The purpose of the article is to show the place and importance of France in Poland's security policy. The undertaken analysis is an attempt to verify the hypothesis that France holds an important place in Polish security policy due to the convergence of strategic security interests of both countries and the concentration of these interests in Europe, however each country chooses different means and ways of conducting its security policy. The analysis is carried out from a neorealist perspective, which involves examining the strategic security interests of Poland and France against the background of the evolvinginternational system. For more than 100 years the mutual relations between France and Poland have been dynamic. Initially, the bonding element was a sense of threat from Germany. Accordingly, during the interwar period, France and Poland were bound by the 1921 Treaty of Alliance. However, both countries lost their independence during World War II, and the alliance was not renewed after the war. During the Cold War split, convergence and divergence of security interests were also evident. After the 1989 breakthrough, Poland joined NATO and the EU and, together with France, found itself in the Western security community. Poland wants to strengthen its position in Europe, but fears the threat from Russia, and to neutralize it seeks support, most recently from the US. France, on the other hand, pursues a strategy of making the European Union a global player and – being nominally a great power, a permanent member of the UN Security Council – does not abandon its global ambitions (mondialisme). Due to these convergences and differences in the understanding of their own security interests, the relations between France and Poland are meandering, volatile and even complicated, as can be seen in their changing dynamics throughout the post-Cold War period. The basic research method is the analysis of documents and critical analysis of the literature on the subject as well as the comparative method. This analysis is carried out from a neorealist perspective, which assumes the study of the strategic security interests of Poland and France against the background of an evolving international system.
Poland’s reaction to the proclamation in 1999 by the European Union – the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP), was restrained, and even critical. However, after the accession to the community, the authorities of Poland have started engaging in shaping and carrying out this policy. Poland is participating in building assets and capabilities of ESDP: in the process of European rapid reaction forces generation, in creation of “battle groups”, in work of the European Defence Agency, and in building of ESDP civilian capabilities. It is engaging in the EU crisis management operations,military and civilian missions. During last years Poland is showing high activity in favour to strengthening the Common Security and Defence Policy (new name of ESDP after Lisbon Treaty); it gave the evidence of that at the time of the Presidency of the EU Council in the second half of 2011. In matters of strengthening the CSDP Poland cooperates closely with Germany and France within the framework of the Weimar Triangle.
In the second half of the first decade of the twenty-first century has become apparent stagnation in the development of defense policy of the European Union. This happened in the time when the EU was to realize its ambitious plans to develop the resources and capabilities to conduct a wide range of crisis management operations (Petersberg tasks). The stagnation of the CSDP contributed reduce the political importance of the EU in the international arena. Its causes were: an increase of disparities between the member states of the EU, strengthening by the Treaty of Lisbon the mechanisms of intergovernmental cooperation; the financial crisis of 2008, and a general weakening of the international activity of the EU. Conditions for removal of the CSDP from stagnation stuck in the change in the security environment of the EU and in regulations of the Treaty of Lisbon. The main chance of reviving and strengthening the CSDP is not in its institutional development, but in the opportunity and conscious need to develop a new EU security strategy, as well as in strengthening the military capabilities and European defence sector, and also in increasing practical cooperation between the EU and NATO.
International security is a complex of international conditions, norms, and mechanisms and impacts that ensure every state of a given international system region a greater or lesser certainty of unendangered existence, continuation, and freedom of development. International security covers not only, or at least not primarily, the existential values of individual states but also the values that are shared within a given system: stability, peace, balance, and cooperation to mention a few. It is the policy of security conducted by the State, and the entirety of international relationships and institutions that are decisive for their protection. The objective of activities furthering international security is the elimination of threats to the existenće, continuation, and the development of states and international systems as well as reinforcement of the sanctity of these high-level associations. In the wake of the Cold War, new types of risks appeared and pose a threat to international security and challenge to the security policy of states and international institutions. Still present at the threshold of the 2lst century are military threats born from conventional and nuclear arms race, nationalisms and ethnic conflicts, terrorism, transnational organized crime, and environmental threats. Internal instability of numerous states (the so-called failed states), vast economic disproportions between highly developed countries and the rest of the World in the conditions of fast globalization, and increased international migrations into EU countries and the USA are believed to be the main challenges. The changing international order and new types of risks. The need to broadened the scope of the means used in security policy. Generally, the importance of military and force solutions is relatively giving way to means of civil naturę. Early in the 21st century, the following tendencies appeared or developed in the evolution of international security: a) most states began to prefer cooperative methods of reinforcing own security, and parallel to that of national security, b) there is a peculiar internationalization and multilateralization of states’ activities furthering security, c) globalization, and divisibility and regionalization of international security, on the other hand, d) increased intcrest of international organizations (other than UN, and including integrative and military alliances) in acquiring competences characteristic of collective security organizations, e) a division of tasks between the United Nations and regional organizations is visible, at times peace operations are conducted jointly.
