Ariel Cohen, Ph.D., is Senior Research Fellow in Russian and Eurasian Studies and International Energy Security at the Heritage Foundation. Especially for Trend
Azerbaijan may be a winner as Poland and America are facing a crisis in bilateral relations.
The deal to deploy a US ballistic missile defense in Poland is collapsing due to diverging agendas on both sides of the Atlantic, and Azerbaijan might step into the fray.
Iran's recent missile tests are pressing the urgency of developing and deploying a workable anti-missile system, and the collapse of the deal with Poland may cause Washington to rethink the architecture of the whole global missile defense.
Now only luck - and outstanding diplomatic talent in Warsaw and Washington - can save the deal and the relationship, yet one country's loss may be another country's game.
The Russian government has repeatedly suggested to use the Gabala radar station as one of the components in the cooperative missile defense. Azerbaijani government is supporting this idea. While Washington has been cool until now, things may change.
It did not have to be that way. During the Second Bush Administration US wanted to cement a key security relationship in Europe by deploying the global missile defense, while Poland wanted to become the preferred NATO partner for Washington. Warsaw needs to modernize its military and was ready to become a keystone in US/NATO deployment vis-a-vis Poland's traditional adversary, Russia.
Under the Kaczynski brothers' government, and with Don Rumsfeld's Pentagon assertively managing US military transformation policy, which includes missile defense, it could have happened. Today, however, the diverging foreign policy agendas in the US and Poland make the meeting of the minds much more difficult.
The Bush-Cheney tandem is at the end of its term in office, usually a bad time for foreign policy breakthroughs. In Bucharest, America's European allies handed George Bush a bitter disappointment when they opposed NATO Membership Action Plans for Ukraine and Georgia. The much-desired Middle East peace deal between Israel and Abu Mazen's Palestinian Authority is more elusive than ever. Pakistan is an increasingly prickly ally. Now, Warsaw have given Bush another diplomatic black-and-blue.
The White House, Condoleeza Rice at the helm of the Foggy Bottom and Robert Gates at the Pentagon have their priorities focused elsewhere: Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea, Arab-Israeli conflict. Missile defense is taking a back seat.
While many believe that the missile deployment failed due to Poland requesting a high price for the deployment, the reality is different. Prime Minister Donald Tusk is right: this is not about money - not even about the Patriots and the THAAD anti-aircraft missiles.
The current Polish leadership has decided that the relationships with Europe are more important than with the fading Bush Administration. The European Union, which looks askance at the US power, including the global missile defense, pays billions of Euros to Poland every year. Prime Minister Tusk, after the blow-ups of the Kaczynski era, is mending ties with Berlin and Paris, which oppose the missile plan. Some personal career aspirations of Polish leaders may have played a role in the Tusk Government's adamant position towards the deal, high level sources in Warsaw say.
What will happen now? The Bush Administration may sweeten the pill, offering at least some of the hardware the Tusk Government ask for. It cannot, however, provide billions of dollars in military aid, a la Pakistan and Egypt, as Foreign Minister Bogdan Klich suggested.
First, it is demeaning for Poland to be compared with Pakistan and Egypt, where per capita income is among the lowest on the planet and illiteracy is among the highest. Poland would want to compete with Italy, if not Great Britain, as a key European ally of the US.
Second, both Egypt and Pakistan are anchor countries in the most unstable areas in the world: The Middle East and the Indian Subcontinent. Pakistan is fighting an anti-Al Qaeda war on its territory and is a staging ground for US/NATO war in Afghanistan.
Third, the US is broke and overextended world wide. The external national debt is $7 trillion; the internal debt, including mortgage and private sector credit, is the crushing $35 trillion - this is almost 300 percent of the GDP. US may be happy to sell Poland modern weapons systems and provide training, but won't pay for them.
Russian threats may have impressed Warsaw, but if Poland remains intransigent, Lithuania, Croatia, Georgia, or even Romania and Bulgaria may be encouraged to allow the missile system deployment. And under certain circumstances, a military-dominated government in Ankara may consider allowing the US a missile system deployment against Iran.
Yet, a compromise may be worked out in the remaining few months of the Bush Administration - if Warsaw is serious about staging the missile system on the Polish soil - and if it wants American defense know how. The sand in the clock is running out.
The outcome of this deal may also depend on the US election results in November. If Obama wins, the system may be effectively dead. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Obama's foreign policy mentor and Jimmy Carter's national security advisor, said that the proposed missile defense system is unworkable, aimed at a non-existent threat ( Iran), and is rejected by the Europeans.
McCain's victory, on the other hand, is likely to keep the global missile defense alive and kicking, and his Administration may be knocking on Warsaw's door come 2009.
As champagne corks are popping in Moscow, and grateful prayers are said in Teheran, Poland and the US are parting their geostrategic ways. This is a momentous event and should not be dismissed or diminished.
While it is true that countries have no permanent friends, only permanent interests, at times it seemed that US and Poland are a happy exception from this rule. Yet, Warsaw needs to remember that geography remains permanent, and five hundred years of Polish-Russian relations are not going to disappear overnight.
Many in Poland are quietly celebrating the newly found Polish assertiveness, while those in Washington who remember Solidarity and the Cold War wonder if the true Polish-friendship can be preserved. But Washington may turn to other countries for a new architecture of the missile defense. And Azerbaijan's role in it can be crucial.
The post-Cold War world is receding into history. Welcome to the twenty first century.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of Trend