WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Poland Is a Model Ally — So Why Are We Undermining It?

Episode Date: April 15, 2025

As Poland doubles down on defense and pro-American values, a public spat risks weakening one of America’s strongest global partnerships.Ed Tarnowski, a national policy expert and a Young Voices contributor, argues the U.S. must treat Poland as the indispensable ally it has proven to be. He joins WRFH to discuss.From 04/14/25.

Hello and welcome. This is WRFH, reading for Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm your host, Malia Tivodeau, here today with Ed Tarnowski, a policy and advocacy director and host of the State of Choice podcast at Ed Choice and a young voices contributor who recently wrote an article for a real clear world, making the case that America should treat Poland as a better ally. Hi, Ed. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having me on. It's a pleasure. Lovely to have you. So what brought this topic to your attention? Yep. So a few weeks back now, Elon Musk was getting into, he had another debate on Twitter. And to start, I have a lot of respect for Elon Musk. I think what he's doing in Tesla. It's all really important work, vital national security. And there's also some admirable things coming out of Doge. However, there was something that he did on Twitter the the other day that wasn't ideal. He essentially was getting into a debate about maybe not, or like a reply back and forth about the importance of Starlink to the Ukrainian army, and he called it the back

with the Ukrainian army, and then applied that he could cripple the war efforts if he were to shut off Starlink. The Polish foreign minister caught wind of this, and then responded also on the same app, just kind of saying essentially that Poland pays a decent share into Ukraine's access to Starlink, and that if it proves unreliable, that they'll have to look for alternative options to Starlink. Elon Musten responded, with some mocking words, Polish foreign minister, calling him a small man, and things of that nature, just very unnecessary, especially when with Poland being such a strong ally, which I'm sure we'll get in shortly.

Do you think things like those Twitter spats reduce how the rest of the world looks at America? I do think there's a risk there, and I think sometimes I do wonder if, I think around the world, people view Elon Musk as a very close. while in some ways unofficial, very close influential advisor to President Donald Trump. And I think sometimes he doesn't realize the weight of his words. So I do think when stats like this are coming up, that it does risk hurting U.S. credibility and trust in our systems, in our alliance, our partnership, and things of that nature. Could some fault for that also be placed on the Polish Foreign Minister for responding, though?

There's certainly a question worth asking, although I do. think like the political foremanistice is being very clear cut and just saying like, hey, like, we just want to make sure that we're paying into this. This is an essential part of Ukraine's military operations. We just want to make sure that this is up and running and kind of put out there that, hey, like, we're paying into this and we may have to look elsewhere. If this proves to be unreliable. But that being said, as it ended, Elon Musk to be affirming that he would keep starting on for Ukraine, which is welcoming news. Right. So, focusing on Poland, a lot of people don't have a really updated view on what Poland is today. Could

you give an overview of it economically, militarily, its place really in the world? Absolutely. So remember, Poland was essentially after the end of World War II, the Soviet Union set up a puppet state, a puppet government in Poland and kind of forced it under its influence into its quote's favorite influence, as would be said at the time. Poland gained its freedom and independent and true independence in 1989, when it was able to hold free and fair elections. And ever since 1989, Poland has been working toward embracing American values, like economic freedom, free expression, freedom of religion, things of that nature. And over that period, Poland has really been an economic miracle. It's on track to surpass Japan and GDP per capita next year, which is really

incredible. And it is setting itself up to be a center or one of the centers of defense to the defense of a free Europe and how it's responding to the Russian threat, how it was responding before, just being very serious about its defense.

