By Sławomir Dębski (published in cooperation with the Jagiellonian Club think tank)
Poland should aim to increase the defence potential of Europe, also using EU instruments to do so. More European capabilities will increase the chance of keeping peace in Europe, of which Poland is the largest beneficiary.
This will also help to strengthen transatlantic ties. With the international situation worsening, Poland, as a key country for the credibility of the United States’ global deterrence and the defence of NATO’s eastern flank, should have an active policy to increase its autonomous deterrence potential. That will require pragmatism.
In a recent analysis, Justyna Gotkowska examined the strong political instrumentalisation of the public debate on European and foreign policy in Poland and its almost total subordination to the expediencies of domestic political infighting and often the private interests or animosities of its participants. She looks for an objective Polish national interest in a fast-changing world. This is exceptionally valuable contribution to the debate.
The diagnosis of the international situation made by Gotkowska as a starting point of her analysis is accurate. We are witnessing the weakening of American leadership and the political, military, technological and moral potential that for decades has given the United States an advantage over its adversaries and predestined it to lead in the world.
The nature of the current crisis is structural and was not caused by the policies of Donald Trump. And we cannot expect it to be solved during Joe Biden’s presidency. In fact, there is much to suggest that both presidents are just different manifestations of the same phenomenon.
Russia’s threat to peace in Europe determines Poland’s position
The weakening of US leadership could have huge consequences for Poland’s situation in the international arena. Poland is one of the biggest beneficiaries of Pax Americana – in a broad sense, meaning a world shaped by the influence of the United States’, its engagement in global politics, support for universal norms and the creation of international institutions to defend those norms
In the last decade of the 20th century, it was US leadership that led to the removal of the Yalta division of Europe, the unification of Germany, and helped Poland regain its independence.
After the end of the Cold War, the United States continued its engagement in Europe to ensure it becomes whole, free and at peace, and thus also self-sufficient and no longer dependent on American security guarantees. This Europe was to be founded on NATO, whose expansion to Poland and other Central European states was the instrument to fulfil this vision.
In Poland, however, we often forget it was Russia that was the main objective of US policy to create Europe whole, free and at peace. If it had become a country capable of participating in the democratic process of European integration and even eligible for NATO membership, peace in Europe could have been guaranteed for good. The military presence of American forces in the region would no longer be necessary.
Documents on NATO-Russia relations show that Russia was not interested in making this happen. The Russian elites regarded the democratisation of their country as a threat to its survival as a bi-regional power. It therefore had to become the main opponent of the unification of Europe and the American vision of the European order.
The conclusion is very important. Poland’s role in the US’s global strategy is a function of the American approach to Russia. If Russia became democratic, Poland’s significance would be reduced to the role of one of many participants of European integration, but strategically insignificant.
It is the Kremlin’s aggressive politics that makes Poland – a state with the largest military and political potential on NATO’s eastern flank – a crucial ally for the US in its global strategy of deterrence of not only Russia, but also China.
The United States’ global deterrence assumes that both theatres in which its potential is involved – Europe and the Indo-Pacific – are connected by Beijing and Moscow’s community of strategic interests. Any escalation of the conflict in one of these regions could open a window of opportunity to the dominant adversary, as the US is unable to handle two major conflicts at the same time.
The remedy to this situation is an increase in the defence potential of the US’s European allies. This is why investments in capabilities that can support the credibility of American global strategy should be seen as the Polish contribution to the peace in Europe, and therefore also in Poland.
In practice, this means development of a full spectrum conventional capabilities, but excludes the possibility autonomous European nuclear deterrent.
Why is that? The United States strategy is based on nuclear potential, with deterrence policy covering not only the US, but extended also to its allies, making the country a superpower that is an exceptionally attractive ally. In this respect, both China and Russia are far behind the US, and although its importance has been rocking on its foundations, the United States will not give up its influence easily.
Even if the American involvement in Europe becomes reassessed and restructured in the coming decades, as long as there is a need for a nuclear deterrent against Russia, the United States will be permanently engaged in keeping peace in Europe and sustaining the status of the European superpower.
American deterrence is the cheapest option
Discussions on the so-called European strategic autonomy often include calls to build a European nuclear deterrent independent of the American one, yet these have little basis in reality.
No European nuclear power (neither France nor the UK) would be able to extend its own nuclear umbrella to the whole of Europe. This would require enormous investments in new capabilities that would violate the strategic balance and force Russia as well as China to increase investments in nuclear potential.
