Posted on 09/16/2011 12:23:53 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Polish foreign minister Radek Sikorski in a private conversation with US diplomats in 2008 said that Germany protects Russian interests in Nato in return for access to the Russian market.
According to a US cable recently published by Wikileaks, Sikorski, in a conversation with the then US under secretary for global affairs Paula Dobriansky in Warsaw on 23 April 2008 "Wryly commented that many accused Poland of being the US Trojan horse in the EU when it joined in 2004, but there is another Trojan horse in Nato".
The cable went on: "Asked what the US strategy should be towards Germany and Russia, Sikorski responded that Germany appears to have a deal with Russia. 'They'll play with Russia and in return German companies will get hundreds of billions of euros of business there, a pretty good deal'."
Sikorski made the comment after Germany opposed giving Georgia and Ukraine a Membership Action Plan (MAP) at a Nato summit in Bucharest.
The Nato decision came shortly before the Russia-Georgia war in the summer of 2008. Several commentators later said a positive MAP decision would have prevented the conflict, which has ended up with Russian occupying two Georgian provinces.
Germany at the time was ruled by a coalition of the centre-right CDU and centre-left SPD parties. The then SPD foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, was openly pro-Russian and is a close associate of former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who now works for the German-Russian gas pipeline firm, Nord Stream.
Polish-German and Polish-Russian relations have warmed up in the past two years.
But Germany in March sided with Russia in abstaining on the UN Security Council vote giving Nato a mandate for Libya air strikes. And Sikorski has a long-established name in EU circles for being outspoken on German-Russian relations.
At a meeting in Brussels in 2006 he compared the German-Russian deal on the Nord Stream pipeline to a secret World War II-era German-Russian pact to carve up Poland. "Poland has a particular sensitivity to corridors and deals above our head ... That was the Molotov-Ribbentrop tradition", he said.
In 2009 Russian newswire Interfax apologised to the Polish minister for misquoting him as having said that Poland wants US troops to be stationed on its soil to act "as a shield against Russian aggression".
While the quote was incorrect, other cables in the massive Wikileaks cache slowly coming to light indicate that Sikorski's thinking goes precisely along this line.
Speaking to US diplomats in May 2009 on the subject of relocating US soldiers from their Cold War bastion in Germany to Poland, the minister said: "As a 'border state' with Russia, Poland feels less secure than other Nato members".
In a cable dated 25 November 2009, he said: "In the event of a Russian attack against Crimea or another part of Ukraine, Poland would find it difficult to stand by. Although he recognised that the probability of such an attack was low, he alluded to Soviet actions in 1956, when Moscow took advantage of US distraction in the Middle East by sending Soviet tanks into Budapest".
In a cable dated 12 November 2009, he "Quoted [former US secretary of state] Zbigniew Brzezinski, who observed that what really assured Germany during the Cold War was not [the Nato treaty's mutual defence clause] Article 5, but the presence of 300,000 American troops. Sikorski emphasised that 'We have, at the latest count, six American troops' in Poland, not including US embassy staff in Warsaw".
Sure. You can’t trust Germany. Halt the presses.
What’s more important is the whole Wikileaks thing. I like to see this information. But at the same time I know that it is devestating for the US. Countries now cannot tell us ANYTHING because they know it will appear in the New York Times one day.
This is a huge intelligence coup for America’s enemies.
And I for one pin it squarely on the current administration. They knowingly did this.
Ribbentrop rides again? I thought we hanged his *ss at Nurenberg?
It would be far more productive to think why Russia and Germany are forging direct links instead of working through Poland.
The Nord Stream pipeline is routed on the bottom of the Baltic Sea. It is clearly more expensive to build an underwater pipeline than a land-based one. Why did they do it underwater, bypassing Baltic states and Poland? Mr. Sikorski can take a cookie once he figures out the answer.
The real deal here is that Russia is a reliable supplier of a product, and Germany is a reliable consumer of that product. Germany is the leader of the EU pack however you put it; they still know how to do things despite all that creeping socialism in Europe. Germany is practically the only country (and France, perhaps) that Russia can deal with; the rest are paper tigers on clay feet (see Greece.)
Once it is understood, what role would Poland want to play in that game? Can Poland add some value to the deal? Sure it could, were it rock solid politically. But it really isn't. The country oscillates between different shades of dislikes - they hate Germany for utterly destroying them 70 years ago, and they hate Russia for "saving" them (by forcing socialism upon them) for most of the time after that, and for other sins. Hate, however, is not a productive feeling. Neither Russia nor Germany, on the level of individual businessmen, wants to deal with people who hate them.
Poland would do well if it looks at the example of Germany. One would think that no bitterest enemy may exist in Europe after what Germany did in WWII. But the whole world long understood that country is nothing but its people, and people who were guilty are long dead. Several generations changed since then. Whatever Germany is today, it is the today's Germany - not the Germany of Hitler and Hess. Similarly, Stalin is not the leader of Russia anymore, and communists aren't in power since 1990's, and the Emperor Hirohito is occupied elsewhere.
But the sad part is that hate is so much profitable politically... Poland is just a tiny example, and their distrust toward other countries is small. For real examples of hate you can turn to Islamic countries. Those are the real masters of hate. Strong emotions can push people to do things that no sane human would ever do. The weapon of hate is a nuclear bomb of politics; Hitler skillfully used it.
I think Germany can’t always be trusted because they are so fawning toward Russia.
Germany has betrayed Europe and is helping Russia to strangle Europe. Germany will pay dearly for this crime, just as will all who are foolish enough to feed the Russian bear, hoping that it will eat them last.
Of course Modern Poland was created thanks to the efforts of the Germans in 1918.
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