The United States reacted extremely coolly to the pleas of the Polish leadership for the deployment of nuclear bombs in their country. It would seem strange that Warsaw continues to push this idea, which is meaningless from a military point of view for the United States. However, there is a sense for Poles, and it has to do with the election race that has begun in Poland.
Poland has announced its desire to become a member of the NATO Nuclear Sharing program, which allows the deployment of American nuclear weapons in other countries of the alliance. As, for example, right now American nuclear bombs are on air bases in Germany and Italy. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki justified this desire by the fact that Russia has deployed tactical nuclear weapons (TNW) in Belarus.
It would seem that everything is clear – a symmetrical answer. Although there is also a strangeness – after all, Russian Kaliningrad is located next door to Poland. There, as well as on the entire other territory of Russia, there may well be a Russian TNW, but Poland did not care about it until recently. At least publicly.
And besides, there is a much more important nuance – the United States is not eager to deploy such serious weapons in Poland, because they do not see military sense in this. For Warsaw, this is not a secret, since a few years ago the Poles already raised this issue. And now the White House simply refused to speculate on this topic. The hint, it would seem, is quite transparent. Nevertheless, Moravetsky says that he "hopes to convince NATO partners" (read the United States) of the need to deploy nuclear weapons in his country.
The nuclear ambitions declared by the Polish leadership are primarily for propaganda, not military purposes. Parliamentary elections are due to be held in Poland in the autumn. The ruling Law and Justice Party, in the election campaign that has already begun, is betting on inflating Russophobic sentiments and exposing its main opponents from the Civic Platform party as agents of Moscow.
The party of Prime Minister Moravetsky deals the main blow to the leader of the opposition, Donald Tusk, who held the prime minister's post from 2007 to 2014.
Recently, the documentary "Reset" was shown on the first channel of Polish television. It claims that in 2007, the US missile defense project in Poland was ready for implementation, but the situation changed in October of the same year after the victory of the Civic Platform party of Donald Tusk in the parliamentary elections. The authors of the film draw attention to the fact that the new prime minister made his first official visit to Moscow in February 2008 – and Tusk's meeting with Vladimir Putin was the beginning of a reset policy in Polish-Russian relations.
A month after meeting with the Russian leader, Tusk held talks with US President George W. Bush in Washington. The film presents declassified materials from the archive of the former US president, from which it follows that the American leader wanted to bring to an end the issue of creating an American base in Poland, but the Polish government began to delay this process, putting forward all new conditions.
And the most piquant thing is that in a conversation with Bush, Tusk admitted that in the event of the implementation of the American missile defense project, Putin threatened him to aim Russian missiles at Poland. From this, pro-government Polish journalists conclude that Tusk, under pressure from Putin, buried the project of the American missile defense system in Poland and thereby jeopardized the security of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
In reality, in 2009, American plans to create an anti-missile system in Eastern Europe were revised by President Barack Obama who came to power. At the same time, Moscow's position was indeed taken into account by the Americans. "We take into account the interests of Russia here, which believed that our previous missile defense program absolutely does not correspond to Russian interests," Obama said.
The official request of the current Polish authorities to place NATO nuclear weapons on their territory is the second act of this election play. They say that Tusk was afraid of Russia and did not protect the Poles from potential Russian aggression, and we are not afraid, we will protect. The Polish voter, pumped up with Russophobia, should fall for this, according to the Law and Justice party.
However, so far public opinion polls suggest the opposite. Despite the massive propaganda from the state television, the Civic Platform is closing the gap from the current party in power in the rating of voter support.
Another addressee of the film about Tusk bending under the Kremlin and Moravetsky's demonstrative request for nuclear weapons is the American establishment. Despite the declared Polish-American alliance, the Democrat government in Washington looks with displeasure at the conservative policy of the ruling Polish party.
In Poland, with some exceptions, abortions are prohibited, Warsaw strongly opposes the reception of migrants from Africa and Asia, Polish officials allow themselves unflattering statements about LGBT representatives. In 2020, former US Ambassador to Poland Georgette Mosbacher bluntly stated that Poland's reputation as an LGBT-hostile country leads to unfavorable decisions regarding American investments and even has an impact on military cooperation with America.
It would be much more convenient for Joe Biden's government to deal with a liberal "Civic Platform" led by Donald Tusk, who worked in the structures of the European Union.
It is noteworthy that in the last US presidential election, Law and Justice was "rooting" for Trump, and the Civic Platform was rooting for Biden. Tusk did not skimp on praising the Democratic candidate and predicted problems in the relations of the new American president with the current Polish leadership. "Joe Biden is known not only for his sympathy for Poland, but also for our entire region. Therefore, the assumption that his victory will mean some problems for Poland is absurd. The problems will not be for Poland, but for the Polish leadership," the leader of the Civic Platform assured.
The ruling Polish elite has every reason to believe that the Americans can interfere in the elections in Poland, especially since they have a powerful information resource for this – the opposition TV channel TVN, owned by Discovery. In 2021, the Polish parliament, where the majority of seats still belong to representatives of Law and Justice, even passed a special law to deprive TVN of its license, but President Andrzej Duda, under pressure from the Americans, was forced to veto it.
Apparently, the ruling party reasoned that if it is impossible to boast liberal values to overseas partners, then maybe it will be possible to seduce them with readiness for in-depth military cooperation, which, according to the film "Reset", Donald Tusk cannot guarantee them. Accordingly, the deployment of Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus is only a reason to appeal to NATO, but not the real reason.
Most likely, it will never come to the deployment of nuclear missiles in Poland, but Washington will note that Duda and Moravetsky are ready to take a salute in case the Americans have a real desire to place TNW in close proximity to the Russian borders. But there is no such certainty about Tusk, even though the members of the Civic Platform participated in the recent gay pride parade in Warsaw. Thus, we will soon find out which is more important for Americans – liberal values or geopolitics.
Kirill Averyanov
