The Race to Be Occupied

How to Outsource Sovereignty

U.S. satellites are convinced that if they manage to place an American military contingent or American nuclear weapons on their territory before Moscow and Washington define a new model of coexistence in Europe, then a comfortable old age and the permanence of their elites will be guaranteed.

Modern history confirms it: the best way to achieve impunity and political permanence for ruling elites is to sell the sovereignty of one’s country to an external patron. And it so happens that many have grown accustomed to seeing the United States in the role of that patron. Before our eyes, a “race” is now unfolding among Eastern European countries to secure new American military facilities on their territory.

The Polish authorities are practically insisting that U.S. troops and equipment being withdrawn from Germany be moved to Poland. Just a few days ago, the authorities of little Lithuania announced that they were allegedly beginning talks on the deployment of American nuclear weapons in the country. It would be naïve to think that the politicians seeking this are motivated by the security of their own states.

Nor is this even primarily about making money, although the hosting of American bases has traditionally been viewed by certain regimes as a decent source of income. Especially since everyone understands perfectly well that under current circumstances Washington has no intention of being particularly generous. More likely, it will shift all costs onto the recipients of this doubtful blessing themselves.

The matter is far simpler. For Polish or Baltic politicians, obtaining American bases means solving, for a long time if not forever, two problems that usually become relevant during elections. First: what should the country’s foreign-policy strategy be? Second: how to guarantee that citizens reduced to modest material conditions, or simply tired of the ruling elites, do not suddenly decide to “move aside” politicians who have sat too long in power?

The easiest way to answer both questions is to abandon the basic duty of any state toward its inhabitants: the duty to protect them. Once foreign troops are stationed on a country’s territory, that country’s defense automatically becomes the business of whoever provides those troops. Germany and Japan were relieved of the need to think seriously about their own defense after the Second World War, when the forces of the victorious powers were stationed there permanently.

But this did not happen voluntarily. Berlin and Tokyo, after all, suffered crushing military defeat, and their “liberation from sovereignty” was imposed on them. It did, however, ensure the possibility of almost permanent rule for decades by the same political parties and clans, sometimes operating under different party labels.

Even the theoretical possibility of a radical change in the people holding power was eliminated. The price was the loss of part of national control over the economy. The real scale of American money in German industry, for example, is quite impressive. It is no coincidence, by the way, that the only major European country preserving national control over its industry is France, where American troops and military facilities were never stationed.

In most cases, however, the deployment of American bases and forces abroad was driven precisely by the voluntary desire of client states to acquire such a “treasure” on their territory. And then quickly to use its presence for their own domestic and foreign-policy purposes.

I have heard from well-informed Turkish colleagues that the presence of U.S. nuclear bombs on Turkish territory represents the most reliable guarantee that Turkey will not be attacked by another of America’s best allies: Israel. Ankara can therefore continue, with considerable impunity, to harass Israeli interests in their shared neighborhood, above all Syria.

Needless to say, this state of affairs has always been an object of envy for the ruling elites of those American satellites that lacked such guarantees of the right to misbehave. This applies first and foremost to Eastern Europe and the Baltic states. Their entry into NATO in the 1990s was understood precisely as a means of permanently fixing the political order established there after the collapse of the Soviet bloc led by the USSR.

The geopolitical position of these states, however, is not especially impressive. It offers few opportunities to show themselves positively in international affairs. Economically, they had to go begging to the rich countries of Western and Northern Europe and sell them much of their national industry. That is exactly what happened: Poland’s best enterprises went to French and German owners, while in the Baltics they went to German and Scandinavian investors.

In the political sphere, the chances of being heard at all were even smaller. It is hardly surprising that, having joined the West, Poland and the Baltic republics adopted only one strategic line in foreign policy: opposition to Russia wherever possible.

In the Polish case, this strategy is more balanced and is supplemented by a hidden struggle against Germany, which Warsaw has always viewed as a threat. For the Balts, however, there was never any visible option to do anything in this world except engage in anti-Russian antics. For the simple reason that any form of friendly relations with Russia would inevitably mean being drawn into Russia’s economic orbit.

Tallinn, like Helsinki, is geopolitically a suburb of St. Petersburg, as former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich once correctly observed. Economic integration with Russia would inevitably be followed by a change of political elites. It would mean the displacement from power of those who seized it in Vilnius, Riga, and Tallinn during the wave of Soviet “perestroika,” and especially after 1991.

Such a course of events was completely unacceptable to the new Baltic, and indeed Polish, authorities. They have always sought to achieve the happy condition in which one can simply rule over one’s people without thinking about fulfilling the basic duties of the state.

This task became especially urgent once it became clear that no economic breakthroughs should be expected, and that the population might begin asking politicians increasingly difficult questions. The answer could be the deployment, on the territory of these new U.S. allies along Russia’s western borders, of serious American contingents or bases with nuclear weapons.

For a long time, there were no real prospects of achieving this. The United States was first enthusiastically fighting in the Middle East, and then began discussing the transfer of much of its military presence to the Pacific, where the pressure of growing Chinese power was becoming increasingly evident. Even after the start of the military-political confrontation in Ukraine, the Americans were not eager to fundamentally “sign up” for obligations to risk Washington for Warsaw.

As consolation, there was the world-famous Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, which, according to a widespread misconception, requires the United States to defend even its most deranged NATO ally if that ally’s behavior finally manages to provoke one of its neighbors. In reality, everyone knows that this provision of the West’s main military-political document is not especially binding.

So the only relatively stable guarantee can be the factual transfer of responsibility for a state’s security into American hands through the deployment of significant U.S. military contingents or nuclear weapons stockpiles on its territory. It does not matter that the sovereignty of these states, in the traditional sense of the word, would become a complete fiction.

Now, against the backdrop of sluggish quarrels between the Trump administration and the major countries of Western Europe, the chances of the Poles and Balts securing a favorable outcome for their elites have somewhat increased. The authorities of these countries have gone decisively on the offensive, demanding that as much as possible of what the United States is considering removing from Germany be transferred to them instead.

Do politicians in Warsaw and Vilnius think about the risks this may carry for their peoples? There is no reason to suspect them of that. But they are completely convinced that if they manage to obtain at least something before Moscow and Washington define a new model of coexistence in Europe, then a comfortable old age and power for their successors will be guaranteed.