When Putin's full-size invasion of Ukraine began, it may have seemed for a short time that in the abroad policy of the Law and Justice organization he was acting exceptionally reasonably for himself. The politicians of the ruling organization not only did not get active in any deranged actions specified as "let's usage the crisis to regain the Lions", but they besides sensibly demanded what had become the mainstream of Western war policy over time: imposing sanctions on Russia, providing Ukraine with circumstantial military assistance and beginning its way to EU and NATO membership.
Zbigniew Parafianovich's book Poland in the War allows us to look behind the scenes of Polish politics in key moments of war, until the last parliamentary elections, where the conflict with Kiev about Ukrainian grain on the Polish marketplace became an crucial topic.
It is constructed like PiS balls Kamila Dziubki: Almost entirely consists of anonymous statements of people from the government, the president's environment, diplomacy, army and services. This format has its limitations – anonymous information is hard to verify, and anonymity does not mean that you can believe everything a politician or diplomat says. However, even though any facts may have looked in item different from those of the unknown heroes, the book gives a very convincing image of the mentality and assumptions behind our Ukrainian policy in the last 2 years.
Unfortunately, from these conversations emerges a image of a organization that we have learned besides well in the last 8 years: a chaotic, unstrategic plan, especially without Plan B, confusing our own wishes with reality, plunged into irrational obsessions.
Politics for the rhyme
Only the exceptional political situation of the first months of the war made these features work for the benefit of Poland. The Americans were convinced that Russia would conquer Kiev, they wanted to evacuate the full current power arrangement with Zelenski at the head, they were committed to supporting guerrilla opposition in the west of Ukraine. If PiS politicians thought otherwise, it was not due to the fact that they had better analyses and more reliable information, but due to the fact that they thought we had no choice but to believe that the Ukrainians would succeed.
"Kumoch [head of the global Chancellery of the President's Office of Politics] told Sullivan before the war that Kiev would survive. He played va banque. He said it with large confidence. I don't know if he truly believed it. He looked like he believed," Minister X recalls.
But it shortly turned out that in a situation of war it was impossible to make politics without a plan, in a chaotic, unthinkable way. This was best shown by the confusion around the thought of "NATO peace mission in Ukraine" proposed by Jarosław Kaczyński during the visit of the PiS president and prime ministers of Poland, Slovenia and the Czech Republic in Kiev in March 2022.
While the thought could inactive be defended, there was no way to defend it. “Kaczyński did not say something that was completely unimaginable. But he did it in PiS-owski. The rhyme. Without any consultation. Without asking the hosts. The effect was apparent and predictable," says Minister Y.
This is how all politics are made after Putin's invasion. As a result, from an enthusiastic commitment to helping Ukraine in little than 2 years we went first to fatigue and discouragement of east politics, then to a crucial cooling of relations with Kiev.
When conflicts began to appear in common relations: first of all about the Wires, where the Ukrainian side was not ready to meet the reasonable expectations of Poland and take work for the accident, then about the anniversary of the Volyn massacre, and yet about the Ukrainian grain – there was no 1 who would take a step backwards and said: “Calm down, let us restrain the horses, remember what is important.”
President Duda, as the parishioner says, until then Ukrainian politics simply... He got bored and lost his head to her. liable for the first 10 months of the war for abroad policy in the presidential law firm Jakub Kumoch resigned in January 2023 to take on the post of ambassador in Beijing in August. Kumoch's successor, Marcin Przycz, as the sources of the Parish say maliciously, "more than Kiev was occupied with Sieradz" – due to the fact that in the autumn he ran for the Sejm, effectively.
When he escalated the conflict over grain, Morawiecki said that Poland no longer transfers arms to Ukraine. Although at this point we did not have any weapons that we could yet pass on to the Ukrainians, these words were understood in the planet in specified a way that, under the force of the agricultural lobby, Poland halts the supply of weapons in order to punish the fighting for the life of Ukraine – although for the first year of the war it accused European partners with Germany of not sending adequate weapons to Ukraine.
Nobody understood what Poles were after. In his relation with Ukraine, Morawiecki lost quite a few image capital, which Poland built to aid Ukraine. If anything gave the PiS, it could have taken the Confederacy a bit of an anti-Ukrainian electorate.
In the chaos of war policy sometimes there are rational flashes. The book begins with a gathering of Duda and Zelenski in the presidential castle in Wisla in January 2022, just before the Russian invasion. The gathering was designed to bring about a renewed, good relation with Kiev “learn” our position towards Americans – it was not a stupid combination. By the way, thanks to the "alcoholic diplomacy" ("Duda plus vodka equals no boredom", as 1 of the protagonists of the book says), a close individual relation between the Polish and Ukrainian president, which turned out to be crucial during the first months of the war, was established.
It was besides rational to care about the ruling team, so that, in a situation of conflict beyond our borders, Poland should not be pushed into the function of a NATO associate of the second category – which in the event of the Russian attack will not necessarily defend itself the same way that Germany would defend itself. Unfortunately, these are only flashes of politics dying in the dark, based on wishful reasoning and obsession.
German fixation is not an illusion
Especially 1 obsession is revealed in the book – anti-German. possibly this is the consequence of the selection of the material by the parishioner, but it is striking that in the statements of his heroes there is virtually no reflection on Russian imperialism or aggressively revisionist Putin policy and the threats they pose to Poland. We constantly hear how badly Germany, the French and the European Union treat us.
