[Homer_J_Simpson]

From all of your research, how do you think Poland would respond to an attack on their homeland today? Are they more able than their forefathers?

Reasearch? Me? I just deliver the paper to your cyber-driveway every morning.

But Poles are human beings, like us. People everywhere seem to rise to the occasion when something like a brutal military invasion happens. It's the gradual, boil-the-frog-slowly type of takeover that is more likely to see less resistance. Again, like us. As to their ability, I am not familiar with their leadership so I don't know how capably they would organize a response to military attack. One thing I have learned from reading my history over the last year or two is that good leadership is crucial to national defense and the results of leadership - good or bad - have an impact for some time after the leadership has changed.

[BroJoeK]

HOYA97: "From all of your research, how do you think Poland would respond to an attack on their homeland today? Are they more able than their forefathers?"

Strategically, Poland's situation today is much different from 1939.

Yes, Germany is still double Poland's population, but they are now NATO and E.U. allies. Prussia, the source of Germany's traditional military leadership is no more, and East Germans are still suffering from the effects of two generations of Soviet Communist style rule. Germany today is no threat to Poland.

And to the East the Soviet Union is gone, replaced on Poland's borders by Ukraine and Bylorussia, who also represent no conceivable threat to Poland. To the South, Slovakia and Czech Republic... small countries.

As insurance against some future contingency, Poland sought and received strong support from the United States under leaders like the Bushes elder and younger. This seems to have mostly evaporated with our current administration, but so far that's only a matter for serious worry rather than acute alarm.

A future US administration could restore a sense of friendship and confidence, and thus help insure stability in central and eastern Europe.

Iirc, Poland suffered more than any other country in WWII. Impossible to imagine the Poles will ever forget that.