Poland offers US up to $2B for permanent military base
Warsaw wants American boots on ground as protection against Russia.
By EDYTA ŻEMŁA AND KAMIL TURECKI 5/27/18, 10:05 PM CET Updated 5/30/18, 8:53 AM CET

Poland wants a permanent U.S. military presence — and is willing to pony up as much as $2 billion to get it, according to a defense ministry proposal obtained by Polish news portal Onet.

The Polish offer reflects a long-standing desire in Warsaw to build closer security relations with the U.S. and put American boots on the ground. The push dates back to Poland’s entry into NATO in 1999, but has taken on added urgency in the wake of Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region four years ago and aggressive posture toward the alliance.

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Dominik Smyrgała, who served as a deputy to former Polish Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz, under whom the proposal first started to take shape last summer, told Onet the proposal was drafted by senior ministry officials and a group of Polish military officers.

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Duda in dark

In a sign of growing discord within the Polish government, the defense ministry confirmed that the proposal was sent to Washington before first consulting with the foreign ministry and — more importantly — without the knowledge of the president, Andrzej Duda, who is also the country’s commander in chief.

https://www.politico.eu/article/nato-poland-offers-us-up-to-2-billion-fo...

Interesting. Now we don’t need to deal with a country’s leaders anymore. We go right to its military. How the Hell does that work?

Here’s the ‘proposal’:

Proposal
for a
U.S. Permanent Presence in Poland

https://g8fip1kplyr33r3krz5b97d1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uplo...

Bloomberg article promoting this idea.

The U.S. Should Move Troops From Germany to Poland

The front line with Russia has moved east. It makes sense for American forces to follow.
By Leonid Bershidsky
May 30, 2018, 1:00 AM CDT

Poland is willing to spend $1.5 billion to $2 billion to entice the U.S. to build a permanent military base there, according to a Defense Ministry proposal. The plan offers a strong incentive for the U.S. to consider moving at least some of its forces from Germany, especially since the current deployment makes little military sense.

Placing U.S. bases in Germany after World War II was a response to the need to deter a Soviet attack and prevent Germany from becoming a military threat again. The second goal appears to be irrelevant today. Higher military spending is unpopular with German voters, and the government is unwilling to raise its defense budget to the 2 percent of economic output required by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The proposed spending level for next year is 1.3 percent.

In addition, the theoretical front line in a conflict between Russia and NATO no longer runs through Germany, which today is buffered from Russia by a number of countries, including the Baltic states and Poland. Germans feel safe, and they’re among the least inclined to defend a NATO ally against a Russian attack.

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U.S. military bases in other countries aren’t particularly useful today: Any major conflict in Europe or the Middle East would still require the deployment of troops from the U.S., which would be almost as fast as from the German bases. But some U.S. allies, including Poland and the Baltic states, really want the American presence to provide a sense of security. These countries are happy to take on extra costs: Poland and Estonia already spend more than 2 percent of economic output on defense, and Latvia and Lithuania are closer to Russia than Germany. None of these countries is likely to do anything to put the U.S. at risk of entanglement: They certainly won’t attack Russia first or even provoke it, since with or without U.S. troops a conflict would devastate them

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-05-30/why-the-u-s-should-mo...

This idea that Russia won’t react to this show of force is insane.

Moving US troops ‘to frontline with Russia’ in Poland ‘makes sense' – Bloomberg

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One thing is for sure – the advice plays perfectly to Moscow’s suspicion of NATO. First the US and its allies reneged on unwritten promises to Russia not to expand the bloc eastward. Then there was the bending of the agreement not to deploy intermediate-range missiles in Europe with the Aegis Ashore launchers, which Russia says can be converted from shooting interceptor missiles to Tomahawks in a few hours. Deploying a US armored division in Poland in outright violation of the Russia-NATO Founding Act of 1997 is consistent with previous behavior.

Bershidsky may be quite wrong in believing that Russia would not react simply because it accepted the rotational presence of US troops after the 2014 Ukrainian crisis. Military planners in Moscow would likely argue that the base in Poland could be used for a US-led invasion into ally Belarus or Russia proper – or at least a surprise NATO operation in eastern Ukraine.

The need to counter this threat may be enough to tip the balance in favor of permanently deploying nuclear-capable Iskander missiles in the Kaliningrad region – a decision that Russia avoided until now despite the prolonged period of tension.

The Polish proposal was floated six weeks ahead of a NATO summit in Brussels (and remarkably circumvented the organization itself, just like it did the Polish commander-in-chief). By that time other European members of the organization such as Germany, which want to mend relations with Russia, will have plenty of time to find the words to react to the initiative of the Polish military.

https://www.rt.com/news/428253-us-base-poland-bloomberg/

How soon before our government starts telling us to buy plastic and duct tape again?

Bush's tricky duct-tape distraction

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2003-02-19/news/0302190442_1_duct-tap...