Dhe Polish President Andrzej Duda actually wanted to receive Joe Biden at 2:15 p.m. local time at Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport, about a hundred kilometers from the border with Ukraine. But Duda’s plane had to make an emergency landing in Warsaw due to a technical problem, so the President flew on with a replacement plane – Biden was instead greeted on the runway by Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak. Biden therefore only met his counterpart Duda later in the day.
Joe Biden and Andrzej Duda at their belated meeting in Rzeszów-Jasionka
Source: AP
The US President first got an idea of the humanitarian situation near the Ukrainian border; more than two million refugees have arrived in Poland since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It is the largest part of the approximately three million refugees. Biden then met US soldiers stationed here on NATO’s eastern flank.
It is no coincidence that the American President has come to Rzeszów and will only fly to Warsaw in the early evening, where he is to meet Duda again on Saturday and give a speech. The eastern flank of the alliance is the focus of the USA and its allies – Poland, a member of the EU and NATO, has become a frontline state in recent weeks. The war against Ukraine is raging on the other side of the border, bombs and rocket attacks in western Ukraine, around Lviv, can be seen and heard from Poland.
Biden’s visit is an important sign that the leading power in the West is adamant about its alliance obligations. It is a reinsurance for the Europeans, especially for the East-Central Europeans and the Poles. They are concerned that the war in Ukraine could spill over into their territory.
Detour to NATO’s eastern flank
Biden knows that. His detour to NATO’s eastern flank was therefore a spontaneous addition to his three-day trip to Europe, which had also been organized at short notice. Within a short period of time, special summits of NATO, G7 and EU had been conjured up in Brussels. All of this is more than symbolism: the Russian war against Ukraine has welded the political West together, perhaps more than at any time in its history.
The US President is the key player in this response to violence and bloodshed at the hands of Russian soldiers. Who would have thought that the 79-year-old, once ridiculed for being old, overwhelmed and out of date? But now the US President, who has been familiar with Europe for decades and knows his way around Ukraine, is proving to be the right man at the right time.
Biden is an easy-going man, a communicator in big and small ways, as evidenced by his easy-going dealings with US soldiers at a barber shop at Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport. Surprisingly, he entered the store, greeted each one individually and smirked at the men.
Rarely has the White House called allies and partners as intensively as it has in these times. The goal is always: Western unity, a decisive and unified response to Vladimir Putin’s war. That succeeded. While just a few weeks ago the USA was almost exclusively looking at China and dealing with domestic politics, the transatlantic partnership that was thought to be dead has been revived.
With his war, Putin achieved what US Presidents Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Biden failed to do: get the Germans to finally take alliance defense seriously and spend two percent of their economic output on defense. Washington likes that. At the Brussels summit marathon this week, Biden and Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) also demonstrated a close solidarity.
This is also evident when it comes to energy security. In Brussels, for example, Biden promised to supply Europe with the same amount of liquid gas that it had previously obtained from Russia: “We want to help Europe become independent of Russian gas as quickly as possible.” This year, the USA wants 15 billion cubic meters Also deliver liquid gas to Europe. Germany is planning to build a liquid gas terminal like other European countries such as Poland or Lithuania already have.
Nevertheless, there are differences of opinion. For example, on the question of whether Europe should refrain from all Russian energy imports. Poland and Finland, for example, want that, as does Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Germany, Austria and Italy do not see themselves in a position to do this. But what happens if Putin escalates in Ukraine, possibly using biological or chemical weapons? Then the topic should become more virulent than ever.
There has also recently been a crunch between the USA and Poland. The government in Warsaw wanted to deliver Soviet-designed fighter jets to Ukraine, but via the US base in Ramstein, Germany. In the end, nothing happened, it was a communication disaster, back and forth between Warsaw and Washington.
The delivery of combat aircraft is controversial, with the transfer of such weapons a certain limit could be exceeded. That’s what experts fear. Under no circumstances does Biden want the US and NATO to become warring parties in Ukraine. He has made that clear several times.
Basically, however, the relationship between Warsaw and Washington has become closer. It’s considered a “special relationship” anyway, both countries are important security policy partners, and millions of Poles or Americans of Polish descent live in the United States.
With the election of Biden, however, this relationship cooled noticeably; the national-conservative ruling party Law and Justice (PiS) in Poland had bet on a second term for Donald Trump, with whom they saw themselves ideologically in line. Attempts to use media reform to force a news channel considered critical of the government out of the market further strained Polish-American relations; the broadcaster TVN belongs to the US company Discovery.
All of that seems to be forgotten now. Vice President Kamala Harris visited Warsaw before President Biden, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken was there, as was CIA boss William Burns. In addition, more US troops have been transferred to Poland and the Polish army is receiving more weapons from the US. The Polish-American relationship, this is the understanding on both sides of the Atlantic, is extremely important right now.