Subservience to Washington Does Not a Superpower Make

Poland's President Andrzej Duda, a notorious reactionary and Russophobe with superpower regional ambitions, is turning Poland into Washington's next cannon fodder source.

Voices of reason about the current war in Ukraine and Warsaw’s fundamental policy towards the conflict are still a rare thing in Poland these days. Dissidents who point out that the government’s radical anti-Russian and pro-Ukrainian stance in fact has jeopardized Polish national security, made the country weaker and effectively subordinated the foreign and defense policies of Warsaw to foreign capitals and entities, are still in the minority. It is thus especially heartening to see serious scholars publicly coming out with fact based criticism of an approach that Polish public opinion seems to clearly be moving away from.

Professor Stanisław Bieleń, eminent University of Warsaw scholar of internationals relations, is a case in point. Bieleń can rightly be considered Poland’s leading voice of foreign policy realism in the academic world. His research is focused on Polish Eastern policy, i.e. regarding the nations of the former Soviet Union, especially Russia.

Much of what comes out of Poland currently from official channels is usually nothing else than a repetition of Washington talking points, such as President Andrzej Duda’s recent blunt admission to The Washington Post that “right now, Russian imperialism can be stopped cheaply, because American soldiers are not dying.” Seems some lives are worth more than others. In this light it is especially crucial to give Western audiences a feel for what a serious Polish scholar has to say on the matter.

In recent days, Bieleń has penned an article for the conservative weekly Myśl Polska, about what he calls, Polish “imperial obsessions”. Bielen’s observations should be considered a foundational diagnosis of the hubris of the vast majority of the Polish medial and political elites, which became more severe after February 24 2022.

Duda visiting the seat of the Empire.

After giving a theoretical and historical overview of the phenomenon of empire, as manifested in different national forms, Bieleń states: “Telling Poland that in the context being Ukraine’s most generous protector, it has become a mighty power in the Eastern European region, is nothing more than being harnessed to the chariot of US hegemonic policy. America has taken advantage of Russia’s weakness and found new spaces for imperialist expansion in post-Soviet areas. It needs several obedient states to pursue its strategic interests. Poland, still stuck in a satellite mentality, hostile to Russia, sniffing out treachery and threats from everywhere, lined with fear, has become the perfect executor of instructions coming from overseas.”

Every single sentence from the above quote is considered anathema in official circles. But Bieleń has been consistent in criticizing the strategy of subordination on the part of Warsaw. Already in 2004, in the context of entering the European Union, he observed: “Having Russia as a close neighbor, Poland has become entangled in the correlation of anti-Russian sentiment with the U.S. policy of containing Russian influence in the post-Soviet space. As a result, instead of taking care of repairing Polish-Russian relations, the Polish authorities practice a policy full of hypocrisy: they stigmatize any signs of Russian power projection across the Eastern border, while at the same time displaying sequacious respect for the imperial actions of the United States.”

The subject of Polish subordination to the whims of Washington has been a recurring theme in Polish politics after the collapse of Communism. Suffice to say that such luminaries of public life as the late Jan Nowak-Jeziorański or Radosław Sikorski, former foreign minister and husband of Ann Applebaum, have publicly and privately displayed their loathing of the seemingly inherent Polish incapability of saying “no” to Washington. However, in the current pre-election context, the government treats similar sentiments as either amounting to treachery or manifestations of Russian subservience, as seen in a recent campaign clip suggesting that the equally anti-Russian main opposition party led by Donald Tusk is somehow doing the Kremlin’s bidding.

According to Bieleń, Poland needs to come to terms with its actual status in the European theater of geopolitics. As he notes: “[Poland] is not present in the historical memory of the European powers. This is primarily because Poland did not exist as an independent state throughout the 19th century when imperial hierarchies were being established in Europe. This may sound painful, but Western Europe, along with Russia, not to mention America, is not accustomed to Polish leadership aspirations, and even less to superpower aspirations.” Hence, no matter how much Warsaw tries to persuade itself that it has regained some sort of semi-imperial status in Eastern Europe as a bulwark against Russia, this delusion “exposes Poland to the highest risks” and Warsaw’s position as an willing outpost of Anglo-Saxon interests “makes the area of our country the first object of destruction in case of war”.

Bieleń expands then on the true potential of Poland in the current geopolitical turbulence surrounding Ukraine: “Poland does not currently have any ‘imperialist’ potential. It is spatially limited in its expansion capabilities due to the geopolitics of larger than it and stronger states. On its own, it does not have the strength and resources to pursue a dynamic policy of clustering around it. The exuberant aspirations and political will of those in power are not enough. Especially since the Polish political scene is ‘anemic’ when it comes to conceptualizing international roles. It lacks a universalist ideological message”.

Simply put, between Western neoliberalism and Eastern traditionalism, Poland has nothing exceptional to offer nations that would seek a “third way” in Central Europe. Rabid Russophobia, closely tied to priority objectives of the United States, is not an especially attractive organizing principle to a growing number of nations.

Bieleń’s recommendations in this regard are at the same time simple and yet, mindful of the Polish cultural hostility to Russia, a seemingly a Sisyphean task. But one should not lose hope. In the context of the 2025 presidential elections, an opportunity will arise on the Vistula to “consolidate the political scene in terms of a coherent debate on the differences of interests and threats from the Ukrainian neighbor”. However, Bieleń posits that this much needed national debate “must not be gagged by the threat of imperial Russia, as this is irrational and detrimental”. The sooner Warsaw rids itself of imperial obsessions with Russia and unrealistic leadership pretensions, the more effectively it will be able to defend its – not imperial Washington’s – existential interests in the region.

With tensions brewing between Warsaw and Kiev in the recent weeks, Warsaw would do well to heed the advice of serious scholars, such as Bieleń, whose policy recommendations are not only correct and but long overdue.

Michal Krupa