”We are most happy about the decision concerning Kucova Air Base in Albania and we hope that there will be positive signals as to not only rotational but a permanent US military presence and base in Poland, which our president symbolically called “Fort Trump” and for which we are ready to pay our share of a couple of billion USD,” said Ambassador Karol Bachura
By Genc Mlloja
Senior Diplomatic Editor
TIRANA – “The day of Poland joining NATO was a breakthrough in Polish history. It finally closed the period of political division in Europe to those who were on the free side and those who were not after the Second World War,” has said Polish Ambassador to Tirana Karol Bachura.
Mr. Bachura made that comment in the opening remarks of a public discussion and presentation of the publication “NATO: 1949-1999-2019, the 20 Years of Poland in the 70 Years of the Alliance” which was organized in Tirana on September 25 by the Warsaw based the Foundation Institute for Eastern Studies and Albanian Institute for International Studies and was attended by political and military researchers, politicians, foreign diplomats and journalists. The publication, which contains six contributions, was co-financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland in the framework of the grant programme: “Cooperation in the field of public diplomacy 2019”, and the views expressed in these articles are those of the authors , and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Polish foreign ministry.
“NATO became one of the main pillars of Polish security. We have a security situation in Poland not known for generations,” Ambassador Bachura said quoting NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg as stating: “Over the past years, Poland has evolved from a new Ally into a leading Ally.”
On February 11, 1999, the Polish parliament gave its permission for the Washington Treaty to be ratified by the Polish president. A month later, on March 12, in the town of Independence, Missouri, Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary were officially accepted as members of NATO. The Foreign Ministers of Poland (Bronisław Geremek), Czech Republic (Jan Kavan) and Hungary (Janos Martonyi) handed the ratification instruments to Madeleine Albright, the then Secretary of State of the US. Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary were the first former Warsaw Pact members to join NATO, which was created on the 6th of April 1949 at the dawn of the Cold War.
“In 2016, we organized the NATO Warsaw Summit with priority of Eastern Flank strengthening,” said Mr. Bachura. Further on he quoted the former US President Barack Obama, who attended the Summit as saying: “Here in Warsaw, we haven’t simply reaffirmed our enduring Art 5 obligations to our common security; we’re moving forward with the most significant reinforcement of our collective defense anytime since the cold war.”
Ambassador Bachura noted that “Today we have a NATO umbrella and can sleep more calmly. If Ukraine, Crimea Donbas and Lughansk happened without Poland and Baltic in NATO it would be a dramatic situation.” According to him, over the years the Polish threat concerns about Russia where often considered by some as rusophobia. “However events in Georgia in 2008, and later the 2014 invasion in Ukraine, annexation of Crimea, forceful act on Donetsk, Lughansk unfortunately proved our critics wrong.”
With regard to the further expansion of the Alliance, he noted that his country has been openly vocal on its expansion being the sole organization which proved to be the exporter of stabilization, peace and democracy.
In a comment on the essential need for growth of NATO and US presence in certain parts of the old continent, Warsaw’s top envoy to Tirana made the following comment: ”We are most happy about the decision concerning Kucova Air Base in Albania and we hope that there will be positive signals as to not only rotational but a permanent US military presence and base in Poland, which our president symbolically called “Fort Trump” and for which we are ready to pay our share of a couple of billion USD.”
In addition Mr. Bachura said that Poland as well as Albania have proven to be trustworthy and reliable allies. He quoted Albanian President Ilir Meta as saying: “NATO remains the most attractive alliance for peace and stability in our region, on our continent and beyond.”
In conclusion of his remarks Ambassador Bachura said: “The world would have more faults if there was no NATO in place. If there was no NATO in place we would most probably have to invent it in order for the humanity not to head to annihilation. So let us not hesitate to rebut those who would diminish the role of our alliance, dispute its values, or downplay the importance of its unity and preparedness.”
NATO’s Past and Future in Eyes of Researchers
Introducing the publication “NATO: 1949-1999-2019”, Anna Kurowska, Programme Manager for the Balkans at the Warsaw-based Institute for Eastern Studies said the year 2019 is an anniversary year both for Poland and NATO as it marks 20 years of Poland’s membership in the Alliance and the 70th birthday of the Alliance itself. According to her, this double anniversary provides an opportunity to take a closer look at NATO’s past and future and at Poland’s Atlantic Alliance’s collective defense system. Ms. Kurowska wished that these double anniversaries are an opportunity to recall the purpose of NATO, to look at its current condition as well as to reflect on the future of NATO and Poland’s contribution into its development.
In her remarks Alba Cela, Deputy Director of Albanian Institute for International Studies, spoke of the significance of the 70th anniversary of the creation of NATO, which, according to her, is very important as an alliance guaranteeing security. In the contribution co-authored by Ms. Alba Cela and Ledion Krisafi, researcher at Albanian Institute for International Studies, included in the publication “NATO: 1949-1999-2019”, it is noted that Albania is one of the cases that demonstrates the success of NATO’s enlargement policy. “The membership has both anchored Albania in the community of democratic countries and deeply transformed its military capacities.”
