Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- I Contemporary American Society and Politics
- II Ideologia Americana or Americanism in Action: Transatlantic Encounters
- To Weimar and Back? Poland, the United States, and the Transatlantic Security Space
- A Clash of Expectations: Sorting Out Where East Meets West After The Polish Missile Crisis
- The Polish Missile Crisis: Transatlantic Tensions since 2008 Among Poland, the Ukraine, the United States, and the Russian Federation
- Challenging Americanism: The Public Debate about the “American Way of Life” in Cold-War and Post-Cold-War Greece
- Universal Pictures: Propaganda – Export – Exchange
- III Ideologia Americana or Americanism in Action: Foreign Policy
- IV Ideologia Americana or Americanism in Action: Impact of American Values
- V Ideologia Americana or Americanism in Action: Exceptionalism and Democracy Promotion
- VI Continuity and Change
The Polish Missile Crisis: Transatlantic Tensions since 2008 Among Poland, the Ukraine, the United States, and the Russian Federation
from II - Ideologia Americana or Americanism in Action: Transatlantic Encounters
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- I Contemporary American Society and Politics
- II Ideologia Americana or Americanism in Action: Transatlantic Encounters
- To Weimar and Back? Poland, the United States, and the Transatlantic Security Space
- A Clash of Expectations: Sorting Out Where East Meets West After The Polish Missile Crisis
- The Polish Missile Crisis: Transatlantic Tensions since 2008 Among Poland, the Ukraine, the United States, and the Russian Federation
- Challenging Americanism: The Public Debate about the “American Way of Life” in Cold-War and Post-Cold-War Greece
- Universal Pictures: Propaganda – Export – Exchange
- III Ideologia Americana or Americanism in Action: Foreign Policy
- IV Ideologia Americana or Americanism in Action: Impact of American Values
- V Ideologia Americana or Americanism in Action: Exceptionalism and Democracy Promotion
- VI Continuity and Change
Summary
The Polish Missile Crisis of 2009 brought to the forefront some transatlantic tensions among Poland, the Ukraine, the United States of America, and the Russian Federation. These tensions erupted and became exacerbated in 2008 when the Russian Federation invaded parts of the Republic of Georgia. In the immediate aftermath of the Georgian conflict, Poland rushed to sign a “Missile Defense Agreement” offered by the United States but that the Russian Federation vehemently opposed. The Russian Federation threatened that if Poland went forward with its plan to install American missiles along its border with Russia, then Russia would install its own missiles within its Baltic Fleet naval base in Kaliningrad, and aim these at bordering Poland. That would jeopardise the European Union Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP).
Upon becoming the United States President, Barack H. Obama agreed secretly with the Russian Federation's president Dimitry A. Medvedev to unilaterally abandon its agreement with Poland. The next day, Medvedev went public with Obama's secret, humiliating Poland on the 70th anniversary to the day on which the Soviet Union invaded Poland, 17 September 1939, and evidencing that the White House had become a foreign policy kindergarten.
This paper proposes that the Russian Federation ought rightfully to retain the leases of its naval bases on the Crimean peninsula, but in return must vacate its occupation of Konigsberg (Kaliningrad). The reasons are parallel. Historically, the Crimea was Russian territory, but Konigsberg belonged at different times to Germany, Lithuania, Livonia, and Poland.
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- Chapter
- Information
- The United States and the WorldFrom Imitation to Challenge, pp. 101 - 114Publisher: Jagiellonian University PressPrint publication year: 2009