W pierwszych latach po rozpoczęciu w 1989 r. przemian demokratycznych Polska kontynuowała swoje zaangażowanie w Konferencji Bezpieczeństwa i Współpracy w Europie, która w 1995 r. została przemianowana na Organizację Bezpieczeństwa i Współpracy w Europie. Warszawa za cel strategiczny postawiła wprowadzenie Polski do NATO i UE, a KBWE/OBWE postrzegała jako najszerszą organizację bezpieczeństwa kooperatywnego w Europie. Po przystąpieniu w 1999 r. do NATO, OBWE stopniowo traciła na znaczeniu w polskiej polityce zagranicznej, co wyraźnie było już widać w następnej dekadzie. Zdecydowany regres nastąpił w czasie drugich rządów konserwatywno- nacjonalistycznej partii Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (PiS) rozpoczętych w 2015 r., która w polityce bezpieczeństwa postawiła na pierwszym miejscu ścisły sojusz dwustronny z USA, który doprowadził do podjęcia przez Polskę roli klienta i wasala USA. Oznacza to kompletne zdezawuowanie roli OBWE, a tym samym odrzucenie szansy stworzenia szerokiej euroatlantyckiej i eurazjatyckiej wspólnoty bezpieczeństwa poprzez wykorzystanie unikatowych instrumentów pozostających do dyspozycji OBWE.
EN
In the first years after the beginning of democratic transition in 1989, Poland continued its involvement in the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe, which in 1995 was renamed the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. Warsaw as a strategic goal set Poland’s accession to NATO and the EU, and it perceived CSCE/OSCE as the widest cooperative security organization in Europe. After joining NATO in 1999, the OSCE gradually lost its importance in Polish foreign policy, which was clearly visible in the next decade. A decisive decline took place during the second edition of the rule of the conservative-nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party launched in 2015, which in security policy put a close bilateral alliance with the US in the first place, which led Poland to take the role of client and US vassal. This implies a complete denial of the role of the OSCE, and thus the rejection of the opportunity to create a broad Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian security community by using unique instruments at the OSCE’s disposal.
Polityka bezpieczeństwa i obrony Unii Europejskiej w XXI w. znalazła się w stagnacji. Ważną tego przyczyną był kryzys fi nansowy z 2008 r. i recesja, która utrzymywała się w kolejnych latach. Ta stagnacja jeszcze pogłębiła się w latach 2014–2016 w wyniku kryzysu migracyjnego i brytyjskiej decyzji o opuszczeniu UE. Czynnikiem stale zwiększającym trudności jest wzrost eurosceptycyzmu po rozszerzeniu Unii Europejskiej w 2004 r. Obecnie dominuje on w krajach Grupy Wyszehradzkiej, w tym w Polsce. Paradoksem w tej sytuacji jest to, że w warunkach kryzysu pojawiły się pomysły utworzenia armii europejskiej. Były one głoszone także przez wiodącego polskiego eurosceptyka Jarosława Kaczyńskiego. Zwolennicy rewitalizacji WPBiO zgłaszali propozycję utworzenia unijnego centrum operacyjnego (kwatery głównej) do kierowania operacjami zarządzania kryzysowego. Autor twierdzi, że Unia Europejska nie wykorzystuje szans ożywienia WPBiO oraz że w czasie kryzysu na Ukrainie, który wybuchł jesienią 2013 r., i kryzysu migracyjnego w latach 2014–2016 ujawniła się jej zasadnicza słabość. Próbami ożywienia polityki bezpieczeństwa i obrony UE są: Globalna strategia na rzecz polityki zagranicznej i bezpieczeństwa Unii Europejskiej (przyjęta w czerwcu 2016 r.) oraz utworzenie Europejskiego Funduszu Obronnego i ustanowienie inkluzywnego i ambitnego mechanizmu stałej współpracy strukturalnej – PESCO (w czerwcu 2017 r.). Trudno jednak ocenić, w jakim stopniu te ostatnie kroki zmobilizują państwa członkowskie UE do przerwania impasu w polityce bezpieczeństwa i obrony.
