Roger Cohen: Of Polish Angst and NATO
[Roger Cohen joined The New York Times in 1990. He was a foreign correspondent for more than a decade before becoming acting Foreign Editor on September 11, 2001, and Foreign Editor six months later. In 2009 he was named a columnist of The New York Times.]
LISBON — “How could Obama choose such a day?”
That was the anguished outburst of a senior Polish officer attending a meeting of NATO chiefs of defense here when asked what he thought of the U.S. president’s cancellation last week of plans to place missile interceptors in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic.
The officer was referring to the fact that the announcement came on Sept. 17, the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland. A gesture to Russia on this date — a “brave” decision said Vladimir Putin — was the rough equivalent for the Poles of their announcing concessions to a U.S. foe on 9/11.
Poland is now one of the very few places in Europe that prefers former President Bush to Obama.
Now I’m sure Obama had no desire to insult Poland, even if the announcement also came as Russia conducted large-scale military maneuvers with Belarus, an exercise on its western flank that summons the darkest specters of post-Soviet Polish and Baltic-state angst. As U.S. timing goes, this was pitiful.
Strategy is another matter. The new U.S. plan to deploy proven SM-3 interceptor missiles, first at sea and later on land, makes better sense overall. It’s nimbler and saner on the Iranian threat. Why goad the Russian bear for little gain?
Even the Polish generals at the conclave of NATO’s military committee accepted some of the strategic arguments for the switch, but their reaction was governed by enduring Soviet trauma: Poles — like Lithuanians, Estonians and Latvians — want the United States as visible on their soil as possible to deter Russian prowling.
That feeling is not just a Cold War hangover. The Russian incursion into Georgia last year caused central European shivers. Moscow succeeded in relegating the Georgian and Ukrainian bids for NATO membership to a place somewhere backward of the back burner.
Gosh, founding alliance members mused, imagine if Georgia had already been in NATO! Article 5 of the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty is clear: “The parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all” and will trigger the “use of armed force” in “collective self-defense.”
Were boys from Turin and Topeka really ready to die for Tbilisi?
For Poland, as for other newer NATO members who joined the West after falling on the totalitarian side of the post-World War II European carve-up, Article 5 is beyond sacred. It is the very foundation and essence of the alliance. Changing it is as unthinkable as disputing the existence of God at the Vatican...
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LISBON — “How could Obama choose such a day?”
That was the anguished outburst of a senior Polish officer attending a meeting of NATO chiefs of defense here when asked what he thought of the U.S. president’s cancellation last week of plans to place missile interceptors in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic.
The officer was referring to the fact that the announcement came on Sept. 17, the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland. A gesture to Russia on this date — a “brave” decision said Vladimir Putin — was the rough equivalent for the Poles of their announcing concessions to a U.S. foe on 9/11.
Poland is now one of the very few places in Europe that prefers former President Bush to Obama.
Now I’m sure Obama had no desire to insult Poland, even if the announcement also came as Russia conducted large-scale military maneuvers with Belarus, an exercise on its western flank that summons the darkest specters of post-Soviet Polish and Baltic-state angst. As U.S. timing goes, this was pitiful.
Strategy is another matter. The new U.S. plan to deploy proven SM-3 interceptor missiles, first at sea and later on land, makes better sense overall. It’s nimbler and saner on the Iranian threat. Why goad the Russian bear for little gain?
Even the Polish generals at the conclave of NATO’s military committee accepted some of the strategic arguments for the switch, but their reaction was governed by enduring Soviet trauma: Poles — like Lithuanians, Estonians and Latvians — want the United States as visible on their soil as possible to deter Russian prowling.
That feeling is not just a Cold War hangover. The Russian incursion into Georgia last year caused central European shivers. Moscow succeeded in relegating the Georgian and Ukrainian bids for NATO membership to a place somewhere backward of the back burner.
Gosh, founding alliance members mused, imagine if Georgia had already been in NATO! Article 5 of the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty is clear: “The parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all” and will trigger the “use of armed force” in “collective self-defense.”
Were boys from Turin and Topeka really ready to die for Tbilisi?
For Poland, as for other newer NATO members who joined the West after falling on the totalitarian side of the post-World War II European carve-up, Article 5 is beyond sacred. It is the very foundation and essence of the alliance. Changing it is as unthinkable as disputing the existence of God at the Vatican...