Olin spends the most of the percentage of GDP of any NATO member on defense. It spends about 4.12%, I believe, which is more than double the defense requirement. on track to reach nearly 5% spent on defense this year. The Polish prime minister also recently announced plans to increase the size of the country's army from 200,000 to 500,000 and to require

all men to receive military training. And there's a lot of fair criticism of many of our NATO allies not paying what they're supposed to be paying, not paying their fair share into what they should be spending on defense. Considering all the resources that America is putting into it, with those problems, they've proven to be a staunch and reliable ally time and time again. And we should treat them that way and kind of highlight them as being what we're looking for, rather than only being, we had to be critical and highlight those who are falling short, but it's just as important to highlight those who are kind of more of the model. Yeah, definitely. I want to go back to your comment about it embracing American

values. So there's been a lot of dialogue recently with people believe Trump has been alienating a lot of his allies, a lot of America's allies. And people will accuse him of having a more transactionalist foreign policy and disregarding, hey, these people might have the same quote unquote American values, but are they America? Are there other reasons that America and Polish ideals might align. Absolutely. Well, it is directly in America's interest for there to be peace in Europe.

To talk about peace dividends, I mean, the amount of, think about all of the massive amount of wealth that's been brought to this country from there being peace around the world, relative peace in Europe. In the past, since World War II, since NATO's formation,

we've seen arguably the greatest era of relative peace in history, the longest there of relative peace in history to this extent, up until the war in Ukraine, it had prevented a land war in Europe. And just like, they're being relative peace in the world and with partners that are so close to us, trading partners that are so close to us, it allows, you know, free navigation of the seas, trade to move freely, our goods to be sold, and for us to have access to goods we're interested and freely, and this has brought an unprecedented amount of prosperity to America. So it is directly in America's interest to closely align with whether to be peace in Europe and to align with allies

who really want to work to sustain this peace and deter aggressors like Russia from starting war, if that makes sense. Do you think America should focus its strengthening its allyship with Poland and a lot of the Eastern European countries in NATO rather than the Western European ones? I think both are very important. The UK, for example, is a staunch ally, and they've time and time again risen to the occasion. We have seen some others fall short in Western Europe. I do think that Poland and the Baltic states have really stepped up in a way that and have seen Russia for what it is for longer than, let's say, Germany has, for example, which continued to buy Russian gas and it kind of slow-rolled aid, more so than the Poland and the

Baltics, which were really quick to act. Poland has taken into the role as being the center of the flow of Western aid to Ukraine. They spent a ton of their own money sending on Ukraine as of the Baltic states. And they've just taken this moment very seriously and have been clear-eyed on the threat of Russian expansionism for a lot longer than, say, Germany, which they continue to buy, you know, they continue to buy Russian gas. They had attempted to kind of keep kicking the can down the road with dealing with the Russian threat and thinks of that nature. So I think there is a benefit to America aligning strongly with Poland and the Baltics just because they've been They've proven to be such serious partners and allies and understanding the threat as well.

Do you think the Polish people in Europeans as a whole have an understanding of what the Trump administration hopes to accomplish in Europe? Well, I think it's going to take some time to, I think it's going to take time to see that unfold. It's still really early in the administration. And it's to be seen how Trump is going to act. We've seen the beginnings of it. Currently, he's trying to negotiate some kind of peace settlement in Ukraine. It doesn't seem that Putin's truly interested in peace at this point. We just saw yesterday on Palm Sunday an attack on civilians against people walking to a Palm Sunday service, at least 20 people were killed, including children. That doesn't seem to me like Putin is interested

in peace at this time. But I do hope that peace can be brought, but it can't come at the cost of freedom and territorial sovereignty. I do know. In the American sense, Trump has, like I said before, alienated a lot of his allies by placing a lot of tariffs on them. I guess for unclear reasons, do you think that the Europeans will be able to catch up to his strategies? Certainly something to think about. And I think it seems that the Trump administration is still trying to decide where their tariff strategy is going to go. We've had a lot of uncertainty over the last week or so, more than a week or so. I do think it has the potential to complicate things.