EN
The European Union’s security and defense policy in the 21st century has been stagnant. An important cause was the fi nancial crisis of 2008 and the recession that persists in the following years. This stagnation deepened in the years 2014–2016 as a result of the migration crisis and British decision to leave the EU. A factor that is constantly deepening the diffi culties is the rise in Euroscepticism following the enlargement of the EU in 2004. It currently dominates the Visegrad Group countries, including Poland. The paradox of the situation is that in crisis conditions emerged ideas for the creation of the European army. They were also announced by the leading Polish Eurosceptic Jarosław Kaczyński. The constant demand put forward by supporters of the revitalization of the CSDP is the proposal to create an EU operational center (headquarters) to manage crisis management operations. The author argues that the European Union does not exploit the chances of reviving the CSDP and that the EU’s essential weakness has emerged in terms of its security policy during the Ukraine crisis erupted in Autumn 2013 and the migration crisis of 2014-2016. The attempts to revive the EU’s security and defense policy are: A Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy (adopted in June 2016), the establishment a European Defence Found and an inclusive and ambitious Permanent Structured Cooperation – PESCO (both in June 2017). It is hard to expect, however, how this last steps will mobilize the EU member states to break the deadlock in security and defense policy.
Der Beitrag soll die Implikationen der Entwicklung der von der Europäischen Union geführten Europäischen Sicherheits- und Verteidigungspolitik (European Security and Defence Policy – ESDP) für Polen vorstellen. Der Autor teilt die Analyse in drei Bereiche auf: Konzept der ESDP, Bildung der militärischen und zivilen Handlungsfähigkeiten dieser Politik und die von der EU geführten Krisenbewältigungsoperationen (Petersberg-Missionen). Zum Schluss werden die allgemeinen Aufschlüsse für Polen dargestellt.Die 2003 angenommene Europäische Sicherheitsstrategie (European Security Strategy – ESS) wird von dem Autor als ein einheitliches Dokument angesehen, welches die Bedürfnisse der EU begründet und ihre erheblichen Möglichkeiten aufzeigt, zur Stärkung der internationalen Sicherheit beizutragen, die auf internationalem Recht und effektivem Multilateralismus gestützt wird. Der Autor betont, dass die ESS weiterhin ihre Gegenwärtigkeit behält und das Aufnehmen einer Diskussion zu ihrer Revision, was im Sejm von dem Außenminister der Republik Polen Radosław Sikorski im Mai 2008 angekündet wurde, nicht begründet ist. Bemerkenswert ist, dass direkt nach der Erklärung der ESDP von der EU Polen sich von einem wesentlichen Beitrag zur Gründung europäischer Einsatzkräfte zur Durchführung der Petersberger Operationen zurückhielt. Es hat lediglich den Einsatz von ca. 1500 Soldaten vorgeschlagen, die gleichzeitig für NATO-Operationen bereitstanden. Doch ab dem Frühjahr 2004 beginnt Polen an der Errichtung von der EU der „Kampfgruppen“ (battle groups) und später an den Arbeiten der neugegründeten Europäischen Verteidigungsagentur (European Defence Agency) mitzuwirken. Der Beitrag Polens in die Entwicklung der zivilen (polizeilichen und beratenden) Kapazitäten und Fähigkeiten der ESDP bleibt jedoch gering. Polen unterstützte die Initiative von Frankreich, Italien, Spanien, Portugal und Holland zur Gründung der Europäischen Gendarmerietruppe (European Gendarmerie Force – EGF); zur Zeit hat Polen den Partner-Status bei EGF.Polen, als erfahrener Teilnehmer vieler Friedens- und Stabilisierungsmissionen der UNO und NATO, bringt auch zu den militärischen Operationen der Europäischen Union bei. Es beteiligte sich an der Operation Concordia in Mazedonien (2003) und EUFOR RD Congo (2006), und zur Zeit nimmt an der Operation EUFOR Althea in Bosnien und Herzegowina und EUFOR Tchad/RCA in Tschad und der Zentralafrikanischen Republik teil. Polen waren auch an der polizeilichen Mission Proxima in Mazedonien, sind an der Mission in Bosnien und Herzegowina und Afghanistan beteiligt, deren Einsatz wird auch für die Zivilmission in Kosovo geplant. Die Beteiligung an den Zivilmissionen ist jedoch nur symbolisch und unausreichend.Im Allgemeinen befürwortet der Autor die Steigerung des Engagements von Polen in die Entwicklung und Leitung von ESDP, weil dies den Beitrag zur Stärkung dessen Rolle innerhalb der Europäischen Union ermöglicht. Polen sollte die oftmals zum Erschein kommende Politik eines unkritischen Bandwagoning mit den USA nicht mehr vorantreiben, sondern, gerichtet nach eigenem Staatsinteresse, die Mitgliedschaft in der EU und die Verbundenheit mit den USA in der NATO in kluger Politik verbinden.