Albania was officially invited to join NATO during the Summit in Bucharest (April 2, 2008) and received full membership at the Strasbourg & Kehl Summit on April 1, 2009 in a move seen by many to be of historical significance finalizing the efforts and aspirations for membership in NATO of this Balkan country. Today NATO and Albania cooperate in a range of areas, with a particular emphasis on defense and security sector reform, as well as support for wider democratic and institutional reform.
In addition it was highlighted in the above article that NATO should continue the open- door policy towards the other Balkan countries: Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina. “Having established its Security Forces, Kosovo considers itself a viable candidate, even though it faces the hurdle of not being recognized as a state by several NATO members. Kosovo’s NATO aspiration cannot therefore be fulfilled until the ultimate solution of its status issue.”
Albania’s ten years in the Alliance, it was said, has seen two major changes in its army, namely modernization and participation in foreign missions in the framework of NATO and UN. It was concluded that NATO membership has deeply transformed the politics and security considerations in Albania, a country where trust and support for the Alliance are high.
Speaking of the importance of NATO for security and peace, Plator Kalakula, an official of NATO Directorate at Albania’s foreign ministry pointed out that the threat from the East is greater than that from the South to Europe. He was of the opinion that member countries should meet the 2 percent quota for the Alliance’s budget. Saying that the future is uncertain, Kalakula was skeptic that EU might have its army like the one which NATO has. In his view it is difficult to say if such an initiative is political or military.
In her article entitled “20 years of Poland in NATO, the history and the future” Kinga Redlowska, Programme Director at the Institute for Eastern Studies, dwelt on some crucial issues linked with the Alliance and Poland’s attitude. Special stress was put on the future of NATO from the Polish perspective.
“Every military alliance is always as strong as the engagement of its members is,” Ms. Redlowska said drawing the attention to the diverging interests of its members, the equivocal approach of the US towards it as well as the inability to respond quickly enough to the major geopolitical changes globally. “Donald Trump likes to emphasize that Europe is a main beneficiary of the American defense budget, whereas the European states themselves are reluctant to meet the defense spending pledge of 2 percent of GDP. Such comments by President Trump undermine the previously obvious need for the American security involvement in Europe. Meanwhile, some EU politicians call for a ‘two-speed Europe’, especially to some policies of Poland and Hungary.”
Given the changes mentioned above it remains unclear for now, according to Redlowska’s point of view, the future of NATO. “It is important to remember that the key to the majority of the Alliance’s problems lies in Europe and not in the US. In the end, it will be up to European politicians to decide on the shape of the European defense structures for the years to come,” she said. Meanwhile, she believes that Poland can play an important role in this process if it has enough political power and will to defend its standpoint.
“Today, NATO’s presence on what the Kremlin regards as Russia’s doorstep is the major obstacle to a rapprochement between Moscow and the West,” underscored Donald Jensen, Editor-in-Chief and Senior Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis where he oversees CEPA’s program of research and analysis in his article. The promising cooperation between NATO and Russia back in the early 1990s did suddenly change course- Russia started to consider the Alliance as a threat to its security. According to him, NATO is viewed across the Russian political spectrum as primarily an instrument of US military influence. Given the current developments in the relations between Russia and NATO, Mr. Jensen believes that tensions between them are likely to continue for some time, with Poland remaining on the front line.
Martina Heranova, Program Coordinator of the Prague Center Transatlantic Relations of the CEVRO Institute, and Alexandr Vondra, Member of the European Parliament (ECR Group) since 2019, unveiled the Central European perspective in their joint contribution. At the end of 1990s, only a few days after the countries of this region joined NATO, they took an active part in a military action in Yugoslavia and then in peacekeeping forces in Kosovo, they said. According to them, Central European countries are sensitive to what they perceive as a Russian threat at their eastern frontiers. It was the Central European NATO members who, even before the Russian aggression in Ukraine, warned about possible scenarios in the absence of concrete actions from the Alliance towards Russia, Heranova and Vondra concluded.
NATO persists because its members have no interest in its disappearance, Jean-Vincent Holeindre, Professor of Political Science at the Universite Paris 2 Pantheon-Assas and Scientific Director at the Institute of Strategic Research under the French Ministry of Defense, said in his article published in the publication “NATO: 1949-1999-2019”.
The French Professor reflects on the phenomenon of NATO’s longevity which he attributes to the Alliance’s shared goals, ability to adapt to an evolving geographical context as well as institutional solidity. Holeindre brings up the question of the future of NATO in light of the mounting populist and isolationist tendencies propelled by US President Donald Trump.
His conclusion is that NATO will have hard times fulfilling its mission if it fails to embrace the liberal principles that inspired its creation. “In fact, NATO is not only a political and military tool but also a sounding board for democratic doubts that, unsettlingly, affect first and foremost the core of the Alliance, i.e. the United States.”
The public discussion, which took place in Tirana on September 25, 2019, was followed by an exchange of views between the members of the panel and the participants in the event. The general conclusion was that the role played by NATO in providing security in Europe is unquestionable, but undoubtedly the Alliance will have to go through changes in its structure and goals in the foreseeable future. It was also highlighted that the Alliance will remain as one of the biggest and most manful cooperation projects dedicated to international security.
