Marek’s Pathetic Lobby
For obvious historical reasons, Polish elites should think three times before antagonising either Russia or Germany.
When asked about his opinion of Zbigniew Brzezinski, Averell Harriman - diplomatic guru on US-Russia relations to four US Presidents from FDR to LBJ- was dismissive. He considered that in the conduct of US-Russia policy, America could never rely on the advice of a Pole, any Pole for that matter. Two Democrat Presidents, Carter and Biden, chose to ignore Harriman’s wise advice, burning the US’ diplomatic bridges to Russia in the process.
March 9, 2024. Marek Magierowski, the Polish ambassador in Washington, is trying to attract American investment into Poland's weapons industries, in a recent article published by him. This is not the problem. For a European diplomat, the issue is the infantile way in which he justifies the opportunity of such an investment.
First, as ambassador to Washington, he should have known better. The US military-industrial complex derives its influence over American policymakers from the number of jobs it has been able to create in various states, and the industrial plants that go with them. To ship these jobs to Poland would be downright suicidal.
In order to achieve his goal, Marek also uses an outdated cliché. He tries to persuade American officials – who are not noted for the depth of their historical knowledge - that Poland is the bulwark that defends Western Europe from the (presumably barbaric) hordes of Russians who, after Ukraine, will invade Berlin and Paris.
Now for the big lie. Although he claims that Poles trust NATO to defend Warsaw in the event of a Russian invasion, the 4 percent of GDP that Poland invests annually in equipping its army proves the exact opposite (the proportion of GDP allocated to defence spending by the other EU states is a maximum of 2%, but more than half of its members invest even less).
One should also take into account the fact that the Poles are equally afraid of the Germans, since the Polish government recently asked them for WWII war reparations to the tune of almost a trillion euros….
The funniest assertion in the article is that Poland is Europe's main bulwark against Russia. The exact same argument was used as early as the 15th century by Stephen the Great, the ruler of Moldavia, when he requested Western military aid against the Ottoman army. In Rome, envoys of the Moldavian leader claimed that their country should be helped because it was the “shield of all Christendom”, the one called upon to defend all of Europe from the Ottoman hordes.
It is rather unfortunate that Joe Biden has developed a veritable Russophobic obsession. The roots of this dangerous attitude within the Democratic party can be traced to Jimmy Carter’s National Security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was the first to favour a policy of confrontation with Russia. Born in Warsaw, Zbig proudly led this shift and boasted that he was “the first Pole in three hundred years in a position to really stick it to the Russians”. His legacy is being kept alive, among others, by his son Mark Brzezinski, who is the US ambassador to Poland since 2022.
These are a few reasons why advice about Russia coming from any Polish officials should be taken with a grain of salt, if not altogether ignored. As Averell Harriman presciently advised.