launch a more direct hybrid war against Poland and Lithuania – it has been sending illegal migrants to the border. The United Kingdom left the European Union, which changed a political balance in favor of Germany, which is worrying.
After the 2014 Russian aggression on Ukraine, Poland decided to invest much more in its deterrence capabilities – many modernization programs were launched, unfortunately some of them have been stalled. It seems that the main reason for this is the fact that our bureaucracy is not efficient and quite often they are unable to make a binding decision. Last year Poland spent a record 2.37% of its GDP on defence.
Now our foreign and security policy is based on two pillars: transatlantic and regional. Regarding the former, the United States has invariably been the main ally of Poland. Regarding the latter, although closely interlinked with the former, in 2015 Poland initiated “The Bucharest Nine” informal group. During a “mini NATO Summit” in November 2015, a security cooperation framework was formed. Attendees such as Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Hungary jointly and univocally pressed other NATO member states to enhance the military presence on the “Eastern Flank” threatened by Russia. The United States has been the main guarantee of this initiative and a key provider to ongoing NATO’s presence in Central-Eastern Europe.
Poland considers NATO as a pillar of its security and is actively engaged in various operations. In January 2020 Poland took a lead from Germany over NRF 2020’s Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF). In August Poland deployed its F-16s jets to Iceland, which is another NATO mission. We also had our troops in Afghanistan.
RD: The past week has seen German Chancellor Angela Merkel visit Russia and Ukraine for talks, and on Aug. 23 – Aug. 24. the inaugural Crimean Platform Summit was held in Kyiv. Representatives from all 30-NATO countries attended the conference that was intended to put pressure on Russia to return to the negotiation table and discuss the return of Crimea to Ukraine. As at the moment this endeavor seems near impossible, what in your opinion should NATO do in tandem with the EU in order to keep Ukraine engaged with the west and not look to Russia as a potential alternative?
RC: Are NATO and the EU interested in keeping Ukraine engaged? I doubt it. Major European countries – Germany you mentioned and France – are first of all interested in having good ties with Russia. Germany is about to finish a highly controversial project with Russia, known as the Nord Stream 2. It is considered by Warsaw as a threat to Polish energy security as it bypasses Poland, but also Ukraine. In other words – Germany has been egotistically pursuing its own, national interest and ignoring countries such as Poland and Ukraine. As soon as the NS2 is operational, Ukraine will lose its transit role and Russia might invade it without any fear that a secure flow of its gas to Western Europe is threatened.
In order to keep Ukraine engaged, the West should offer Kyiv some very specific economic programs, which are needed to boost the local economy. This is the biggest problem for the Ukrainians – their economy is in poor shape, and due to low salaries and high unemployment, many people decided to leave. Currently Poland has roughly 1,3 million Ukrainian citizens. For now, I don’t see any valuable programs – the EU has no solid and coherent foreign policy and the main intention is not to antagonize Russia.
RD: I wanted to change my point that the situation of Russia coming to the negotiation table in regard to Ukraine is nigh impossible. I should say that it is proving exceedingly difficult, with Reuters reporting that Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said that Putin is prepared to discuss bilateral relations with his Ukrainian counterpart, but not the situation in eastern Ukraine.
RC: Definitely. Russia has no interest in giving up the benefits it has gained in eastern Ukraine – it has invested too much time and money to give up. What is more, their presence in eastern Ukraine gives them a direct and highly important access to naval bases in the Black Sea, which in turn makes it easier for Moscow to operate in the Mediterranean Sea, including in Syria. In other words, for Russia eastern Ukraine is an important element of a wider, geopolitical plan to rebuild its influence in the world, that is, in the Middle East and Africa. At the same time, the West has neither the will nor the courage to force Russia to change its position. Ukraine and abandoned.
RD: Along the same lines as the first question regarding Poland’s role in NATO, I wanted to ask your opinion on what ways if at all has Turkey’s NATO role changed in recent years? I ask this as Turkey remains an important European-Middle Eastern border country that also has taken on a large role as a transit country for migrants, especially Afghans fleeing Afghanistan in the wake of the United States’ pullout from the country after nearly two-decades.
Turkey’s position has undergone a very significant evolution, but unfortunately in a negative direction. Turkey has always been somewhat on the sidelines of NATO, although it has been a member of NATO since 1952. Under President Erdogan, Turkey tried to increase its independence, but this turned into a series of crises with NATO members. American readers probably know that during the times of President Trump, relations between Turkey and the United States were tense – for example, Turkey was removed from the F-35 program. Sanctions, not only by the United States, were imposed on the Turkish defense industry. However, it should be remembered that at the same time Turkey provoked a serious conflict with France, which unambiguously sided with Greece.
Added to this is the fact that Turkey has recently blocked NATO’s defense plans in Central-Eastern Europe and has been using migrants to intimidate the West. Poor relations with Turkey is one of the most important internal problems in NATO.
RD: Do you think NATO should have more of a hand in the evacuation efforts in Afghanistan? With the United States steadily withdrawing from the country, do you see other NATO countries keeping troops in Afghanistan in the long term?
RC: Regarding the first question – many other NATO member states – apart from the United States – are involved in the evacuation efforts. Poland is one of them – we sent both civilian airplanes and military aircraft, with special forces, to secure an evacuation, also on the behalf of our NATO ally Lithuania. The first group of Afghans – including contractors of the Polish military contingent in Afghanistan – is already in Poland. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has expressed his thanks for NATO’s work in tandem with the U.S. to keep Kabul airport open and safely evacuate citizens, Allies, and partners.
There is no possibility to keep troops in the long term. According to the 2020 Doha agreement between the United States and the Taliban, all foreign troops are to be withdrawn by August 31. The West had enough time to prepare an organized withdrawal, but it failed to do so.
RD: What would you say is different for NATO with U.S. President Biden in the White House as opposed to the prior administration? This question comes as in recent weeks European allies have called into question Biden’s promise that “America is back,” instead fearing that it is still “America first.”
RC: For now it is very difficult to see any element of Biden’s NATO policy. What I can point out is a decision to freeze President Trump’s order to withdraw some US troops from Germany. This is the only important example, at least for now. “America is back” is just a promise and most likely hollow – a chaotic withdrawal of the US troops from Afghanistan is considered by many in Poland as proof that the United States is a dying empire without a leader. Biden has been compared to the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and definitely this is not a compliment. Even those mainstream media, which previously endorsed Biden, now are very critical of him. The main reason is his lack of any leadership and that he ignored NATO allies during the evacuation operation in Afghanistan.
In terms of actual decisions, President Biden waived sanctions on the Nord Stream 2. Biden wanted to improve ties with Germany, who now got a green light to increase its hegemony in Central-Eastern Europe on behalf of the United States. At the same time the White House can focus more attention on Asia-Pacific. Nevertheless, this move was highly controversial in the region, particularly in Kyiv.
Dr. Robert Czulda is a specialist in international security, defence, Iran and the Middle East and a Professor at the University of Lodz, Poland. He was a 2017-2018 Visiting Scholar at the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM) under a Fulbright Senior Award. He is an alumnus of the Young Leaders’ Dialogue of the US Department of State (2010-2011), Visiting Lecturer at universities in Iran, Ireland, Lithuania, Turkey and Slovakia, as well as the National Cheng-chi University in Taipei. He is a freelance defence journalist and contributor to IHS Jane’s. He travels to Iran regularly and is the author of various papers about Iran and of a book entitled Iran 1925–2014. Between Reza Shah and Hassan Rouhani.
