With all the headlines over President Obama's contretemps with Israel, one item that was barely noticed here in America but was noticed much more in Europe was Poland's ex-Solidarity leader Lech Walesa snubbing President Obama and declining to meet with him during President Obama's brief stopover in Poland.
While President Obama will undoubtedly get a polite and friendly reception in Poland, Walesa's feelings on the matter are a lot more indicative of what's really going on. In contrast to Bush Administration, which went out of its way to cultivate a warm relationship with Poland and what ex-SecDef Donald Rumsfeld referred to as 'New Europe', the Obama Administration has essentially them overboard in favor of appeasing the Russians and 'pushing the reset button.'
The Poles in particular had always been close to America. They understood that it was President Reagan's support for solidarity and his work with the Pope that playeda major part in destroying the Evil Empire that enslaved them, and Poland's joining of NATO in 1999 only cemented the close ties.
The Poles, like many other ex-Soviet colonies, saw the US as the ultimate protector of Poland's independence from Russian imperialism, something that strikes a deep historic chord in Poland.
It was Poland who was one of a trio of US allies, along with Britain and Australia, who sent troops to take part in the invasion of Iraq.
The Poles and the Czech Republic took a major risk of antagonizing Russia during the Bush Administration by signing on to President Bush's missile defense system in 2008 and allowing bases in their countries.
Their reward was to be unceremoniously sold out by President Obama, who repudiated the agreement in exchange for a Russian 'reset' that was supposed to include additional Russian assistance with Iran but ultimately netted absolutely nothing..since the Russians already had what they wanted, and could afford to sit back and chuckle at the president behind his back. And in an amazing display of ignorance and insensitivity, the announcement that the US was leaving the Poles and Czech twisting in the wind came on on September 17th, the 70th anniversary of the Soviet Union's invasion of eastern Poland during World War II in collaboration with the Nazis.
To add insult to injury, when Polish President Polish president Lech Kaczynski, his wife Maria, Solidarity leader Anna Walentynowicz,Poland's National Bank President Slawomir Skrzypek, Army chief of staff General Franciszek Gagor were killed in a tragic and somewhat mysterious airplane crash over Russian territory, President Obama did not attend, claiming problems with an ash cloud from a volcanic eruption in Iceland. But the presidents of Russia, the Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, and Georgia along with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Horst Koehler,French President Nicolas Sarkozy,Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Norway’s King Harald V and Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere, Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves,Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero, Slovakian President Ivan Gasparovic,Slovenian President Danilo Turkand and South Korean Prime Minister Chung Un-chan all attended and managed to make it in somehow.
The Poles, in consequence, have distanced themselves from the US to a degree. The new administration of Prime Minister Donald Tusk is noticeably more deferential to Russia, who supplies all its oil, and to Germany, one of its chief economic and trading partners.
The Poles simply realize that with President Obama in the White House, a US alliance is not quite what it was, and other countries in the region with the same realization have joined together in a military alliance outside of NATO known as the Visegrád Group, consisting of Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary.
The Visegrád Group ( named after a Hungarian castle where the leaders of the medieval kingdoms of Poland, Hungary and Bohemia met in the 14th century to try and put together a similar alliance) has actually been in existence since 1991 after the Cold War. What's different, and almost revolutionary is that for the first time, these countries have agreed to make it a military alliance as well, with Poland, the largest and most prosperous of the four in command.
The decision to create a joint military command is of major significance and shows exactly how these countries now evaluate NATO and the strength and resolve of the man in the White House.
I would not be at all surprised to see other nations join in. Serbia comes immediately to mind, as does Lithuania, but Bulgaria and Romania are possibilities as well if the Hungarians and Romanians ever settle their inherent differences over borders and tensions over the Hungarian minority living in Romania.
This bodes well for members of the Visegrád Group who are showing great wisdom in taking the initiative to provide for their own common defense. It does not bode well for the United States, burdened with leadership that adheres to the Obama Doctrine - disrespecting and distancing itself from its allies while appeasing America's enemies.
10 comments:
oh what a mistake i made.
i was halfway through this essay, i thought ff had gone a little loose in the head, 'ya know.
i didn't recognize any of the names or places or events ff was discussing.
then it hit me.
the title of the essay is not:
The Fruits Of The Obama Doctrine - Oklahoma Distances Itself From The US
one can only hope.
I see no problem with it. Its about time the europeans starting defending themselves. Poland and the rest of Europe can burn in hell as far as I'm concerned, it's not vital to our national security.
Yeah I know our isolationism was a big cause of pearl harbor, but that was a way different world. We are now militarily far stronger than anyone else in the world, and the next time someone attacks our embassies, we should bomb them to hell and kill their leaders to show them our resolve. Guarantee you no one will even think to attack us. Other than that, we got no business messing around in countries halfway round the world. Our sphere of influence is Latin America, and South America to an extent. Russia's sphere is East Europe. Let's keep it that way.
if i recollect correctly, europeans have been defending themselves for the last two hundred years, and what's it got them. a whole bunch of itty bitty wars and two great big 'uns.
to show them our resolve.
and therein lies the rub now don't it.
give us one example.
just one.
of US resolve in the last 50+ years.
just one.
and puhleeze don't use the lame we killed bin laden story.
and who's gonna tell russia this is not their sphere of influence?
you?
now that hugo chavez is an ally, we don't really need to be flirtn' with south america either.
isolationism is one thing.
imitating an ostrich is quiet another.
besides, once you people have your one world order established, there won't be a need for spheres of influence, now will there cupcake?