However, if it suddenly turned out that this was essential, European states would have to foot the bill for modernising this potential. Yet this would mean not 2% of GDP spent by European states on defence, but probably around 6%. The American security umbrella over Europe is (and will remain) simply the cheapest option available.
It is true that Europe (regardless of social moods) will need to invest in its own defence capabilities to enable autonomous power projection, although this will have to be employed as an instrument of shared transatlantic responsibility for keeping peace in the world, and especially in Europe’s neighbourhood.
European governments must convince their voters that to increase the continent’s security and reduce the risk that it becomes an arena of armed confrontation because of limited US engagement, it is essential to increase Europe’s autonomous defence potential short of the capability necessary for strategic deterrence.
The European potential, however, will consist of the individual potentials of EU member states. Proposals to create a supranational European army will remain a pipe dream until France, for example, is ready to Europeanise its permanent place in the UN Security Council, as well as to bring its Foreign Legion under European institutions.
Domination of the largest threatens European cohesion
We therefore arrive at the most difficult problem in the debate on Europe’s strategic autonomy – the decision-making process on the use of force, i.e. how to use this autonomy and assure democratic control of it. The key competences defining the objective and scope of the use of national armed forces remain within the purview of European states.
Yet the European integration process has de facto become grounded. Deepening it by the treaty route is not currently possible as ratification referendums are needed in at least several member states. The French, Dutch, Irish, and Danish experiences, and recently also that of the Brexit referendum, suggest that any new plebiscite on expanding the competences of European institutions over member states would likely end in failure.
As a result, further attempts to deepen integration will continue outside of the treaties, with the aid of European Court of Justice rulings or creative interpretation of the treaties by the European Commission. In the long run, it creates the danger of serious political crisis with unpredictable consequences.
Poland's top court has found parts of EU law to be inconsistent with the Polish constitution, which takes precedence over them.
The ruling marks a step towards "legal Polexit", warn experts. But the government says it will stop the EU "usurping" powers https://t.co/xAlMfcJ9MT
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) October 7, 2021
This situation could only be avoided if the influence of the largest European countries on the decision to use an autonomous European force was limited. Otherwise, the asymmetry of political potentials would soon lead to France and Germany appropriating the European defence potential and using it for defending their own interest, rather than the European one.
Today, however, there is no sign that these states and their elites are willing to limit their own aspirations and potential in order to build a common European home.
On the contrary, the UK’s departure from the EU is propelling German and French aspirations to exploit their advantage over other participants of European integration to press their national interests.
This advantage is not only formal, visible in the decision-making mechanisms in the EU based on majority voting, with imbalance exacerbated by Brexit. It is also informal, for instance expressed in the growing French and German representation in the most important European institutions, where none of the Three Seas Initiative states is represented at the highest level.
Berlin and Paris have long spoken in Europe’s name. This was recently particularly visible in Chancellor Merkel’s pressing for completion of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. At the same time, German foreign minister Heiko Maas proposed that the EU should increase the effectiveness of its foreign policy by making decisions in this area with majority voting.
This would enable France and Germany to impose their own policy on other EU members by outvoting them. If this informal advantage were reflected in a formal majority voting procedure, smaller member states would be automatically marginalised.
The policy of Germany (and, to a lesser extent, France) in the last three decades has aimed to secure the role of first interlocutor of Russia in the European Union, as well as intermediary between Russia and the states of Central and Eastern Europe, to gain a political and economic advantage in the region, even at the cost of its allies’ security interests.
Would the creation of a European armed forces in the EU – dominated by the states implementing what is a pro-Russian policy from the Central European point of view – help to increase their security?
Strategic autonomy has many faces
The discussion on European autonomy is going on at many levels and in various directions. So hazy is the concept that it seems any project can be ascribed to it. Politicians, diplomats and experts using this term are therefore often speaking about different issues. Can an interpretation compatible with the Polish state interest be found in this discussion? Of course!
Nobody thinking rationally in Europe should criticise proposals to increase European countries’ defence capabilities to a level allowing them to carry out independent military operations to counteract regional threats. Without the support of the United States, Europe is at present essentially incapable of this.
A lesson that lingered in the consciousness of political decision makers in Europe was the intervention in Libya in 2011. At the time, European NATO members backed the use of force, but it soon turned out that they were only able to begin this military operation. They did not have sufficient capability to implement and complete it effectively without US participation.
