President Barack Obama's fence-mending with Poland

As Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, told me, "Poland has traditionally been a close ally of the US on security matters, but that alliance has become strained in recent years". "Poles were upset by President Obama's abrupt cancellation of the Bush administration's plans for missile defence, which would have stationed interceptors in Poland, and they are still arguing with the Obama administration about whether the Patriot missiles that Poland wants should be based there permanently or not," he added. Charles Grant notes that "Poland has become increasingly involved in trying to build up the European Union as a significant actor in European defence". Only last week, he says, "together with Germany and France, it proposed an EU operational military headquarters, much to the annoyance of the UK and the US". In addition, "the vociferous opposition of Polish leaders to the Nato-managed bombing of Libya has only served to increase the distance between Washington and Warsaw," he says.