Two days of visit to Warsaw. Friday March 25 and Saturday March 26, Joe Biden chose to honor Poland, a country of refuge for more than 2.1 million Ukrainians, according to the count of the High Commissioner for Refugees as of March 23.
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The American president, who is due to meet his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda on Saturday, intends to make this reception effort the” key element “ of his presence, announced White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki. The Poles expect increased humanitarian and financial support as a reward.
Back to grace
Relations were not off to a good start, however, between Joe Biden and the ultra-conservative Polish government, which had waited until the last moment to congratulate the American president on his election at the end of 2020. For the tenant of the White House, going to Warsaw was excluded in the first months of exercising power.
The image of such a visit would have gone against his policy of reconquering democracy, while Poland, accused of violating the rule of law, had moved closer to the Trump administration. The relationship had even deteriorated further, in December 2021, when the government threatened to suspend the private opposition channel TVN24, owned by the American group Discovery since 2018.
The war in Ukraine changed everything. Poland is on the front line to defend the “free world”. Most of the humanitarian and military aid released in the United States for Ukraine (the equivalent of 12.7 billion euros) passes through Poland.
Faced with the ardor of Warsaw
The time has come for speeches of cohesion and unity, even if differences persist between the two countries. Thursday March 24, on the occasion of a NATO summit in Brussels already in the presence of Joe Biden, the Polish Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, intends to defend, without the illusion of convincing, the sending of a peacekeeping mission in Ukraine in an area not occupied by the Russian army. Out of the question, for Washington and the vast majority of NATO members, who want to avoid any direct confrontation that could pass for an act of war.
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This is not the first time that Joe Biden has sharply refused a Polish request. Two weeks earlier, for the same reasons, the United States had deemed it impossible to recover Polish MiG-29 fighter jets for the benefit of Ukraine, via the NATO base at Ramstein in Germany.
To hear Krzysztof Soloch, expert on Poland and defense issues, it is less a question of convincing than of raising awareness. “The Polish diplomatic offensive aims to make Westerners understand that it is not at all certain that Vladimir Putin will stop at Ukraine, without a strong gesture from the allies”, he comments.
With this proposal, the PiS in power also consolidates its electorate. According to a United Surveys poll published on Tuesday, 53% of Poles support an international stabilization mission in Ukraine, under the aegis of NATO or the UN, while 26% are against. And among the defenders of this idea, 80% support the government majority.
hidden target
For Krzysztof Soloch, the Warsaw initiative comes in view of a completely different objective. “What Poland is waiting for is the announcement of a permanent American armored division on a base in its territory”, explains the professor at Paris-Sorbonne associated with the RAND Corporation. This demand, which dates back to 2014, when Crimea was annexed, existed before the PiS came to power. It would involve the deployment of a brigade of between 10,000 and 30,000 American soldiers.
→ READ. In Poland, the desire to fight in Ukraine constrained by law
Warsaw puts another argument in the balance: Poland will devote 3% of its GDP to the defense budget next year, against 2.2% this year, announced three weeks ago Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Deputy Prime Minister and President of the Conservative Party in power. However, the country largely buys « made in USA » : 10 billion dollars (9.1 billion euros) of military equipment over the past three years, invested in F35 fighter planes, or in the Patriot anti-missile system.