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Poland Military Cooperation and Exchanges
Poland's pattern of military cooperation changed as
drastically as its political climate in 1989.
Participation in
Warsaw Pact joint exercises ended in 1988, and the Polish
military establishment ended its close working
relationship with
its Soviet counterparts. The April 1990 appointment of
Solidarity
intellectual Janusz Onyszkiewicz as deputy minister of
national
defense for foreign military relations signaled a new
orientation
in the defense establishment. Once the disintegration of
the
Soviet Union altered the geopolitics of all Eastern
Europe,
however, Poland sought new, equal military partnerships
with
Russia and other former Soviet republics. A comprehensive
cooperation treaty completed in late 1991 replaced the
PolishSoviet friendship treaty of 1965, which had legitimized
Soviet
domination of Polish military policy. The new pact, given
urgency
on the Soviet side by the failed coup attempt of August
1991,
rejects all interference in Polish affairs by the current
Soviet
state or by any state that might succeed it.
With the goal of eventual close military relations that
would
guarantee military protection by the West, Poland took
steps to
prove itself a worthy military partner in the early 1990s.
In the
early 1990s, the Polish defense establishment was divided
over
the need for NATO membership because some officials
believed that
move would sacrifice Polish national integrity.
Nevertheless,
long-term military planning aimed at compatibility of
Polish
weaponry and doctrine with that of the West. In 1991
Minister of
National Defense Piotr Kolodziejczyk visited NATO
headquarters to
promote Polish cooperation with the alliance and to
establish
information exchanges on doctrine and military exercises.
Two
months later, Chief of the General Staff General Zdzislaw
Stelmaszuk presented Poland's plans for reorganization of
its
armed forces to the NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe,
General
John Galvin. Poland gained further concessions during
Olszewski's
visit to the United States in early 1992, and during NATO
Secretary General Manfred Woerner's visit to Poland.
In the Persian Gulf War, Poland provided a hospital
ship, a
rescue ship, and a ground field hospital to U.N. forces.
Polish
troops were among U.N. peacekeeping forces in Croatia and
Bosnia
and Hercegovina in 1991-92. In 1992 the Polish navy was
scheduled
to participate with the Russian navy in a joint NATO
exercise in
the Baltic Sea. Beginning in 1990, Polish officers and
civilian
officials of the Ministry of National Defense attended
Western
military academies. The aim was to gain familiarity with
Western
military practice and to identify the defensive systems
most
appropriate for Poland's new international position.
Before the collapse of the Warsaw Pact in 1991,
security
specialists from the Visegrád Triangle member nations (the
CSFR,
Hungary, and Poland) discussed military cooperation to
supplement
the economic and political programs already underway
(see
Southern Neighbors and the Visegrád Triangle, ch. 4).
National
security cooperation within the grouping had already
included
decades of Warsaw Pact joint military exercises, use of
standardized Soviet weapons, organization, and tactics,
negotiation as a bloc for favorable arms purchase prices
and
joint licensing agreements for their arms industries, and
collaboration in 1988-89 in demanding a restructured
Warsaw Pact.
Beginning in 1991, the Visegrád Triangle nations arranged
group
purchases of equipment from Western suppliers to reduce
per-unit
cost. The defense industries of Poland and the CSFR also
began
coproduction of specific armaments in 1991.
The common objective that emerged in the Visegrád talks
was
regional stability based on links with existing European
security
systems and complete abolition of neutral buffer zones and
opposing security sectors. The Visegrád Triangle nations
extended
their economic rationale to strategic doctrine, seeking
integration into West European groupings by presenting a
united
security position to organizations such as NATO and the
CSCE.
According to that position, security depended on the
broadest
possible European integration, eliminating formal
bilateral and
multilateral military alliances that excluded parts of the
continent
(see Foreign Relations
, ch. 4).
Data as of October 1992
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