Nazar,
You are largely spot on with regards to our involvement in Poland and Europe. In fact, even the Poles and the Czechs recognize this. A majority of them relaized from the start that the proposed missle defense shield was of no value against Russia and only served to antagonize them. This is why the majority of them have been vehemently and diametrically opposed to it from the begining. Furthermore its questionable how much value this system would have had against Iran. The whole thing was a giant waste of money, time, and resources.
I think the Polish leadership understood this from the begining but went along with the plan because they wanted to suck the American taxpayer drier than the already are. In fact, I was deeply offended by a statement that Mr. tusk made a few years agao when he made a reference to the US helping to "modernize" the Polish military. Why is the job of the US to do such a thing? My question to him would be "who modernizes America's military?"
The condescending nature of his remarks were infuriating. If they are upset now, it is only becuase the US pulled the plug on the project before they had extracted what they wanted. Essentially the Poles, Czechs, and others would have drug us along until they had further depleted us and then dumped us any way!!
While I'm largely in agreemnet with your sentiment regarding our involvement in Eastern Europe, your post does contain errors that need to be addressed. The strongest conventional military forces in the world belong to Russia and China. In a conventional fight the US as its military is currently configured would be easily defeated by either Russia or China. Furthermore Russia has the strongeest nuclear arsenal in the world, as well as the most potent conventional forces in the world.
Ouir "sphere of influece" is not Latin America and South America. China effectively controls the Panama Canal. Russia is closely allied with Venezuela and Cuba. The dominant powers in Central and South America are Russia and China, not America. Given our current economic situation, massive debt, and our crumbling infrastructure, there is zero possibility that we are going to be able to change any of this in the next couple of decades, if ever.
If we have a "sphere of influence," it only consists of our part of North America and due to unchecked illegal immigration from the south for a long period of time we are losing control of even parts of that. Given our situation we should do the following: 1.) as you suggest, it is time to let Europe take care of itself. We need to foucus on our own defense. All of those troops and others around the world should be withdrawn and redeoployed to our borders where they will have a fighting chance to defend our coutnry and 2.) since we don't have the strategic depth or the financial ability to compete with Russia or China in a conventional military conflict, a robust nuclear deterent for us will be especially important as well as the systems to deploy it immediately. This has the advantage to us being more effective than what we curently have and it less costly to maintain than what we are currently doing.
Given these realities, our country can still survive and even thrive but it will take careful planning and better leadeership than what either major political party is currently offering us. I think we deserve better leaders than what we currently have. Hopefully God will see fit to send us these better leaders and soon!!
China and Russia beat us in a conventional war? Pleeezzzze, there's no way even combined on their turf they could pull that off. We have far more advanced technology and training than them, and quality always matters way more than quantity.
All I'm saying is we need to run Latin America, and we need to be heavily involved in South America. Other than that, we need to scale back our commitments. It shouldn't happen over night, but it needs to happen. We have the industrial and military power to do that, why we haven't or are not is another question I'm not going to get into.
"Pleeeezzzze".....while that use of letters is cute, its not going to change the geo political realities. The truth is Aemrica is completely outclassed militarily in virtually every area of significant when compared to Russia and China, especially Russia. As it stands right now, they would be able to defeat us quite ealisy on any "turf" at any time.
Our military training is substandard compared to theirs. The military has been so politicized that unless someone is of the "correct" race, political persuaion, or religous beliefes they can forget about getting into the military academeies or becoming an officer.
While quality of forces does make a difference, quantity cannot be dismissed. In the case of China, America may still have a qualitative edge. China's quantatative and America's qualitative edge might cancel each other out for a few weeks. In the end, America woudl simply be overwhelmed by China's quantitative edge and China's vastly superior industrial might.
Within a few months, America would be forced to surrender unconditionally to China or face the complete destruction and/or conquest of its country by chinese forces. The use of nulcear weapons against China is probalby not a viable option, as Russia and others would likely join the war against America in such an instance.
Against Russia the prospects for America are even more bleak. At best, America would last 10 days before being forced to unconditional surrender, complete destruction, or total conquest. This assumes Russia does not use its nuclear arsenal.
"All I'm saying is we need to run Latin America, and we need to be heavily involved in South America...." As the most despised country in the world, they do not want us to "run" them. If you want to "run" them, you will have to strive to improve our image in that part of the world and elsewhere in the world. Also, Ruaai and China are the dominant powers in Latin America and South America. Any "heavily involved" operations thater by us will have to be done at their pleasure.
With our massive national debt, worn down and depleted military, crumbling infrastructre, and hollowed out industrial base that situation will not change no matter how much we might want it to for the next few deacades, if ever. Now with that said with the right policies we can survive and even thrive.
