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The USA should station their troops in Poland as soon as possible to protect it from possible Russian aggression. This statement was made by Radoslav Sikorski, the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Poland at the Center for Strategic and International Research in Washington.
Sikorski said that Poland would like to have American troops and use them as a shield against Russian aggression. He mentioned that there are only six American soldiers in Poland, which is not enough for security purposes.
Sikorski tried to explain his position saying that Poland was a NATO border country.
The head of Polish diplomacy was mostly concerned with the fact that Russia and Belarus conducted extensive military training exercises in September. He said that the two countries imitated the use of nuclear weapons and staged debarkation of their troops on the Baltic shore of Poland.
The Minister emphasized that he could not understand the reasoning behind the exercises and what message Russia was trying to send to the world conducting training of this scale at NATO border.
Sikorski admitted that placing American troops in Poland would be a gross violation of the promises made by NATO 10 years ago. NATO promised not to house large military bases of the Western countries on Polish territory.
Sikorski noted that at the time the promise was given, no one was saying “never” and “no forces at all.”
He also said that his country has overcome the disappointment regarding Obama’s decision not to place 10 interception missiles in Poland that would be a part of the American missile defense system.
Instead, Obama decided to create a more flexible concept that would involve placing missile defense complexes on the US naval units equipped with Idgis system. Poland is inclined to support this idea.
Sikorski said that he had no problems with this idea and expressed his hopes that Obama would stick to his promise to place rocket launchers for SM-3 missiles, capable of shooting down rockets of short and medium range. This solution would be an appropriate compromise to the missile defense system.
Sikorski was not the only politician who expressed his discontent regarding extensive military training exercises conducted by Russia and Belarus. In October, Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves appealed to NATO to conduct large-scale military training on the territory of Baltic countries.
Latvian military people went even further and announced that funds for conducting large-scale military training will be budgeted for the next year. The trainings would be in response to the aforementioned Russia-Belarus training “West-2009.”
And now, back to Poland. It is incredible that a country with the population of 40 million people striving for a leadership role in the Eastern Europe is asking Americans for protection. Poland is capable of protecting itself.
Sikorski’s words about Russia’s intentions to land on the Polish coast are just speculation. He failed to provide any evidence to it. Why? The people in Washington do not need an explanation because they know that Poland suffered from Russia for many centuries.
It seems that Warsaw is very discontent with the decision of the USA not to confront Russia.
This way it would be difficult to present Poland as a front for struggle with the reviving “evil empire.” Therefore, Poland would not be given any money for “NATO defense,” and it needs money in this crisis.
It might be that Sikorski just wanted to get some money from the US, because stationing American troops in Poland would not be free.
His story about Russian threat is the only acceptable explanation for Washington Poland could come up with.
Vadim Trukhachev
Pravda.Ru
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