Without question, America’s two closest allies in Europe are Poland and Britain. And whether one is an American scholar of security affairs or a U.S. government official, it is almost always the case that when going into meetings with other European "allies," the American will feel more confident about the meeting going well knowing a Polish colleague is there to help. There is plenty that ties the two countries together--Polish immigration to America, populations that are more religious than other Western democracies and, most of all, great mutual respect for each other’s role in bringing the Soviet empire to a peaceful end. It was hardly a surprise then when the vast majority of Americans supported Poland’s membership in NATO in the late 1990s.

Resident Scholar Gary J. Schmitt

However, alliances are like marriages. And, as someone wise once said, "Men and women get married for one reason; they stay married for others."

Poland, of course, has been a reliable NATO partner, and U.S. ally. Where many of America’s major European allies avoided sending troops to help in Iraq, Poland quickly volunteered to do so. It has played a key role, for example, in training Iraq’s 8th Army Division and, in response to the call from NATO’s leaders to bolster forces fighting the insurgency in Afghanistan, it has committed to deploy some 1000 of its best soldiers to that fight. This in addition to the peacekeeping troops it has volunteered for the Golan Heights and, more recently, the Congo. And, unlike many of its European neighbors, Poland has committed itself to boost defense expenditures, modernize its forces and increase their expeditionary capabilities.

All that said, there are problems that need to be addressed if the Polish-American relationship is to continue to be as healthy as it has been in the past.

Among the most pressing problems Poland faces is Russia’s effort to use its energy dominance to revitalize its sway over post-Soviet countries and bankroll its military modernization program. Buying natural gas in Central Asia at well below market prices, Moscow then turns around and sells the same gas in Europe at multiple times the original cost. The profits, in turn, are literally fueling renewed Russian nationalism. Long before Vladimir Putin appeared on stage as a possible Russian president, he was writing that the key to Russia "regaining its former might" was its role as provider of energy resources to Europe and the world.

As an example of its willingness to throw its growing power around, Gazprom cut off Ukraine’s gas supplies last winter. Not long after that, the major gas pipeline feeding Georgia from Russia inexplicably blew up. In both cases, two young democracies, both following Poland’s democratic lead and looking to the West, had frustrated Gazprom’s efforts to gain control of their pipeline assets. (Ukraine’s pipeline is the main route for transporting gas to Europe, while Georgia was becoming a key transit route through the Caucuses.) Russian officials argued that Ukraine was paying far less than the global market price for the natural gas they were allowed to siphon off from the pipeline. But of course Moscow had nothing to say about the fact that Gazprom was providing Belarus and its puppet-leader Alexander Lukashenko gas at even lower prices.

This is a problem that Poland cannot handle on its own. And, frankly, while the U.S. has been pushing to create new and diverse pipeline delivery systems from Central Asia to help break up Gazprom’s market dominance, it has not pushed hard enough with its other European allies to address this looming strategic problem. Western European countries are still too willing to sign long-term contracts with Gazprom to supply their gas; they are still too eager to pay billions of dollars to Gazprom in exchange for non-controlling interests in developing Gazprom’s own Russian gas fields; and they are so far unwilling to insist that in exchange for these decisions and discussions about possible Russian WTO membership, Moscow first sign on the world Energy Charter, a treaty that would force Gazprom to open up its own market and increase fair competition in the energy sector.

Energy security for both the United States and Poland is tied to the rise of a global market for natural gas. A global, competitive market would provide a diversification of supplies that should be the cornerstone of our energy security policy. As then First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill remarked on the risks involved in his decision to shift the British fleet’s principal fuel from coal to oil, "Safety and certainty in oil lie in variety and variety alone."

A second challenge Poland and the United States face is the state of the NATO alliance. In 2002, polls showed that 64% of Poles believed that NATO was essential for their country’s security. In 2006, however, that number has dropped to 48%. When it comes to the EU, however, recent polls show that 51% of Poles think that the EU should strengthen its military power in order to play a larger role in the world. This trend is not surprising, even if problematic. It follows trends in other European states, whether a country is a new member of the EU or not. On a daily basis, the impact of EU membership on the average Pole is far greater than that of NATO membership.

But the reality is that if Europeans want the U.S. to consider their opinions seriously when it comes to security matters, the best and most effective forum for doing so is one where the U.S. has a seat at the table. Moreover, with declining defense budgets across the continent there are not sufficient resources or bureaucratic energy to both keep NATO strong and create an effective EU military capability.  Poland’s leaders will need to continue to make the point to its citizens that the long-term security of Poland rests more with the U.S. and NATO than the economically-important but security-deficient European Union.

Finally, the U.S. and Poland must not let the push for democracy in Poland’s neighboring states waiver in the face of setbacks or the push-back that is coming from Moscow. With the U.S. facing a multitude of other problems on the world stage, it will be all too easy for Washington to let this part of its policy agenda slip as a priority. Warsaw will need to press Washington to continue efforts to keep Ukraine’s democratic revolution headed in the right direction. While Ukrainians themselves will need to want to be part of the West, the U.S. and Poland can certainly do a lot to keep that possibility open and attractive.

Similarly, we can’t forget the people of Belarus, a country U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has described as "the last remaining outpost of tyranny in Europe." Lukashenko’s repressive regime is also becoming a strategic problem, serving as a "covert" supplier of Russian monies and military material for countries with whom Moscow would not want to be seen as openly dealing.  There will be no easy or fast solution to Belarus; but both Warsaw and Washington should remember that there was no easy or fast solution to freeing Eastern and Central Europe.

Alliances need to be nurtured. Sometimes, as during the Cold War, they rest on obvious and vital mutual strategic interests. At those times, keeping an alliance in good order is a much easier task. Everyone, as we say in the U.S., is "on the same page." But, of course, that is not today’s situation. The U.S. and its NATO allies face a variety of threats but each faces those mutual threats in different ways and in different magnitudes. What is vital to the U.S. and its global responsibilities will, at times, vary from what its allies consider vital. Smart statesmen will realize this and adjust accordingly. Allies should learn, at times, to defer to their allies’ vital interests--and vice versa. In the absence of that give and take, tensions between allies are bound to grow and the relationship sour.

And, as close as Polish and American relations are, Washington has been a bit slow to see that maintaining the relationship will require more effort on its part. Take, for example, the possibility that Poland will accept having on its territory a key U.S. missile defense site. Obviously, an improved capacity of the U.S. to fend off ballistic missiles is something that benefits not only the U.S. but its allies as well. If the U.S. is under threat of missile attack, it can’t help but be a less robust and dependable ally to its democratic friends. That said, if the Polish government allows a missile defense site to be built in Poland, it is also perfectly clear--and Moscow has said as much--that Russia will consider such a decision to be an unfriendly act. We, in Washington, shouldn’t assume that this is something that Poles should accept as a matter of course.

Poland currently receives almost one-third of U.S. Foreign Military Financing (FMF) monies that go to Europe. This level of assistance looks good, until one sees that countries like Jordan, Egypt and Pakistan receive substantially more.

Of course, no one wants to measure Polish and American friendship in terms of levels of monetary assistance. Poles appreciate the role the U.S. played in helping them gain their freedom. Likewise, as Secretary of State Rice said in meeting Polish Prime Minister Kaczynski this week in Washington, Americans deeply admire the fact that Poland has been a "fierce fighter in the defense of freedom." But both Warsaw and Washington have to be careful that we don’t take that mutual admiration for granted or believe that it is sufficient to make "our marriage" a lasting one.

Gary J. Schmitt is a resident scholar at AEI. Rebecca Weissburg is a research assistant at AEI.