WARSAW, Poland — President Bush is scheduled to stop in Poland later this week, a few hours Friday and Saturday in the southern city of Krakow, and the point of his visit is obvious: to thank this country for supporting U.S. policy in Iraq when other, bigger members of the Atlantic alliance campaigned vociferously against it.
Bush's short stopover, during which he will visit the Auschwitz concentration camp museum near Krakow, signals that Poland, in the enthusiastic eyes of Washington, has become an important ally, even a special friend — to be distinguished from obstructionist allies in "old Europe," notably France and Germany.
It is a strange and even improbable role for a country like Poland, whose tragic and tormented history kept it in the shadows for centuries.
In Poland itself, the American wish for the European center of gravity to shift eastward and for Poland to play a large role is both gratifying and a bit awkward. Years ago, Poland's post-Communist leadership decided to find ways of enhancing its security by allying itself as closely as possible with the United States, but the potential costs to ties with closer nations in Europe were little weighed.
"Not all the consequences are positive, because of the fact that some European countries, especially France and Germany, adopted different policies on Iraq," Poland's foreign minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz said in an interview. "There were controversies, and, unfortunately, there is still something in the air, especially with France."
But, Cimoszewicz continued, "It's also an echo of the fact that our western European partners and friends have to realize and accept that Poland is a serious partner, and should be respected. Its arguments should be listened to."
"We have 40 million people with good prospects," Cimoszewicz said. "We are the biggest state among those joining the EU, and we have to play an important role."
What role that will be, assuming enough Poles vote to join the European Union in a June 8 referendum, is the question being asked these days.
There are people here and elsewhere in Europe who believe that Poland will be swallowed whole by its more influential European partners.
Elsewhere in Europe, there have been undisguised expressions of astonishment and even contempt at Poland's newfound muscularity, a sense that the country is getting too big for its britches. In remarks much noted here, the phrase "Trojan donkey" appeared in the German press to describe a Poland that was doing America's bidding in Europe, rather than working to create a counterbalance to American power.
And yet alongside any awkwardness Poland may feel at being caught between Europe and the United States goes unaccustomed security, and pride at standing on the same battlefields as the Americans, particularly in Iraq, where Poland is to send 1,500 soldiers to keep peace and will command one of four occupation zones.
Poland might not be able to pull Europe into strategic alignment with the United States, but influential Poles feel that it is nonetheless capable of exerting more influence than other European countries, accustomed to a weak and poor Poland, expect.
"Do we think we're a great world power? No," said Wanda Rapaczynski, the chief executive officer of Agora, a large publisher of newspapers and magazines. "Is this an unexpected element that tickles our fantasy? Yes."
"Of course, we have to limit our ambitions and make them proportionate to our actual potential," Cimoszewicz said. "But on the other hand, we should not underestimate our ability and potential. We have to find a real place for our country."
Krzysztof Bobinski, an editor and commentator, put it this way: "The majority view is that America will be the ultimate guarantor of Poland's security, and that the way to assure that is for Poland to go to Iraq and, perhaps, other places even farther afield. The alternative view would be that we have a long road ahead of us, and that the EU gives us a better chance in the long run."
By most comparisons, Poland does seem very small and backward compared to the bigger members of the European Union. Germany's annual trade with the United States, roughly $50 billion a year, is 50 times that of Poland. Germany's per capita income is five times that of Poland. France is Poland's largest source of foreign investment, and Germany is its largest market.
Poland's Solidarity workers' movement was a great factor in precipitating the end of the Cold War, and the country has transformed both its economy and political institutions — a strategic turn toward democracy and the American model developed in part to counter the weight of historic rival Russia looming to the east. But Poland has had three bad economic years in a row, unemployment is running at close to 20 percent, and its government has been badly tainted by recent corruption scandals, giving rise to a palpable public cynicism.
Warsaw, the capital, is the kind of place where there are impressive goods to buy in the shops and crowds of people moving briskly, clearly with things to do. New international-class hotels have sprouted, and yet the dominant feature on the skyline remains the old Stalinist Palace of Culture built during the Communist period.
"Poland is not a dynamic economy," Bobinski said.
Two-thirds of Polish farmers produce only what they consume themselves, and nothing for the market, according to Piotr Stasinski, deputy editor in chief of the daily Gazeta Wyborcza. There are five times as many people, proportionately speaking, in agriculture in Poland than in western Europe. The May issue of the English news magazine Poland Monthly has a cover story called "The Other Poland," which reports on widespread hunger in rural areas.
But if a certain backwardness persists, Poland still represents half of the total population and half the gross domestic product of the ten former Communist countries due to join the European Union next year.
Since joining NATO, it has also moved to enhance its air power and in so doing accentuate ties with the United States — in three years, it will take delivery of 48 F-16 planes that it has bought from the United States, defying European pressure to buy Mirage 2000 fighters.
"This is a big country with a sense of history," Christopher Hill, the American ambassador, said in an interview. "It's not just a former grimy Communist country trying to privatize its textile mills. They're not going to be agenda-takers; they're going to be agenda setters."