Honkong (fot. Pixabay)
On 9th September in Strategy&Future, I presented 14 points (highlighted here in italics) for the Americans to consider during their time on the Vistula in the second half of 2019. This is the second part two of our response to the Pence visit and our analysis of the correlation of American expectations with the interests of Poland.
3. For many reasons, for example in terms of image – because it is easier (and cheaper) to achieve your goals when you are in coalition with multiple allies – but also in terms of military (the Americans have financial and organisational problems with maintaining a forward military presence in Eurasia on all key intersections of strategic flows, such as the Western Pacific, the Persian Gulf and the Northern European Plain), Washington expects allies in Europe (including Poles) and Asia to help them maintain freedom of maritime communication and to support the activities of the US Navy, using their ships to “defend” the current Pax Americana, identified in Washington with the desired international order.
We do not have the maritime capabilities required to make an effective impact on world ocean waters further than the Danish Straits. Moreover, we should not develop these capabilities – it would be a waste of resources as well as the strategic attention of the state. A navy is the most expensive branch of force. We are not able to develop a so-called blue water navy, and a more modest contribution of complementary capabilities for allied navies – traditional sea and naval powers (as during World War II) – is a waste of resources. The Baltic Sea itself is a small body of water. Today, along with the development of anti-access/area denial systems and the sea combat takes place is mainly effected from the shore with missiles and aircraft. In addition to this, the Baltic is greatly convenient for asymmetric defense (sea denial: mines, anti-ship nets, submarine warfare), which complicates plans to maintain a US or NATO sea control in the Baltic or to maintain permanent communication with the Atlantic, which would not be sustainable long term anyway in the event of hostilities, given the current preponderance of anti-access measures in the marginal seas of the Atlantic (the Baltic, the Black Sea and the Mediterranean). In addition, the expansion of our navy is constrained by the Danish Straits. Their military or political control determines the fate of the Polish Navy, however big it might be making us in the event of war fully dependent on the will of other powers. Investing in a navy is not worth the costs that would have to be borne and which would be better spent on other purposes.
This is still in terms of resources very demanding, especially in the face of Russian military reforms and modernisation after 2008 and in the face of Russian revisionist policy throughout the entire Baltic-Black Sea Intermarium or – as the Russians prefer to call it – on the Western “limitrophs”.
Money should therefore be rather spent on our own anti-access and area denial capabilities forming the active defense concept. These capabilities should be concentrated in land forces, air forces (including air defence) and SOFs. Clearly, firmly and substantively, and professionally, this must be communicated to our allies. That there would be no doubt that we know who we are, we know our military geography and the resulting strategy and we are simply prudent. They’ll get it. Indeed, they will earnestly respect us.
It must be added that the sea communication lines to Polish ports (and to our Baltic allies) will be interdicted in the event of war. So, we’ll have to deal with the supplies we have gathered before the conflict. Any illusions that it will be different are just wishful thinking. That is why land communication lines through Germany, as well as airports and allied bases inside of Poland, which allied soldiers and equipment can reach by land and air, are critically important. It is all the more apparent why bases on Polish territory are needed to maintain American credibility, including storage facilities with equipment to be downloaded in the event of war (pre-positioning).
According to the Pentagon, this concept is to enable entering the theatre of war covered by Russian anti-access/area denial systems that cover almost the entire territory of Poland. Our assessment of the ability of the US to come to our aid is the ultimate test of the credibility of US security guarantees, (and thus US political influence in Poland depends on it).
In the world ocean, Americans have to go it alone. Or with allies whose fleets have blue water capabilities. These are, for example, Japan, Australia or Great Britain. The United States is a hegemon in the world ocean. After World War II, the Pacific and Atlantic became “lakes” of the US global empire with multiple bases and allies in the rimlands of Eurasia. If Americans can’t do it, Poland can’t change it in any way. I believe that if the Americans are unable to impose their rules in the world ocean and littorals of Eurasia, including controlling the strategic flows that are taking place there, it will mean that the global order with American supremacy will not survive, anyway.
Actually, the political perspective should be reversed and we should watch if and how the Americans are handling the crisis in maintaining order, and only then assess the credibility of American staying power and hence effectiveness of their security guarantees for allies in landlocked Eurasia like Poland or Romania and Baltic States. Americans have homework to do in that respect and have developed a lot of neglect, including decapitalisation of their navy in the last 25 years.
4. Due to fiscal problems and the “imperial overstretch” Washington is beginning to signal the expectation that, in addition to the decision to send navies, allies should also provide other types of help in maintaining American world primacy and thus care for “interest the international community.” In the case of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, this could, for example, be about sending special forces, reconnaissance systems, and artillery and rocket units to numerous islands whose geographical locations channel Chinese communication into the open ocean, making Chinese strategic flows dependent on Americans and their allies. For the same reason, we should expect increasing pressure on NATO to put China on the Alliance’s agenda. This would be a real test and a breakthrough moment for the cohesion of the West, given the profits that a large part of the world derives from cooperation with China.
This is inevitably becoming then a priority and we should not feel guilty that we think so. It is simply geography that is guilty of shifting the priority. Americans have benefited under their supremacy and only the US (considerable) effort is able to prevent US from losing the primacy. In the absence of one system of norms and behaviour, geography simply differentiates the risk and interests of states in the international system.
And then we have Russia close at hand, Russia’s new generation warfare campaign raging from the coasts of the Black Sea to the Baltic, great challenges for our current and future armed forces in the face of Revolution in Military Affairs, New Russia’s Army after reforms, at least relative decline of NATO.
