Poland’s Security Policy in the Unipolar World Order

Abstract

The first half of the 1990s saw the emergence of a unipolar world order marked by the dominance of the West and the hegemonic position of the United States. The unipolar world order affected Poland’s security policy. During the period of transformations that began in 1989, Poland’s highest priorities were to develop close relations with its neighbors, create new forms of sub-regional cooperation (like the Visegrad Triangle, Council of the Baltic Sea States, Central European Initiative, and Weimar Triangle), strengthen the CSCE-based cooperative security system in Europe, join west-European structures like NATO and the EU, and to establish closer relations with the USA and Western European countries. As the unilateral world order consolidated, the relative importance of those elements changed. The bridging strategy, adopted by Poland during the transition period, was beginning to give way to the aim of joining the NATO alliance and establishing tight relations with its most powerful member. Thus the importance of NATO and close relations with the USA, which became a strategic partner for Poland, grew. The USA’s involvement in European security was seen as crucial in Poland. Seeking to maintain a strong NATO and American presence in Europe, Poland approached the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) with caution and even disinclination. The role of the CSCE/OCSE—an important component of Poland’s security policy in the early 1990s—began to diminish relatively quickly. As the priorities in Polish policy evolved and as differences between the West, especially the USA, and Russia grew toward the end of the 1990s, tensions between Poland and Russia became more pronounced. Poland’s relations with its other Eastern neighbors in the 1990s were also not very satisfactory. While a notable improvement in Polish–Lithuanian relations could be observed in the second half of the 1990s, the status of the Polish minority in Lithuania remained a problem that cast a shadow over the two countries’ relations. Cooperation with Belarus was reduced and diplomatic tensions between Warsaw and Minsk were frequent. Polish–Ukrainian relations were revitalized in 1996 but they were not without problems and were changeable in nature.