ABSTRACT
Engagement of the Polish armed forces (PAF ) in Afghanistan was not the first so considerably challenging operation Polish elites and society were confronted with. For several decades after the Second World War, Poland belonged to the first tier of “providers” of peacekeepers for UN missions (mostly in the Middle East and Africa and later in the Balkans) and this activity was praised highly both by the international community and the Polish public (Markowski 1994; Zuziak 2009). Toward the end of the 1990s, immediately after accession to NATO (March 1999), Poland was eager to grant political support to the intervention the Alliance undertook in Kosovo (April 1999), and later on, to send a task force of 550 people to support the KFOR mission in the Balkans. Simultaneously, several hundred soldiers were also deployed in the Middle East (Lebanon, the Golan Heights). At that time the perception of these decisions among the Polish public opinion was relatively positive, even against the backdrop of controversies many experts raised around the legal basis of the so-called humanitarian intervention in Kosovo. This popular support stemmed from a long tradition of perceiving the Polish military as defensive “liberation forces” or “freedom supporters,” bringing peace and stability to the oppressed communities after prolonged, devastating wars (Madej, Terlikowski, and Górka-Winter 2013). Thus both NATO’s decision to invoke article 5 of the Washington Treaty in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 carnage in the United States, and the subsequent emergence of the anti-terrorist coalition (first outside NATO, and then as part of the NATO ISAF mission, tasked with fighting al-Qaeda and the Taleban) was received with a profound understanding by Polish society. Nonetheless, several years later popular support for this mission has all but evaporated, and yet – as this chapter will argue – this turnaround was not rooted solely in the developments around this particular mission. There were other important factors, aside from the communication strategy (or lack of thereof ), which were shaping the attitude of the Polish public toward the much-prolonged engagement of the PAF in Afghanistan. On the whole, involvement in the ISAF operation coincided with a serious reconsideration of the
assumptions that underlie Polish security and defense policy, a shift in the perception of Poland’s role in NATO, as well as with a growing uneasiness about the trajectory of the so-called strategic partnership between Poland and the United States. The complicated history of Polish-U.S. relations following Poland’s accession to NATO, especially the participation in the U.S.-led Iraqi Freedom operation, were arguably key in influencing the attitudes of both society and the decision-makers toward the rules of Poland’s engagement in foreign deployments, ISAF included. As the chapter will argue, while the strategic narrative surrounding Poland’s involvement in the NATO effort in Afghanistan has never been strong (in terms of its coherence and clarity) Polish authorities nonetheless managed to achieve two main goals crucial from the point of view of national security interests. First, the well-voiced decision about augmenting (since 2007) the Polish presence in Afghanistan helped to strengthen Poland’s political position in NATO. Second, the message targeted at internal public, crafted in a slightly different way, largely diffused public discontent with the prolonged presence in Afghanistan and resulted in a situation in which the fact of Polish engagement in Afghanistan never became an issue which weakened the political standing of the government. The main challenge for the political elites responsible for undertaking a decision about ISAF engagement was to moderate a growing public discontent over sustaining a Polish presence in Afghanistan and, at the same time, showing its deep commitment for the Alliance mission, which was seen as crucial for securing its image as a security-provider for its member states. In this chapter there are several crucial issues, which will be discussed. First, a short description of Polish involvement (both military and civilian) will be provided as a background for further political analysis of the premises of the government to send such a substantial force to the NATO mission in Afghanistan. Second, the most important objective motives lying behind this decision will be highlighted. And, third, the evolution of strategic narratives and counternarratives are to be analyzed, with assessing their strength and level of influence on gaining (or losing) public support for this particular endeavor.
