Poland revives Washington lobbying efforts to protect its defence orders

Shaken by the migrant crisis at its border with Belarus and concerned about Russian-Ukrainian tensions, the Polish government is putting pressure on its Western allies to help protect NATO’s eastern front. Poland’s President Andrzej Duda met NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg to discuss these issues in Brussels on 25 November. The encounter followed a meeting between Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and French president Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace and a lengthy telephone conversation between Pawel Soloch, the country’s national security chief, and his US counterpart Jake Sullivan.

In line with the president’s newfound military ambitions, Poland’s defence minister Mariusz Blaszczak has also hired two US strategic consulting firms to push Polish interests in the US, Miller Canfield Paddock and Stone and Gallagher Group, ensuring that signed and imminent defence deals will also get the requisite attention.

Lobbying duo                

Miller Canfield partner Pawel Chudzicki and James Gallagher’s overall brief is to ensure that Poland’s position and interests are properly understood in the US in the short and medium term. Gallagher Group will also brief the defence ministry of US policy likely to impact it and raise awareness of Poland’s concerns in Congress and among influential White House officials.

Gallagher has moved in defence circles for nearly 20 years, having previously worked in the Department of Defense (DoD) and for Republican senator Judd Gregg. He also worked for the US branch of BAE Systems from 2012-2013. Chudzicki, who is of Polish origin, has also had high-level contacts in Washington for more than a decade.

The two consultants will help to implement the US-Polish defence deal Duda ratified in November 2020. The deal, negotiated with the Trump administration, calls for the deployment of additional troops, the delivery of 300 second-hand Cougar armoured vehicles by the end of 2022, through an accelerated procedure, along with training, and 250 M1A2 Abrams tanks.

Diversifying suppliers

Poland, which intends to double the size of its military in the coming years, is also interested in British military technology, in particular a new air defence system conceived and built by MBDA. The Polish defence ministry will next focus on its Baltic fleet, with Spain’s Navantia, Germany’s ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) and Britain’s Babcock competing to win the contract.

Poland has been seeking to beef up its military for several years and its latest efforts to get its message across in the US are an expression of its fears about Russian and Belarusian aggression, echoing US, British and Ukrainian concerns.