Lech Kaczynski: How The West Got Georgia Wrong

During the war between Georgia and Russia, no European leader denounced Russia as strongly as Poland's president, Lech Kaczynski. He has also been a fervent backer of U.S. plans to deploy 10 interceptor missiles on Polish territory. U.S. and Polish officials signed the agreement for the missile shield soon after Russian troops crossed into Georgian territory. While visiting the United Nations last week, he talked with Andrew Nagorski, a former NEWSWEEK senior editor and now director of public policy at the EastWest Institute. Excerpts:

NAGORSKI: What lessons did we learn from the conflict between Russia and Georgia?
KACZYNSKI: First, Russia wanted to carry out an annexation of two provinces. Second, there was an attempt to topple the government. The West was capable of one thing: not allowing this toppling of the government. Third, this has huge strategic importance for Europe. I've been pushing for years for building alternative routes for oil and natural gas on a big scale from Azerbaijan—and, maybe in the future, from Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan—that would bypass Russia. The attack on Georgia has made this more difficult.

You ' re convinced the Russians wanted to depose the Georgian government?
Yes. My intervention and that of the presidents of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, and some engagement of the United States, forcing the engagement of NATO and, the least willingly, the European Union caused the Russians to not go for that. They always act with different options in mind, and that was the optimal one for them. They left the territory of Abkhazia and South Ossetia to occupy part of Georgia. The Russians showed a certain helplessness on the part of the West. That's terrible because the West is much stronger than they are.

Didn ' t Georgia make a huge mistake attacking South Ossetia on Aug. 7?
This mistake was provoked. There was a test of strength, and Russia showed the face it wanted to show—an imperial face. Ukraine is now threatened. We won't see the rebirth of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union. This is just the old Russia.

Your personal involvement has left the impression that you ' re the most anti-Russian leader in Europe. Fair?
I'm rational and not anti-Russian. I've been aware of these dangerous tendencies for many years, from the late Yeltsin era. We have to convince Russia that the imperial era is over.

Many Europeans say you go too far in your criticism of Russia.
I'm not going too far. This is a situation a bit like Munich. Those who were then appeasing Hitler were firmly convinced that they were right. Time showed something different. There's never an exact analogy. We aren't threatened by a Russian invasion right now.