Opinia.US SAN FRANCISCO — An article in the U.S. semi-official military newspaper Stars and Stripes suggests that the Obama administration’s plan for placing a limited number of Patriot missiles in Poland has no military significance and is being implemented largely for diplomatic reasons to appease Warsaw after President Obama scrapped President Bush’s far more ambitious anti-ballistic missile defense system. …
TedLipien.com, SAN FRANCISCO — Speaking softly to dictators while insulting faithful allies seems to be the essence of President Obama’s confused diplomacy. The Obama administration has repeatedly offended Poland’s pride in recent months, making Polish officials extremely suspicious and anxious about foreign policy and military commitments of the new U.S. administration. First, President Obama made public his strong desire…
TedLipien.com, SAN FRANCISCO — In angry late-night phone calls to reporters last week, State Department diplomats were defending careless comments by President Obama’s new ambassador in Warsaw, Lee A. Feinstein, who revealed on Polish TV the content of sensitive negotiations with the U.S. about increasing the number of Polish troops in Afghanistan. Polish officials had good reasons to keep this…
Public Diplomacy
U.S. Embassy blames diplomatic gaffe on a Polish translator but a problem runs much deeper
TedLipien.com, SAN FRANCISCO — Bill Clinton might have asked what the “enhanced” definition of “to enhance” IS? The U.S. Embassy in Warsaw is busy blaming a Polish translator for mistranslating U.S. Ambassador Lee Feinstein’s TV interview answer about Polish troops in Afghanistan, which caused a diplomatic uproar in Poland. In an interview broadcast last Saturday, Ambassador Feinstein thanked Polish prime minister and…
Opinia.US SAN FRANCISCO — U.S. media has not yet picked up on the latest diplomatic controversy between Poland and the U.S. But the public disagreement between president Obama’s new ambassador in Warsaw Lee A. Feinstein and the Polish defense minister over plans to send additional Polish troops to Afghanistan is drawing media attention in Poland. Ambassador Feinstein made a…
Opinia.US SAN FRANCISCO — It is not a good time for Poland in Washington and in U.S. media. The New York Times covered Vice President Biden’s visit to Warsaw from Berlin. It could have been worse; the report could have been filed from Moscow or the paper could have used a short AP story, as did The Washington Post, The…
Poland, Public Diplomacy, Russia
Obama’s bad foreign policy decisions may have good unintended consequences for public discourse in the U.S.
SAN FRANCISCO — Sometimes really bad decisions produce some unintended good results. Two recent public diplomacy disasters caused by President Obama’s questionable judgement — where was Judith McHale and the State Department diplomats? — had some unexpected good consequences, as did the winning of the Nobel Peace Prize despite his lack of any concrete foreign policy accomplishments. Some of his recent…
Cold War, History, Poland, Russia
Ambassador Arthur Bliss Lane’s warning about naive idealism in foreign policy
SAN FRANCISCO — Arthur Bliss Lane (16 June 1894–12 August 1956) was the United States Ambassador to Poland (1944–1947). He served earlier as the U.S. Ambassador to the wartime Polish government-in-exile in London and was with the U.S. diplomatic mission in Poland in 1919. During the interwar period, he had a number of other diplomatic assignments in Western Europe and…
Opinia.US SAN FRANCISCO — Without naming Russia, Dr. Brzezinski said that an outside power is trying to undermine the electoral process in Ukraine before next year’s presidential elections. He concluded that a pro-Western Ukraine would be good for Russia. The interview was conducted by Myroslava Gongadze for the Voice of America Ukrainian Service. Koniec wiadomości/analizy Opinia.US. Można…
Opinia.US SAN FRANCISCO — Lee A. Feinstein, nowy ambasador Stanów Zjednoczonych w Polsce, przybył do Warszawy 13 października. Rozpoczyna on pracę w atmosferze poważnego kryzysu, wywołanego decyzją Prezydenta Obamy o wycofaniu z Polski antyrakietowej tarczy obronnej. Obawy i podejrzenia w Warszawie znacznie pogłębiło dyplomatyczne fiasko ogłoszenia decyzji 17 września, w 70-tą rocznicę inwazji ZSSR na Polskę.
Brak wystarczających konsultacji i wykonywane w środku nocy telefony Prezydenta Obamy do przywódców środkowoeuropejskich można uznać za dodatkowy dowód, że był to jednen z najbardziej niefortunnych błędów dyplomacji amerykańskiej w ostatnich latach.
Ambasador Feinstein ma przed sobą niełatwe zadanie naprawy stosunków polsko-amerykańskich. Jeszcze przed jego przyjazdem do Polski, w geście bezprecendensowej śmiałości jak na amerykańską placówkę dyplomatyczną, Ambasada Stanów Zjednoczonych w Warszawie przyznała w wiadomości opublikowanej po angielsku i po polsku na swej oficjalnej stronie internetowej, że zdaniem Polaków wybór “tak niezręcznej pory” — jak to określiła ambasada — na ogłoszenie decyzji Białego Domu o zmianie podjętego przez prezydenta Busha planu budowy tarczy antyrakietowej w Polsce świadczy o tym, że “Obama nie rozumie Polski.”