Skip to comments.
Poland Begins to Fortify the New Iron Curtain
Center for European Policy Analysis ^
| July 8, 2022
| Chels Michta
Posted on 07/08/2022 9:12:14 AM PDT by Zhang Fei
The country is making enormous investments in defense and will soon become one of Europe’s pre-eminent land powers.
As the war in Ukraine – now in its fifth month – becomes a grinding battle of attrition, a new geostrategic realignment along NATO’s Eastern Flank is in full view: a fault line has emerged, running north-south, from Scandinavia and the Baltics down through Poland and into Romania and Bulgaria.
In this reconfigured Europe, Poland is the hub of NATO’s effort to assist Ukraine, serving as the principal transit route for equipment and ammunition shipments to Ukraine, and providing a key route for Ukrainian grain exports to its Baltic ports, like Gdansk.
Poland is also the principal entry point for Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war (estimates put the number of Ukrainians that have entered Poland at close to 3.5 million). And in terms of sheer numbers, it is the largest European provider of equipment and ammunition to the Ukrainian military. Its shipment of at least 240 upgraded T-72 tanks and an additional 50 Krab 155mm self-propelled howitzers on top of the 18 units already provided are just the most prominent examples of the scope of Warsaw’s military assistance to its neighbor.
But Poland’s increased prominence in NATO rests on more than its contribution to Ukraine’s war effort. It has now become the key military power on NATO’s Eastern Flank, a frontline state akin to West Germany during the Cold War. The Polish military is being restructured and expanded into Europe’s largest land force, with a target of 400,000 troops from the current 150,000. The country has also committed to buying large volumes of American weapons, including 32 of the F-35 fifth generation combat aircraft and 250 of the most advanced version of the M1A2 SEPv3 Abrams main battle tanks. It is also finalizing a deal to buy 500 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) launchers. In short, Polish rearmament dwarfs the potential of other allies along the flank.
Washington recognizes Poland’s new role as the pivot along the Eastern Flank. Last week at the NATO Madrid summit, President Biden announced that the US will establish a permanent headquarters for the US Army’s V Corps in Poland and significantly increase the number of US troops and equipment deployed there, today numbering 10,500. The decision to move the V Corps headquarters is likely a prelude to establishing permanent US installations and eventually transitioning from rotational to permanent US deployments. Last but not least, as military mobility requirements have shifted to the north-south axis, Poland’s central position in the Baltic-to-Black Sea intermarium makes the country a central distribution hub for NATO’s entire Eastern Flank.
Historical parallels are often overused or oversimplified, but as a new iron curtain spun by Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine descends across Europe, Poland is the new frontier state, critical both to continued Western military, economic, and humanitarian support to Ukraine as well as the lynchpin of the alliance’s defensive perimeter.
A midsize country in the heart of Central Europe, Poland has been thrust into the limelight by the Continent’s rapidly changing balance of power. When it comes to sheer military power, it is punching far above its weight, positioning itself as the pivotal ally of the United States in continental Europe.
TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; Russia
KEYWORDS: alexanderlukashenko; angryneocons; angryneoconsatfr; belarus; blueandyellowdrank; chechens; chechnya; clownworld; deathtochechnya; deathtoputin; deathtorussia; eurocrats4kickbacks; eurocrats4war; goodluckwiththat; greatreset; liberalworldorder; maginotline; maginpoleline; neokoolaid; pedosforputin; poland; putin; putinlovertrollsonfr; putinsbuttboys; putinworshippers; russia; russianaggression; russianimperialism; scottritter; theneokoolaid; ukraine; ukraineuberalles; zottherussiantrolls
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20, 21-40, 41 next last
To: Clemenza
“Poles have ALWAYS worried about both - having Germans and Russians as your neighbors is not pleasant.”
Poland is in an awkward geo-political location; stuck between two historically aggressive cultures that hate each other.
21
posted on
07/08/2022 10:05:45 AM PDT
by
ought-six
(Multiculturalism is national suicide, and political correctness is the cyanide capsule. )
To: JonPreston
“A New Iron Curtain means lot’s of money for defense contractors and the Neocon sperm who swim about Washington DC.”
So buy some defense industry stock and quit bitching about it.
22
posted on
07/08/2022 10:08:31 AM PDT
by
ought-six
(Multiculturalism is national suicide, and political correctness is the cyanide capsule. )
To: Alas Babylon!
IG Farben?
Builder of the nazi crematoriums I beleive
To: libh8er
“But Biden will just give it away.”
After he skims 10% off the top, of course.
24
posted on
07/08/2022 10:13:58 AM PDT
by
griswold3
(When chaos serves the State, the State will encourage chaos.)
To: libh8er
“But Biden will just give it away.”
After he skims 10% off the top, of course.
25
posted on
07/08/2022 10:14:14 AM PDT
by
griswold3
(When chaos serves the State, the State will encourage chaos.)
To: ought-six
I’m already heavily indexed in the MOEX.
To: FreshPrince
Yeah, they manufactured a synthetic rubber plant in Auschwitz, but I think they most famous for manufacturing the Zyklon-B and Sarin gas used to gas concentration camp victims.
Completed in 1930, the IG Farben Building in Frankfurt was seized by the Americans after the war. In 1996 it was transferred to the German government and in 2001 to the University of Frankfurt.
27
posted on
07/08/2022 10:44:31 AM PDT
by
Alas Babylon!
(Rush, we're missing your take on all of this!)
To: Zhang Fei
“It appears that what Trump planned for Poland - a permanent US base - is about to come to fruition.”