As we've seen time and time again in history, generally tariffs are not the most effective strategy. I think some kind of, I think shifting trade policy on China might be the one exception. But seeing putting 10% of like a tariffs on everyone when a lot of the math didn't add up for the reasoning that they were claiming, it doesn't necessarily make the most sense. I think it risks making Americans poor, I think at the end of the day, just like a corporate tax, tariffs are going to get passed down to the consumer. And that's worse for everyone. So I do hope that whatever the strategy is, that it leads in a negotiation that leads some more free trade. People can, you know, buy and sell things freely as individuals. If you're just tuning in, this is WRFH Radio for Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm your host, Malia Tibido,

with Ed Tarnaski, a policy and advocacy director at Ed Choice and Young Voices contributor. who has written an article which pushes America to treat Poland as the stalwart ally. It has been for decades. So how does Poland as an ally fit into the Trump administration framework of America first? And how will he spin it to make people support it? Right. And I think there's still a lot of reasons to be optimistic. Secretary of Defense Pete Heck said earlier this year did a model ally.

ally when he was meeting with the polls, which was reason to be encouraging that there are people within the administration who do see Poland for the bottle ally that it is. We should just make sure to act like it on the national stage and avoid these types of stats that we saw on X. But I do think that in terms of fitting into America first, I think relative peace in Europe, free navigation of the seas, allowing goods and services to the exchange freely is in America's interest, and it will continue to bring on president to prosperity. I think Poland is a serious partner and wanting to see that relative peace continue and to deter bad actors from starting war. So I think that's a big part of why it fits into what you could call in a pro-America, like an

America's interest type of agenda. What is the alternate universe where America alienates Poland as an ally? What are the alternatives that Poland can turn to? Right. Well, this is very risky. And I think, like, for example, like the Polish Farm Minister said very clearly that if Starlink were ever to prove unreliable, they'd have to seek other sources. This could end in some of our strongest allies, relying less on our security infrastructure or our intelligence and things like that. There's also a risk that I've, another risk would be triggering kind of a new. nuclear arms raise. We see if right now under the Euro, the transatlantic security infrastructure, NATO is under the American nuclear umbrella. Essentially, our allies trust that if that being under our

nuclear umbrella would deter any kind of outbreak of a larger, of a larger war in NATO. And if they start to doubt our security infrastructure or our nuclear umbrella. It does risk, like I said earlier, our allies relying less on our security infrastructure or our intelligence, but also could have them trying to seek out themselves. And I think it's in America's interest that we have more influence over that, that there are fewer countries that have nuclear weapons, and that instead they're under umbrella. So there are fewer cooks in the kitchen. and things along those lines, if that makes sense. Yeah.

I've also seen some things that speculate that Trump distancing himself from Europe does make it easier for Europe to go toward China and for China to try and expand its influence in Europe. Do you think that's credible? I certainly do. I mean, especially regarding trade. If the goal was to isolate China, the way to do it is certainly not to. to increase tariffs on Europe and make it more difficult for them to do business with the United States. At the end of the day, democratic politicians have to answer to their constituents. And if they're seeing prices rise, they're going to start seeking out.

And oftentimes other ways of getting that. And sometimes that might mean them turning to China a bad actor for cheaper goods. And we certainly don't want to see that. We don't want to see more Chinese influence in Europe. But China certainly would love to see more Chinese influence in Europe. How do you think that the Trump administration and America can reassure its allies? Right. Well, I think one of the best ways would be to our NATO alliance. Now, like I said before, it is important to continue putting pressure on and highlighting the countries or not paying what they should, what their NATO commitments, their defense many commitments.

However, we could do that without putting our NATO commitments in doubt. Trump was asked recently about if he would defend Poland. He said, I believe he said yes to that. And then he was later asked if he would defend the Baltics. And he didn't give a straight answer. We want to give a straight answer on those things. Every intranated territory should be, we should be guaranteeing that we would defend that.

And again, we can do that. We can highlight and put pressure on our allies too paid, but they should be paying without putting those in doubt. because that just risks putting to term. So I think that would be number one. I think, like, sitting on a spats like this is a good step as well. We want our allies to trust our security infrastructure, certainly in our interest for our security infrastructure to be bought and used

rather than turning to others. It's good for America, good for the world. I think these are some of the ways, like, just assuring that we are committed to our commitments but we can and while doing that still highlighting the things that need to be changed. Right. So we can still assure by giving straight answers, but at the same time, when we need to make sure that others are doing their roles like Western Europe, funding the military spending budget for NATO, do you agree with the way that Trump has been pressuring them? I'd say it's certainly depends on the situation. I think bringing this into negotiations

those are all good things. We just don't want to put our native command as a whole in question because that risk hurting deterrence. So I would say it's a case-by-case basis because I think there is a lot of our predictability and there's been variability by day-to-day and how he's decided to handle this. So I'd say it certainly depends. In the future, as America pressures Europe to take a more active role in its own defense, what do you think, what part do you believe Poland will play?