Our soldiers, training, and in particular new operational concepts (which we must develop) and modernizations and expenses should be allocated to the needs of the Polish theatre of war in the broad sense described by us in Strategy&Future. In the Indo-Pacific, our presence won’t make any difference.
Any deployments to the Indo-Pacific would not be ordinary expeditionary missions as we’ve known them from the last 20 years. It would be a fierce daily competition during a “hot peace” reminiscent of a hybrid war with a symmetrical powerful adversary (a peer competitor) – China, Chinese special forces, navy, missile forces, their situational awareness system. This would not be a walkover or joke. We will continue to talk and write in detail about at Strategy&Future.
5. As part of the competition for a new global economic order, China is building infrastructure in Eurasia and Africa that enables a supply chain independent of US institutions and money. Because they are creating their own financial, political and technological relationships (as part of the so-called competing connectivity), the Americans expect their allies to implement a containment strategy for such cooperation, because over time it would increase China’s influence and power (especially in key geostrategic spaces and key technologies). Where China is already present, American expectations may relate to so-called “rollback”, i.e. withdrawal of cooperation with China and “pushing” their influence. Poland is at the epicentre of this struggle, because together with Ukraine and Romania it controls the land communication entry from Asia to Europe. Although the Americans are not eager to implement a new version of the Marshall plan, they expect that despite the lack of a positive investment or aid program, their allies – dependent on the US in security – will comply with American expectations (the so-called “passive plan”). Washington can afford this assumption, because the security of these countries depends on US military muscle. In the near future, here at Strategy&Future, we will be considering what the US guarantees and credibility on both sides of Eurasia looks like, and what the “currency” of credibility in security matters really is.
That is going to be tough. Especially if China does not give up quickly. We and other countries in the region squeezed between Germany, Russia and the former Ottoman Empire need infrastructure like air. As for Poland the centuries-long distance from the Atlantic zone and 123 years of partition have deprived us of a true circulatory system for strategic flows, which is modern infrastructure serving the needs of the country and its inhabitants.
It is puzzling, and even worrying, that the Americans are not proposing a new Marshall plan. This is a sign of either US economic weakness (or a symptom of a lack of strategic vision, which would also be a sign of weakness in Washington’s leadership), or on the contrary – a sense of strength and certainty of the final victory over China and maintaining (restoring) the primacy “as cheaply as possible” by ensuring sufficient influence with the help of security guarantees alone.
Meanwhile, this is not a one-way street. Washington’s political influence depends on its guaranteeing security, and consists of real capability and resolve to help and to constantly demonstrate (in various ways) that they are ready (materially, politically and mentally) to provide security. At present, this is daily questioned by Russia through political and military actions under the framework of a new generation warfare (hybrid war) concept. This is taxing the credibility of the US on the NATO Eastern Flank. Credibility is a currency that is subject to varying valuation and is not absolute as Americans would like it to be. I believe that in the current international situation, the US should scrupulously strive for its allies, because they give these states the strength, support and legitimacy to seriously compete with China and Russia at the same time.
In exchange for what the Americans get in our region in terms of political influence they should provide more, both in security matters and in geo-economic instruments. This should be done so that the key ally located in the Northern European Plain and communicating with the Baltic States, Belarus and Ukraine and on the path of the New Silk Road becomes ever stronger, which will contribute to strengthening the position of the USA and weaken the charm of China.
In this context, it should be remembered that cooperation in the military-armaments field makes the recipient geopolitically very dependent on the provider, because it creates influences and the provider gains “leverage” (a pressure instrument) over the recipient’s sense of security, which furthermore gives the possibility to control the recipient by giving him more or less to subtly understand who depends on whom, and also by providing supplies of spare parts and additions to the supplied military equipment, and finally through training or various financial and assistance programs. It’s very easy to get addicted to all this. This situation allows the provider of security and military assistance to build influence. This can be dangerous and should not overshadow the overall potential of the policy resulting from the geopolitical situation and the adopted geostrategy of the country, which most often create more instruments for building power than the help of the provider.
6. Washington expects its allies to accept the idea of limiting globalisation, decoupling China’s economy from the economies of the US and American allies, and ultimately adapting their social models to a new stage. This expectation will be the hardest to fulfill. Soon we will consider in Strategy&Future how the Americans are going to do it.
For Poland it is a smaller problem, because there is no large exchange of strategic flows between Poland and China, but in western Europe, the Pacific, Singapore or Australia it is a serious problem. Despite our small exposure, Americans should explain to us (in order to maintain credibility with the Polish ally who puts its fate on US power) how they intend to divorce China’s economy in practice, because decoupling of this kind will break social contracts, including in the economies of Europe, certainly in Germany. That will tax Poland, too.
Poland is in Europe and will not relocate somewhere else being always closely connected to other European economies. In order for Poland to support American policy boiling down to technological, commercial and monetary confrontation with China, the American plan must be credible and realistic. As this policy will cause tensions putting stress on solidarity of the transatlantic world. These tensions can lead to the division of the world into three core and competing economic zones: America, Europe and Asia. It is in this spirit that the words of French President Emmanuel Macron should be read in an interview with The Economist in November.
And what will Poland do then – being located in Europe at the critical intersection of the land masses of Eurasia and Western Europe, a neighbour of the largest continent’s economy, and being dependent on security in the US for fear of Russia?
I will continue in Part 3.
Autor
Jacek Bartosiak
CEO and Founder of Strategy&Future, author of bestselling books.
Strategy&Future
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