In 2008, President Lech Kaczynski of Poland took a hard-line anti-Putin attitude in the war following Russia’s invasion of Georgia, saying, “Today Georgia, tomorrow Ukraine, the day after tomorrow — the Baltic States and later, perhaps, time will come for my country.”
Now, of course, Polish elites feel vindicated. War has intensified their diplomatic and military relevance in NATO and Europe, not just for geographical reasons but as Vladimir Putin’s aggression has justified their hawkish attitude toward his state.
There is no point denying that history plays a role here. The Russians, along with the Prussians and Austrians, partitioned Poland in the late 1700s. The Bolsheviks invaded in 1920. The Soviets imposed communism in the 1940s.
Yet it has also been a function of Polish fears concerning Putin’s imperial goals. So intense has Polish distrust of the Kremlin been that after President Kaczynski’s 2010 death in the Smolensk air disaster, theories circulated among the members and supporters of Kaczynski’s now-ruling Law and Justice party that Putin had somehow been involved in the deadly plane crash.
President Andrzej Duda has clashed with Putin as well, denouncing incessant Russian minimization of Soviet crimes in World War II. In January, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki criticized the German government for its political and economic closeness with Russia. Now, the Germans have frozen plans for the Nord Stream pipeline that would have linked it with Russia, announced the expansion of their military, and sent arms to Ukraine.
All of which is to say, the Poles understandably feel ahead of the curve. Taking the lead in the struggle against Russian aggression gives its government a chance to acquire influence, and also to transcend its image, among Western European elites, as being crudely illiberal and regressive.
So uncompromising has Polish support for the Ukrainians been that Prime Minister Morawiecki and Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski (the brother of Lech) embarked upon an exceptionally dangerous trip, along with other European colleagues, to visit President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv this past week.
So far, the most significant impact that the war has had on Poland has been a surge of refugees: More than 1.5 million have entered Poland since the invasion (with others heading into Hungary, Slovakia, Moldova, and Romania). As I write, a refugee is entering Poland every 1.5 seconds. A volunteer I spoke with said a Ukrainian woman handed them her house keys. “Throw them away,” she said. “My house doesn’t exist anymore.”
Polish generosity in hosting refugees has been exceptional. Women, children, and the elderly have been welcomed into private homes as well as hotels, hostels, churches, and sports halls. In an amusing twist, homes built in communist times for use by Soviet diplomats are housing refugees.
Such generosity, however, has material limits. The sheer number of refugees has been overwhelming Poland’s capacity to absorb them. Rafal Trzaskowski, the mayor of Warsaw, has said, “The situation is getting more and more difficult every day.” Rooms are harder to find, and medical and bureaucratic systems are stretched.
The Polish government has offered support to citizens and businesses assisting refugees, but in many, many cases, it will not be enough to sustain them for as long as the Ukrainians need assistance. Another source of frustration is the fact that EU funds have been held up by sanctions that have been imposed on Poland as part of current disputes about the rule of law. Wherever you stand on the Polish government’s controversial reforms of the judiciary, it seems absurd to be arguing about them now. It is average Poles and Ukrainian refugees who are going to suffer. More funds are needed, and they are needed soon.
Poland’s place in NATO, along with Ukraine’s absence, makes it the outermost castle of the West. As such, the Americans have rushed to beef up their military presence there. The number of American troops in the country has doubled. Poland is also set to buy 250 Abrams tanks as part of the modernization and expansion of its armed forces. Spending on defense will rise from 2% to 3% of the national budget. The number of Polish troops is also projected to double over the next five years, rising from 150,000 soldiers to about 300,000. This is welcome. European states should not lean on their American ally, because U.S. support might be unstable and because our interests are primarily our own.
And then there is the fact that even during the Ukraine crisis, Western allies have not always been on the same page. Deep confusion has surrounded the proposed transfer of MiG-29 jets to Ukraine, for example. Western governments have been justifiably concerned that such a transfer would be viewed by Russia as an act of war. None of them seemed to want it to be ruled out, though, or be the one responsible for scuttling it.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken gave a “green light” to Poland to transfer its MiG-29s and suggested that the United States could “backfill their needs.” The Poles did not seem all that enthusiastic about the idea, though, with the chancellery of the prime minister saying reports that Poland would send planes or allow the Ukrainians use of their airports were “FAKE NEWS.”
Days afterward, however, the Polish Foreign Ministry announced that Poland could “deploy — immediately and free of charge — all [its] MiG-29 jets to [a U.S. Air Force base in Germany] and place them at the disposal of the Government of the United States of America.” The Americans, seemingly caught off-guard, said this plan was “untenable.”
Western states treating the jets like hot potatoes hardly inspires confidence in the plan. It has the air of schoolchildren conspiring in loud voices that anyone could overhear. But it is interesting to ask how this confusion developed: Were the Poles ever enthusiastic about sending the jets, or did they call the Americans’ bluff?
The U.S. should not outsource riskier activities to its weaker and more vulnerable partners. Neither, on the other hand, should its partners assume that the U.S. will take the lead. Risks should be borne together, just as war, according to the logic of NATO, would be fought together. Sometimes, of course, risks must not be borne at all.
Poland has to be careful. If Ukraine falls, then it has nothing between itself and the Russian armed forces. This is by no means to counsel weakness but peace through strength. Poland should bolster and remodel its armed forces and continue its pursuit of relative economic independence from Russia, without indulging the hot Manichaeism that bubbles up in times of war.
Poland, as well as its other Western allies, rightly opposes the cruelty and revanchism of the Russian political establishment. But it does not oppose Russia, and if political and economic instability inspires change in Moscow, that could be an important distinction. The great Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz wrote in 1980 that “Poland and Russia have gone their separate ways, but there is also some common ground,” and hopefully, one day that will be evident again.
Besides, while a nation defining itself oppositionally is tempting — inasmuch as shared fears and bitterness are unifying — it is also reductive. As Poland, and Europe in general, stands firmly and proudly against Russian imperialism, it should also make itself an example of the fruits of culture and prosperity.
Ben Sixsmith is a writer living in Poland.