And it's not about Reasoned criticism of German policy East and Energy before 2022, or about Scholz's office's squatting in the first period of the war. due to the fact that specified criticism, with strong and rational grounds, yields in the book something that cannot be called anything another than a fixation, a distorting image of reality. 1 minister describes the visit to Kiev to Chancellor Scholz, president Macron and Romanian president Klaus Iohannis:
"To pretend they were playing Central Europe, they took the president of Romania, who did not even take the train with them. [...] They blew him up due to the fact that he's a sophomore to them. The guy speaks Roman and is an cultural German. It seemed to belong to the gentlemen's race. Turns out he's not a gentleman. That he is simply a savage from east Europe and has a separate class of travel. We already realize we won't be riding in any another class. Iohannis doesn't realize it yet. He doesn't know he's not a associate of the large Rhine Community club. They'll always be on their side. [...] They despise Central Europe.”
This combination of respondents, inferiority complexes and demonization of Germany, and even the full Western Europe, is characterized by the majority of parishioners.
They argue, for example, that the improvement of the Treaties of the European Union, specified as the abolition of unanimity in the European Council vote besides on these issues – abroad policy, taxes, financial framework – where the Treaty of Lisbon has preserved them, is made specifically against Poland and Central and east Europe. "European institutions are the exposition of German interests. [...] [...] The war is levitating Poland and that is why they want to change the voting system. [...] Why do they request stronger Poland? He is about to start demanding something," says an anonymous diplomat.
The problem is that this “levation” – if it took place anywhere outside the wishes reasoning of the PiS people and the president – proved short-lived. As the same diplomat admits at a more sober moment: “[Americans] frequently made me realize that Poland would never replace Germany. [...] Germany is individual who believes European states before Americans. any of us believed that Poland could play the function of Germany without German GDP.”
The Ukrainians never believed it. Ukrainian politics could never have been the goal of “leaving” Poland, so as to strengthen us against the Americans at the expense of Germany. Ukraine's strategical goal is to entrenched in NATO and the European Union – and it is hard to be amazed that they see the way to this in Berlin alternatively than in Warsaw, especially in a conflict with Europe.
The parishioners realize that the conflict with Germany and the European Commission is detrimental to us, and in a situation of war just beyond our borders we should someway communicate with Berlin and Brussels. However, they accuse the Germans and Ursula von der Leyen of not agreeing that political dynamics caused another decisions to be made.
Move corrupt clockwise tips
Poland in the War it besides confirms that the Law and Justice State is incapable to act in a average way, following procedures, decision chains, the appropriate circulation of information and the principles of cooperation between the various institutions. According to the relations of the parishioners, the top officials and key politicians of the ruling arrangement were to be amazed by the decisions of their colleagues.
Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau was to learn about Putin's full-sized invasion of Ukraine on 24 February morning from the media. It was completely excluded from the circulation of information about the expected attack. Minister Mariusz Kamiński, who dealt with the services, was amazed by the aforementioned visit of Morawiecki and Kaczyński to Kiev – he organized it in secret from everyone at the request of Prime Minister Michał Dworczyk.
Dworczyk was besides to play a key function in the transfer of arms to Ukraine. The full process was transferred from the MON to the Government strategical Reserve Agency, due to the fact that the interior bureaucracy in the hotel of Błaszczak was to hold transfers. According to the statements of the parishioners, the officials of the Ministry of Defence mainly took care that before they gave anything to Ukraine, they would supply themselves with the maximum authoritative "assurance" in the papers – that they would not be on them in case of something.
One can only be glad that the state acting in this way has not made major mistakes in the context of war. It is clear, however, that many moments erstwhile PiS was right after February 24, it was a case of a broken clock indicating for a minute a good hour.
Now the clock's clues will most likely be reset. As shown by Poland in War, from the beginning, the voice of a faction composed mainly of politicians of the erstwhile Centre Agreement, the longest cooperating with Kaczyński, which alternatively of the "love policy" proposes an approach to Kiev modeled on the policy of Orbán: we usage the fact that Zelenski is against the wall, and let us negociate a compromise that is crucial to us, for example in the issue of grain or historical policy.
However, those voices were silenced by Kaczyński, who, after February 24, gave support to the "policy of love" – although, as the parishioner says, he personally felt no peculiar affirmative sentiment either to Ukraine or Zelenski. Today, the question arises as to how the president of the Law and Justice organization will play the Ukrainian card in opposition. It is likely that the effort to open again in relations with Kiev by the Tusk government will be attacked as a betrayal of the interests of Polish farmers or the memory of Volyn.
And a fresh beginning is needed, due to the fact that the present clinic does not aid us and is pointless, given how much we have invested in the strategical support of Ukraine. Above all, expectations request to be real – due to the fact that many disagreements would not have been made if the written decision-makers had not imagined that with Kiev we would be building a counterweight for Berlin, which Ukraine was rightly never curious in.
The road to good relations with Kiev present leads through Berlin and Brussels, due to the fact that Poland will not be an attractive partner for countries wishing to root in the West and to pull out of the Russian sphere of influence if it is quarreled with Western Europe. The enemy, contrary to what appears to be the party's power, is not in the West.
