Dmitri Rogozin, the Russian envoy to NATO, speaking of a NATO defense plan for the Baltic states, recently asked, “Against who else could such a defense be intended? Against Sweden, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, against polar bears, or against the Russian bear?”[1] It was a rhetorical question with an obvious answer; for Poland, the Russian bear is a very real threat to their security. Unfortunately for them, the Obama administration is ignoring a vital rule of campers everywhere: “Don’t feed the bear!”

Obama’s decision to trade the long term security and trust of Poland for short term Russian concessions in the Middle East is damaging both to the credibility of American promises and to our own security.

The Geopolitical Context of Poland and the Russian Resurgence

The United States and Poland have important common interests, but “the Poles… are deeply concerned that Washington doesn’t understand the issues.”[2] The most critical misunderstanding is the geopolitical context of Poland and the importance and reality of the Russian resurgence to power.

Poland sits on the Northern European plain, a region with no significant natural barriers that has been the route of choice for armies invading Russia since the Napoleonic Wars.[3] Historically, Russia’s solution to this problem has been to establish buffer states on its Western frontier, and Russia has been trying to do so again in recent times. The Russians know they must act now, because their declining population means that in twenty years it will be too late for Russia to find the soldiers it needs to redraw the map of Eastern Europe.[4]

The Russian intelligence service has been working hard in the Ukraine, and has scored an important strategic victory. The recent 2010 elections there brought a president that reversed the effects of the Orange Revolution and has tied his country closer to Russia.[5] Belarus is still aligned closely with Russia, due in part to the fact that it is still a centralized, authoritarian state and much less reformed than its neighbors.[6] This ensures that Poland’s eastern border will be a significant point of conflict during the Russian resurgence:

“From the Russian point of view, the major invasion route into their country is not only wide open but also in the hands of countries with a pronounced hostility to Russia. The Baltic countries have never forgiven Russia for their occupation. The Poles are equally bitter and deeply distrustful of Russian intentions. Now that they are part of NATO, these countries form the front line… The Polish Northern Plains will be the main line of confrontation.”[7]

NATO’s Growing Irrelevance in Eastern Europe

NATO is increasingly divided on the Russian question. Western Europe, especially France and Germany, are more concerned with ensuring they can rely on their Russian sources of natural gas than they are with the security of Central and Eastern Europe.[8] The major “problem for the alliance is that there is no longer a unifying fear tying its member states together. The Central Europeans still fear Russia,” but the older members of NATO do not.[9] France is even trying to sell an advanced helicopter carrier to Russia that would directly threaten the security of their Eastern NATO “allies.”[10] These developments have forced the Poles to refocus their security plans from NATO to bilateral ties with the United States.

The US and Poland have common security interests, because “the single greatest American fear should not be China or al-Qaeda. It is the amalgamation of the European Peninsula’s technology with Russia’s natural resources. That would create a power that could challenge American primacy.”[11] This was understood by many previous presidents and underlies the purpose of America’s entry into both world wars and the Cold War,[12] but something entirely ignored by President Obama.

Pulling the Plug on European Missile Defense

In September 2009, President Obama reversed US plans to deploy a land-based missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, opting instead for a ship based system that is reputed to be more flexible and mobile that will “bring more options to world leaders.”[13] President Obama has consistently denied that the change in policy was intended to appease Russia, which has been hostile to the plan from the beginning,[14] but the reality is quite different.

In March 2009, it was revealed that President Obama had sent a secret letter to Moscow, which said that if Russia would support US action against Iran in the Middle East, the US would back away from missile defense in Europe.[15] The reversal on missile defense has been perceived by Eastern European governments as an attempt to get Russia to cooperate with American goals in the Middle East, and the Russian government itself has said that the reversal was directly linked to Russian permission for resupply routes to Afghanistan through Russia and Central Asia and that they were expecting further concessions from America.[16] Even Obama’s supporters admit that from this reversal the Russians will “take to heart the lesson that belligerence pays.”[17] Obama’s denial of any quid pro quo with Russia is simply a lie.

To demonstrate that the US still cared about Polish security, a single American Patriot missile battery was deployed to Poland. This token gesture turned out to be a joke when it was discovered that it would not have any live missiles, causing the enraged Poles to say that “they had expected an operational weapon, not ‘potted plants.’”[18]

What President Obama has done is to turn his back on one of the most loyal allies America has in the world today for short-term concessions in the Middle East. The Polish president explained that Poland has “no interests either in Iraq or Afghanistan,” and it is clear that Poland bled for America in both those wars because it expected the United States to guarantee its security.[19] Why do we maintain so many bases in Germany, a nation that has consistently opposed US policy in many areas, and are so unwilling to base troops in a nation like Poland where we are far more welcome?

Recent Russian decisions are showing their true intentions, and why we should not be feeding the bear. They have moved a large number of tactical nuclear warheads to NATO borders,[20] they continue to provide military and technical support to Iran,[21] and only two years ago invaded their neighbor Georgia, “underscoring just how credible its threats could be and striking fresh fear throughout Eastern Europe.”[22]

Obama’s reversal of American policy will have long term diplomatic consequences for America. There has to be some continuity between administrations, independent of ideology, and presidents should not casually throw away agreements made by their predecessors:

“Diplomacy by ‘reset’ damages our alliances in the long run and may do even worse to our relationships with hostile countries… The main problem in treating the world as if it began with Obama is that it doesn’t end with Obama, and our foes know it. As U.S. administrations come and go, the same strongmen, oligarchs, despots, theocrats, and absolute monarchs continue to rule most countries hostile to America. Given their long planning horizons, why should they make any irreversible concessions in return for only temporary commitments from America? If the next U.S. president might offer a better bargain, back out on a joint project, or forgive all past sins, elementary principles of game theory dictate that foreign despots stay their course. When trust—the paramount currency of diplomacy—starts to erode, only force retains full purchasing power. It is ironic that Obama… is pioneering methods of diplomacy that…will render military interventions more necessary, and more likely, by undermining their only alternative—namely, trust and long-term agreements… In justifying the abrogation of the missile-defense treaties so casually, Obama cannot but do his own legacy a disservice. No American president gets to have the last word. For the blank slate he has cleared for himself at his predecessor’s expense, Obama will pay by seeing future presidents undo his work on a whim. And as a result of his revisionist stunt, neither this country’s friends nor its enemies can know what to expect from the United States.”[23]