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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

The atmosphere in Poland has been rather gung-ho pro American no matter what, this is likely related to the proximity of America's (former?) arch enemy Russia with whom the Poles have an extremely uneasy relationship, mostly due to having been repeatedly run over from the East (as well as the West) in living memory.

See the statements of Polish politicians regarding the missile shield for some good examples of this.

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What annoys a lot of central European countries (ex eastern block countries) is the fact that their enthusiasm for the US is greeted with complete indifference.

Czechs, Poles and others still need an US visa, despite the fact that they are fully fledged EU members and part of the Schengen treaty.

So the general attitude is no more quite as gung-ho as it was in the beginning of the millenium.

Fwiw, Czechs no longer do. Six ex-eastern-bloc countries were added to the visa-waiver program in 2008: Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia.

I stand corrected.

Thanks

Like this one? J

The latest revelations concern Radosław Sikorski, Poland’s Oxford-educated foreign minister, who was caught dismissing Poland’s relationship with the United States as “worthless.” “Complete bullshit. We'll get in conflict with the Germans, Russians, and we'll think that everything is super because we gave the Americans a blow job,” he allegedly says in the recording from January 2014, published in Wprost on June 23. “Losers. Complete losers.”

http://www.vice.com/read/polands-wiretapping-scandal-governm...

Yes, I think NATO membership counts as getting something in return.

If all Poland got in return for running a secret CIA jail including torture of prisoners on their soil was a NATO membership I would consider that to be a very bad trade.

If a NATO membership with the implication of American military support deters Russia from, say, invading Poland, or demanding that they do things much worse than running a prison under threat of invasion, then it sounds priceless.

Makes you wonder what would have happened if Ukraine had been part of NATO in the current circumstances.

Would the 'separatists' have had any chance at all?

Or would the situation be the same as it is today?

Effectively it is Russia calling the shots in the separatist movement, the two people heading it are native Russians that have conveniently moved to the Crimea just at the time the uprising started.

Interesting reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine%E2%80%93NATO_relations

No NATO member country has been attacked before like this, and Poland does not have a large contingent of ethnic Russians that could be used to stage a similar situation there as far as I know.

The very idea of it is fraught with geopolitical tension for just that reason.

As it stands, NATO membership comes with the implication that the US and Western Europe will respond to any invasion with their full force, up to and including strategic nuclear warfare if needed. Russia would surely see the very proposal to include Ukraine as intensely threatening. It could be a giant bluff in a way - would we dare to include Ukraine, knowing how deeply it threatens Russia? Would Russia dare to do anything direct about it, like a preemptive invasion, maybe before they were a full member? If they did, would we respond, drawing ourselves into a large war, or ignore it, potentially diluting the meaning of NATO and tempting Russia to try invading other NATO members as well? Would Russia respond vigorously but indirectly, essentially starting a new Cold War?

Contemplating the vast expansion of NATO in tranches four and five is indeed interesting, if not daunting. Would the US really come to the aid of a former Soviet Union nation if Russia were hell-bent of taking it back?

The book, "The Eagle Unbowed" [1], is an excellent history of Poland (and the Polish people) during the Second World War - I've only read about half the book, but gives valuable insights into the geopolitical atmosphere of Eastern Europe.

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/nov/09/the-eagle-unbow...

As a "romanian person" I'm very familiar with that atmosphere too and in my opinion there is an ongoing "security" trade between US and Poland, Romania and other countries in the area in the sense that US provides the security guarantees (and who knows what else) and the partner countries compensate through favorable contracts for US corporations, various political concessions (and who knows what else).

I'm there with you on this as another romanian&american person. This seems to all have started showing more with the air defense strategy in the region pushed by US some time ago but i am sure this goes back even more than that. At the same time these deals do sound like they are a bit one sided, in favor of US.

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