I think Poland will play a major role. This is for the good. I think Europe certainly does need to get more serious about its defense and increasing their military spending. And Poland is kind of leading the way on that. And as I mentioned before, they're on track to reach nearly 5% of GDP spending defenses here. They're vastly increasing the size of their country's army. They're preparing, they want to be prepared for, one, keeping deterrence and making sure that war never comes. but also be prepared to

but the main goal being the deter war in the first place so I think Poland is going to be going to continue to become more and more center to European security as they are surpassing a lot of our allies a lot of the other European allies and how much and how much they're spending on defense their seriousness toward it

the way they speak about the threat honestly and clear-eyed but I know I think Poland will continue to play a central role in Europe's defense and I certainly hope to see if Poland takes a lead that others follow and start taking this more seriously as well. Do you think Eastern Europe as a whole will become more active? Most of them, I would say yes, particularly Poland and the Baltic states. I see Czech Republic has risen to the occasion as well. I certainly do what I think part of it is they've seen what

life is like under communism. They've seen what life is under authoritarian dictatorship. And basically they're not going back. I think that's part of it. of why they have such a closeness to what this looks like. They know what freedom is now and they don't want to go back. They don't want to lose it. And that's why I think they will continue to take it so seriously because they don't want to go back under dictatorship. They finally are part of the free world.

They fought hard to get there. They certainly are not going to go backwards without a fight. And that's why I think we're going to continue to see them take this very seriously, not just with rhetoric, but with actions as well. For America, I want to ask the same question I did earlier. if they do not strengthen their allyship with Poland and with a lot of Eastern Europe and just with NATO in general, what do you think are the consequences? Right. Well, I think the consequences are a lot less. We're going to see less American influence in world security and in European security. I think the consequence of that is, well, one, we could see states start to act differently than they would than when they're knowing they're under, like I said, under our nuclear umbrella.

we might start to see more instability. And I think at the end of the day, the other thing to think about is right now it's going to take Europe a long time to build up to what it needs to be. And I certainly hope that they get there. And I think we can encourage them to do that in a way that's not abandoning them. We can do that while standing with them as a strong ally because we have short goals and interests. But yeah, I think it's to be seen. Yeah.

I do know that a lot of Trump in Vance's rhetoric has been to try and galvanize Europe to take control of its own defense more to not rely on America. You said earlier that, you know, the U.S. would have less influence on world security. Do you think that's something that the U.S. or the current Trump administration is actually trying to do to diminish the American influence in individual parts while still keeping our projections strong? Or do you think they have some other goal? And with that, do you think that will work? Right. Well, I do think if they do have the goal of keeping America's role strong, while also wanting Europe to take more of a lead in its own security, which they should to an extent, I think they ought to be more consistent in how they are speaking about their criticism. Poland being one of the examples of this bat, another one being Denmark. Denmark is one of the countries that also pays well over their NATO defense requirement, yet they've been going after Denmark lately mocking them. To me, it doesn't make sense. I think it would make more sense to be of those who are not playing the role they need to be playing or not spending what they need to be

spending. But then I like the ones who are. And I think that's a better way of influencing Europe to take more of a strong role in its own security, not by galvanizing the ones who are doing the right thing, but by putting pressure on those who are not. It has been great having you here, Ed. Where can people follow you in your work? Absolutely. So please feel free to follow me on X slash Twitter at Ed Tarnowski. You can also find me on Young Voices website. For more on my work at Ed Choice. Opinions are my own, by the way. You can find more about me at Ed.Tchoice.org. All right. Thank you all for listening. This has been Malia Tivito and Ed Tarnowski on WRFH, Radio Free Hillsdale, 101.7 FM.