When one is faced with vastly stronger adversaries and potential adversaries as we are, one should do the following: 1.)make sure they have a fortified defensive position, 2.)seek good relations with the powers that be, perhaps even finding ways to add value to the powers that be. The purpose of 1 is while it is acknowledged that while the other power is sstronger by setting up a well defended position you make it to costly for them to attack you. The purpose of 2 is to ensure he does not want to attack you.
I agree that we need to scale back our committments. We can no longer afford them and our country is in grave peril. I think it was John Adams who said while we should support liberty every where we can ultimately only guarantee our own. We can't have an unwinnable war with China or Tawain or an unwinnable war with Russia over Poland.
Poster my friend, we've had this discussion many times. I can't imagine where you get the notion that Russia and China have superior militaries to the US.
China,just to give one example, has no real blue water navy yet, certainly nothing compared to ours. They lack stealth technology, which is why they were so desperate to get a gander at the helicopter that crashed in Pakistan on the bin-Laden raid. They lack drones and any number of technological advantages of modern war.Their version of a 'stealth fighter' is laughable and no match even for our F-16's. What they have is manpower and nukes. Also, they're not going to go to war with us and lose $800 billion plus their major export market.
Russia is a dying nation with a declining birth rate and major sectarian problems in it's army between Muslim and non-Muslim ethnic Russian soldiers.They also lack drone technology ( which is why they tried to buy from Israel) their nuclear arsenal is archaic and out of date, their navy and air arm are very inferior to ours, and large parts of their army are equipped with outmoded and substandard gear.
As for training, both these countries have small groups of special forces that are well trained, but nothing compared to the level of training the average US serviceman gets. Ditto when it comes to equipment...a small group with SOTA stuff but the rank and file are well below par.
Russia can neither afford a war socially or financially. That could be said for us too,but not nearly to the degree it could be said of Russia.
I'm not trying to be nasty, but you really need to do some research from Jane's and other sources.I guarantee you you'd would find what I'm saying is pretty much on the mark.
Regards,
Rob
I'll do some more research on this. As for Jane's while it is useful as a guide for information, it is a mainstream source. In order to remain on good terms with the main stream media, it must dance to a certain beat, if you will. As such, it will be a good source for some things but should not be relied on as a primary source.
As for Russia's nuclear arsenal, I'll need to look into that. Form what I've read, they expanded and modernized it in recent years. In contrast, America has allowed its nuclear arsenal to decay and has not upgraded it and the maintenance is questionable. I'd appreciate it if you could share your source for this information on Russia's nuclear arsenal. In fact, from what I've read the Russians have used as an "excuse" for the massive upgrades to the nuclear arsenal the "fact" that they don't have the conventioanl capabilities. (I've placed this in quotes because its a ruse on their part.) If they feel they can't afford a war, they'd likely use a massive nuclear first strike to eliminate America's military capability.
As for China, you're probably right they don't have the technological capability we have, however, they have much more manufacturing capability and could likley manufacture such things relatively quickly. If we have to fight them, the best approach would be a massive first nuclear strike and try to eliminate as much of their capabilities as we can at the outest. Given that they've haredened their important assets against a nuclear attack, its uniliely we could take out enough to to stop them. If we're not able to finisht them off within a month, we would not be able to. Their manufacturing capabilities and superior numbers would overwhelm us. At best, our prospects are 10% of achieving victory.
"Also they're not going to war with us and lose $800 billion plus their major export market." While it would be a big loss for us and them, I'm not trying to be nasty here either but if this happened China would suffer the economic equivlent of a broken arm and perhaps a broken leg. America with a sudden loss of Chinese goods would suffer the economic equiveleant of being dropped head first from a five story building onto the concrete below. In other words, the Chinese injuries are injuries that while painful one can recover. America's best case scenario is an economic quddripalegic. Not such a good idea.
The goal shouild be to wean ourselves off of Chinese goods gradually. We can do this by relaxing some of the onerous regulations that manufacturing industries face in the US that make it cost porhibitive to manufacture here. A sudden loss of the US market to China would be a bit rougher thant the Chinese abd others might like, however, the growing economies elsewhere can make up for the loss of the American market. For America to suddenly lose access to Chinese goods, would be devestating to America.
As for the stealth techonolgy, this is something China may not have but it is but one aspect in a bigger picture. I'm thinking it could have been traded to China for some type of consideration. Perhaps better trade terms, somehting. Also, we could withdraw support from Tawain. Our forces are needed at home and they don't like us any way. They're simply using us. It bothers me but this commitment places our own security in grave danger.
Frankly, I think Serbia's joining the Visegrad Group is a bit unlikely. Serbia is Orthodox. Of the four members only Slovakia is Orthodox. There's more than a doctrinal difference--there's a major cultural difference.
Hi Dave,
I think it's a distinct possibility. Serbia is also not too pleased with the US right now - we essentially took sides against them in a sectarian civil war. Plus they also have security needs because of their precarious position amidst the Muslim part of the Balkans, and the Serbs are, after all, akin to the Slavs.
Regards,
Rob
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