Without American support enabling them to identify, follow, track down and eliminate targets, European armies have a lower potential than it seems. Most of the armed forces of European countries are built to carry out allied collective defence missions with US participation. It is worth remembering that any concentration of the American defence potential in the Indo-Pacific could strip the European military theatre of its key capabilities.
Well-defined development of capabilities permitting the countries of the eastern flank to conduct more autonomous defensive operations should be supported by the entire NATO. But we must also remember that development of European defence autonomy is also the subject of strong competition for contracts and prospects of defence industry development.
What should Poland do?
1. Fight for continuation
Poland is one of the largest beneficiaries of the international system created after the end of the Cold War. It is therefore a natural strategic objective of Polish politics to extend for as long as possible the conditions that have had such a positive impact on the country’s security and prosperity in the last 30 years.
Poland will be able to continue to benefit from optimum conditions for development if we fight in the international arena to defend the current order. This means NATO still generating a credible deterrent using all available instruments; the EU being able to project European unity despite the political and ideological differences between its democratically elected governments; and the United States remaining the biggest non-European power in Europe.
2. Combat domination
France and Germany’s domination in the European integration process runs counter to the interests of the Three Seas Initiative states. They should therefore work together to moderate the developing asymmetry, which in the long run will threaten the entire integration process.
Naturally, Poland, as the key country for any initiative addressed to the region, will need to follow an active policy mobilising the EU and NATO states between the Baltic, the Black Sea and the Adriatic, as well as Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia, to jointly defend their interests in the West.
This is one of the reasons why it is in the Polish interest to keep such a decision-making system in the EU in which Germany and France’s advantage is limited by the principle of unanimity. Such a system requires arduous and time-consuming negotiation to approve a decision, but protects the interests of smaller European states, who otherwise could lose the possibility to have their own foreign policy.
3. Make the most of NATO and EU membership
It is in Poland’s interest, as a country on NATO’s eastern flank and therefore highly dependent on critical US capabilities for deterrence and defence, to be involved in developing European capabilities that are not alternatives to the American ones, but fully compatible with them.
Is closer NATO-EU cooperation to increase Europe’s defence potential possible? Countries often have different policies in these two organisations as they are instruments serving different objectives.
For every state, membership in international organisations is only a policy instrument, not a goal in itself. Where a given instrument better serves a state’s specific political aspirations, it is used to define policy directions. Polish decision makers should also remember this when designing Polish foreign policy for the difficult years ahead.
Closer cooperation on the NATO-EU line, though possible and highly desirable in some areas, will by no means by easy. One necessary field of cooperation is development of road and rail infrastructure in eastern-flank states, which should be dual use, with both civilian and military purposes.
For instance, new bridges built in Europe, despite greater costs, should meet technical conditions allowing them to be used by heavy military equipment. Another example might be funding of research and development and implementation of innovations for military use. Such projects should not be particularly controversial, neither in the EU nor in NATO.
4. Develop a regional deterrence capability
The most unfavourable and threatening scenario for Poland would be one in which conflict in the Indo-Pacific distracted the United States’ attention from European affairs and stripped Europe of its critical American capabilities. This could be seen by Russian decision makers as a chance to destroy NATO and to impose a new European security system – potentially including a revision of borders – in which Central Europe would be regarded as an area of limited sovereignty.
This Russian objective could be facilitated by a decision-making paralysis in Europe, Germany perception of negotiations with Russia as a rational solution to the crisis and its refusal to offer political and military support for the attacked allies.
Polish policy should aim to make this extremely unfavourable scenario impossible. Working with other allies on NATO’s eastern flank as well as Turkey, Poland should aspire to gain the capability of autonomous deterrence at the level of a limited war. This would create a sufficient threat of uncontrolled escalation of any crisis, with a potential aggressor facing enormous costs of aggression against Poland.
Poland’s priority must be to develop land and air forces with capabilities constituting a credible deterrent. Anyway, Russia would not be able to use its naval capabilities to secure the necessary bargaining chip in negotiations with France and Germany by grabbing a piece of Polish or other NATO eastern flank territory. .
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The objective of Polish foreign and defence policy must be to prevent the worst scenario of Russia imposing a new security system in Europe. Poland should use all available instruments, and particularly its position in Central and Eastern Europe.
Political activity will be needed, and Polish political elites may sometimes need to leave the comfort zone they have grown accustomed to in the extremely favourable international situation of the last three decades.
Translated by Ben Koschalka. Main image credit: SSgt Mark Nesbit RLC/Defence Imagery (under CC BY-SA 2.0)
