Foreign Policy covers Polish FM Sikorski's statements at the Munich Security Conference: Don't even try to become a hegemon

"Germany cannot be said to be said to be similar to the United States [in the post WWII period]," Sikorski said. "The position of benign hegemon for Germany is not attainable, and therefore I would propose your actual position in the EU, which is a very honorable one, is the position of the largest shareholder."

When he was a senator, Barack Obama was criticized for failing to convene a single policy meeting of the Senate European subcommittee, of which he was chairman. In January 2008 I wrote the post: Barack Obama's Lack of Real Interest in Transatlantic Cooperation

Now, one year after his election, Obama is very popular in Europe, especially in Western Europe, even though he "has done much less for Europe than his predecessor," argues Dr. James Joyner of the Atlantic Council:

Despite George W. Bush's defiant "you're with us or you're against us" public stance, he actively solicited advice and input from his NATO partners. Obama, by contrast, is saying all the right things in public about transatlantic relations and NATO but adopting a high-handed policy and paying little attention to Europe.

And many important working-level posts in both the State Department and the National Security Council (NSC) are unfilled, says James Joyner:

James Joyner of the Atlantic Council was wondering the other day, if the United States are now Losing New Europe, Too?

Bush lost Old Europe with the Iraq war, the argument seems to be. And now Obama's "Reset" policy with Russia annoys New Europe. James cites the Economist with "After two decades of sometimes fervent Atlanticism in the ex-communist world, disillusionment (some would call it realism) is growing" and points to the recent Transatlantic Trends survey by the German Marshall Fund, which suggests that "the ascent of Barack Obama has boosted America's image in most [European] countries, but only modestly in places like Poland and Romania."

And all that was before Obama decided to scrap the missile defense plans for Poland and the Czech Republic. Let's get ready for some angry responses from all Central and Eastern European countries in the next few days.

US Blogger Greg Lawson asks on atlantic-community.org whether Obama abandoning Eastern Europe?:

This, ultimately, raises the question of why President Obama would essentially throw two allies (who used to suffer under Soviet puppet regimes) under the bus.  Those who know history understand that both the Czech Republic and Poland have been cast aside by Great Powers on any number of past occasions as part of the old school (and by no means dead) balance of power thinking.

At the end of an article on New Europe, James Joyner adds some optimism on US relations with "Old Europe." He thinks they "will return to what they have been for the postwar period: a mature engagement between peers that will ebb and flow as the situation warrants."

I don't think Western Europe and the United States were peers during the Cold War. And we are still not peers, which is the cause for many current frictions. Europeans, especially Germans, very much want the US to consider them as peers, but government and public opinion are not yet ready to share the burden in foreign and defense policy. And the US might not be prepared to treat Europeans as equals either.

German Prof Gunter Hellmann just published an excellent short essay on the history of the federal republic's desire for "equal status" at AICGS:  "A Status-Conscious Germany between Adolescence and Retirement"

James finishes with "Such a relationship can withstand sharp disagreements, angry words, and hurt feelings.  Resentments and rifts will occasionally arise but they will be temporary.  Our shared values and interests, however, are permanent." What do you think?

It's the first open letter of this kind since 1989. A group of former heads of state, heads of government, and cabinet ministers from Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Romania, the Slovak Republic and the Czech Republic warn President Obama that their close alliance with United States is undergoing a severe test:

Twenty years after the end of the Cold War, however, we see that Central and Eastern European countries are no longer at the heart of American foreign policy. As the new Obama Administration sets its foreign-policy priorities, our region is one part of the world that Americans have largely stopped worrying about. Indeed, at times we have the impression that U.S. policy was so successful that many American officials have now concluded that our region is fixed once and for all and that they could "check the box" and move on to other more pressing strategic issues. Relations have been so close that many on both sides assume that the region's transatlantic orientation, as well as its stability and prosperity, would last forever.

That view is premature. All is not well either in our region or in the transatlantic relationship. Central and Eastern Europe is at a political crossroads and today there is a growing sense of nervousness in the region.

The open letter is published in English in Gazeta Wyborcza via Atlantic-community.org's Top Press Commentary section.

At my day job at Atlantic Community, we have published quite a few interesting articles on US-Polish issues. Polish perspectives are under-reported in the German and American mass media, but they are important because Poland is one of Europe's bigger countries, is considered very Pro-American and was seen as the primary "New Europe" country, a term that is less frequently used these days, but is still controversial.

Marek Swierczynski, a journalist at the Polish TV channel TVP, reflects on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war:

Poland's decision to join the "coalition of the willing" has left the military stretched beyond capacity, the society in serious mistrust of their leaders and perception of a joint effort for a good cause seriously damaged. It took 25 lives 5 years and 3 governments to rethink and withdraw.

Ryan R. Miller of the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) in Washington, DC. writes about Poland's Iran Option:

Possible Polish-Iranian energy cooperation puts U.S. policy makers between a rock and a hard place, as America finds itself committed both to isolating the Islamic Republic and supporting Polish efforts to outflank Russia's Gazprom.

Wess Mitchell, who is the Director of Research at CEPA, outlines recent developments between the United States and Poland regarding the US missile defense program. He concludes that relations between Poland and Russia are likely to deteriorate and Tusk may have compromised himself by acting so decisively this early in his term: Missile Defense: Poland Has Less Room to Maneuver.

Anna Nadgrodkiewicz sums up contentious issues in Polish-American relations: Polish troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, the necessity of easing visa requirements, and the proposed missile defense shield. See her article Managing Image and Expectations.

Marek Swierczynski  sees NATO at a Crossroad in a second article:

Just before the NATO summit in Bucharest, the differences on what and how the Alliance should do in the future seem all but rising on both sides of the Atlantic. The Warsaw conference on NATO's Transformation made fundamental divides clearly visible. (...) The new NATO members seem to live in a Neverland. Professor Kuzniar assessed that the Alliance is the only force of global reach and capabilities. Wrong. There is no such thing as NATO global capability. There is the US global capability and to be more precise it is one of the US Navy.