Fact-Checking Bordachev’s Claims About Polish Military-Security Policy
Observers shouldn’t be too hard on Bordachev for getting all these important points wrong since Russia desperately lacks expertise on Poland so outdated tropes about it aren’t uncommon.
RT recently translated and republished another of Valdai Club programme director Timofei Bordachev’s pieces, this time about “How Eastern Europe’s elites learned to love dependence on America”, which focuses on Poland’s and Lithuania’s quests for more US troops and bases. With all due respect to him, while the foundational claim of Poland wanting the aforesaid is correct, a lot of what else he wrote about Poland isn’t. What’ll follow is each incorrect claim and then a brief fact check thereof:
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* “It would be naïve to think this is mainly about national security and nor is it simply about money, although hosting US bases has often been seen by client regimes as a useful source of income. In today’s circumstances, Washington is unlikely to pay generously. More likely, it will pass the costs to those receiving this dubious privilege.”
- It’s not the US that pays Poland to host US forces, but Poland which pays the US for what it considers to an “investment” in its security. In fact, it spends around $15,000 on each of the approximately 10,000 troops that it hosts, which will soon include another 5,000, for an estimated $150 million a year so far. Poland will also foot the $500 million bill to modernize the four bases that the US uses in the country.
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* “The real logic is political. For Polish and Baltic leaders, securing American forces on their soil helps answer two uncomfortable questions that appear again and again in domestic politics. What is our foreign policy strategy? And how do we prevent citizens, poorer and increasingly tired of the same ruling groups, from deciding it is time to move them on?”
- Liberal Prime Minister Donald Tusk was initially opposed to what he described as Poland “poaching” US troops from Germany while it was his rival, conservative President Karol Nawrocki, who championed this. They also have polar opposite foreign policy strategies as explained here. Moreover, while Poland is already incredibly polarized, most Poles favor hosting US bases. The issue therefore isn’t partisan.
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* “The easiest answer is to abandon the primary responsibility of the state: the duty to defend itself. Once foreign troops are stationed on national territory, defense becomes the responsibility of the power that sent them.”
- Poland now commands European NATO’s largest army, which it plans to expand from 215,000 troops to 300,000 by 2030 and half a million by 2039. It also has the highest GDP-to-defense spending in NATO. Poland thus sees US troops as a “deterrent” vis-à-vis Russia, not as a replacement for its own troops.
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* “Politically, their chances of being heard were even smaller (than in international or economic affairs) so Poland and the Baltic states adopted one simple foreign policy strategy: oppose Russia wherever possible.”
- The Russian-Polish rivalry is over a millennium old, and apart from what’s seen outside of Russia to be Poland’s victory in the Polish-Bolshevik War, Russia has been beating Poland since its subordination as a “protectorate” in the early 1700s. Poland’s anti-Russian raison d’état therefore has a certain logic to it.
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* “Are leaders in Warsaw and Vilnius seriously considering what risks this would create for their populations? There is little reason to think so because their calculation is different. If they can secure even part of this American presence before Moscow and Washington agree on a new model of coexistence in Europe, they believe their own future will be safe.”
- As earlier mentioned, most Poles favor hosting US bases despite the risks, and the elite was divided at first on “poaching” US troops from Germany. Conspicuously missing from Bordachev’s piece is that Poland recently agreed to carry out regular nuclear drills with France, which might include the brief deployment of French nukes to Poland. Readers can learn more about the consequences here and here.
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* “For them, the prize is not national security in any serious sense. It is political insurance. American bases would guarantee their importance, protect their ruling class from domestic pressure, and make any future correction of foreign policy almost impossible.”
- Ditto the recycled points above, but Tusk’s new agreement with Nawrocki on the issue of more US troops means that both rivals are on the same page about it. If Tusk remains in power after fall 2027’s next Sejm elections, however, he can still try to pivot Poland to the Franco-German Entente afterwards.
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* “This is where the race for US bases is leading. Not to greater sovereignty, but to its formal burial; not to security, but to permanent dependence. And not to peace in Europe, but to a situation in which small states make themselves useful as forward positions in someone else’s strategy.”
- As earlier mentioned, Poland’s anti-Russian raison d’état has a certain logic to it due to their old rivalry. Nawrocki also argued that Poland’s sovereignty is threatened by the German-led EU. If Poland submits to Germany, then the 1941-like threat that Russia now perceives from Germany could quickly materialize.
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Observers shouldn’t be too hard on Bordachev for getting all these important points wrong since Russia desperately lacks expertise on Poland so outdated tropes about it aren’t uncommon. His article could have therefore easily been much worse. Truth be told, it’s not bad, but it could have been better. The reason why it was important to fact check him is to correct Russia’s foreign policy misperceptions in the spirit of Dmitry Trenin’s recent clarion call in order to improve policy formulation going forward.
'- Poland now commands European NATO’s largest army, which it plans to expand from 215,000 troops to 300,000 by 2030 and half a million by 2039.'
Since Poland is aging so rapidly the cost of this, and there are significant indirect costs of having men not working in the private sector adding to GDP, will probably be footed to the EU. 'We're protecting YOU from the Ruskes'. That kind of stuff.
Let me be clearer: On what subject has Bordachev been right in recent years? Russia, France, UK, USA—same everywhere. It's insane how in these countries, 'experts' who have failed multiple times continue to enjoy the ear and money of the powerful and the gullibility of the public morons.
In fact, I think I understand Putin's problem. I listen to Putin, I read Putin, and I tell myself that the only desire he could have regarding Bordachev, far from listening to him and following his advice, is to see him impaled in public. But... So I come to think that Putin seems to suffer from the same problem as Napoleon. Far from being bloodthirsty autocrats, to take power under very difficult conditions, they had to rely on extremely important people. People whose opinions cannot be neglected. Napoleon had his damned Talleyrand (and everyone he represented, the nouveau riche from the massive looting of the revolution) like a pebble in his shoe until the very end. The pebble outlived him. In the new shoe that it had helped put on a new foot. Putin, to tear the country away from greedy oligarchs, traitors, and Western 'advisors,' had to get help from other greedy oligarchs, certainly less treacherous than the first ones but with, nevertheless, a very clear idea of their vision of a Russia conducive to their interests: sovereign, ok... but not too much. Napoleon, through this predatory class that had made him king, had to, against his own opinion, ensure the occupation of Holland (the English casus belli), northern Italy (the Austrian casus belli), and support the aspirations of the Poles (the Russian casus belli). We know the sequel and the end of that story. Let's come back to Putin. I think he has nothing but contempt for the clowns of Valdai and other dreamers of the Enchanted Carousel. But... but the people who made him king, not those from the secret services and the state apparatus, no, the less rotten oligarchs and all their networks, these people, I think they like very much what Bordachev and others say. I think that, much more than China, India, or his sense of fraternal responsibility for humanity, it is these people who hold Putin's hand back. If I am right, they will twist his hand until the very end and will always be there in the next shoe, forcing the new foot to march at their pace.