Perhaps even before the next Trump Administration, at the rate things are going. Fort Trump.
Thanks for your interesting and informative posts.
28
posted on
07/08/2022 11:33:54 AM PDT
by
BeauBo
To: Zhang Fei
"It is also finalizing a deal to buy 500 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) launchers. In short, Polish rearmament dwarfs the potential of other allies along the flank. "
29
posted on
07/08/2022 11:39:12 AM PDT
by
BeauBo
To: Alas Babylon!
Ahh ok I knew there was a connection to the holocaust
To: JonPreston
“I’m already heavily indexed in the MOEX.”
Ah, the MOEX; aka the Moscow Exchange.
31
posted on
07/08/2022 2:28:33 PM PDT
by
ought-six
(Multiculturalism is national suicide, and political correctness is the cyanide capsule. )
To: Zhang Fei
When will Poland bomb Brussels? It’s long overdue.
To: Zhang Fei
I lived in the UK at the height of the Cold War. I was 20 miles West of Heathrow Airport. 20 miles from USAF RAF Strike Command in High Wycomb, 15 miles from the UKs plutonium processes center and about 20 miles from Harwell, the UKs center for nuclear weapons research.
I had a perfect plan for if war happened. Pour a very large single malt scotch whiskey and sit in the backyard. I aint never seen the fireworks show that was about to happen. I was dead meat.
33
posted on
07/08/2022 3:11:41 PM PDT
by
cpdiii
(CANE CUTTER-DECKHAND-ROUGHNECK-OILFIELD CONSULTANT-GEOLOGIST-PILOT-PHARMACIST)
To: cpdiii
[I had a perfect plan for if war happened. Pour a very large single malt scotch whiskey and sit in the backyard. I aint never seen the fireworks show that was about to happen. I was dead meat.]
That’s the theory. In real life, I doubt any top leader would have given the authorization to initiate nuclear strikes. Each of them understood where that would lead. A country with 1/10 of its pre-war population and most of its industry devastated can’t properly be called a great power. And many countries change administrations after cataclysmic wars, occasionally with further large-scale loss of life. Even losing large amounts of land and millions of people doesn’t justify nuclear strikes. Because millions of dead << hundreds of millions of dead.
34
posted on
07/08/2022 3:34:26 PM PDT
by
Zhang Fei
(My dad had a Delta 88. That was a car. It was like driving your living room.)
To: Zhang Fei
“New Iron Curtain”
Not unclear about the endgame, are they.
Ukraine as a Russia-controlled, toothless buffer between Russia and the rest of Eastern Europe now turns into a hard line at the Western Ukrainian border.
One must wonder when the razor wire and machine gun towers will start going up.
35
posted on
07/08/2022 3:46:46 PM PDT
by
HKMk23
(https://youtu.be/LTseTg48568)
To: Zhang Fei
Keep baiting the bear.
I now know how cold wars turn hot.
To: RedMonqey; marcusmaximus; Paul R.; Bruce Campbells Chin; PIF; familyop; MercyFlush; tet68; ...
redmonqey: [Keep baiting the bear.
I now know how cold wars turn hot.]
Ukraine ping
Wars don’t start by accident. They require massive appropriations. The Russians want to conquer. Whittling them down to size in Ukraine will cramp their style. As Vegetius is said to have written “si vis pacem, para bellum”. Actually, he could actually have said “si vis bellum, para pacem”. And the policy of these United States has been “si vis pacem, para pactum”, i.e. Pax Americana.
The Russians need to understand that if they poke any one of their traditional victims, they will lose a great deal of blood and treasure. That’s what the aid to Ukraine is all about - making the Russians pay a heavy price. The kind of price Uncle Sam paid in Korea and Vietnam, to the tune of 100,000 GI dead and just under 10,000 aircraft destroyed, thanks to copious Russian supplies to North Korea and North Vietnam.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-15#Soviet_MiG-15s_in_the_Korean_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Korean_War_flying_aces#Soviet_Union
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonid_Brezhnev#The_Vietnam_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-17#Vietnam_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-19#Vietnam
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-21#Vietnam
https://www.rbth.com/history/332396-how-soviets-fought-against-americans
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_losses_of_the_Vietnam_War
37
posted on
07/08/2022 7:36:07 PM PDT
by
Zhang Fei
(My dad had a Delta 88. That was a car. It was like driving your living room.)
To: Zhang Fei
We made promises not to advance NATO into former Warsaw Pact to create a neutral zone of sorts. NATO abandoned this in the war of the former Yugoslavia territory, the bombing of Libya, and meddling with Ukrainian politics. The most egergious was getting them to give up nukes for an amorphous “promise” to back them up, without an senate approved treaty.
Russia, in it’s various configurations has one common tract, paranoia, especially from the West. Before the dust from the fall of the Berlin wall, the NATO countries have made moves to only feed the distrust that Russian leaders are born with.
Like many other wars, theses always an off ramp to take but pride, paranoia or politics blind those in power from making claim, sensible recessions. The one up manship will lead to destruction.
To: RedMonqey; marcusmaximus; Paul R.; Bruce Campbells Chin; PIF; familyop; MercyFlush; tet68; ...
redmonqey: [We made promises not to advance NATO into former Warsaw Pact to create a neutral zone of sorts.]
Ukraine ping
No commitment was made.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2014/11/06/did-nato-promise-not-to-enlarge-gorbachev-says-no/
[We now have a very authoritative voice from Moscow confirming this understanding. Russia behind the Headlines has published an interview with Gorbachev, who was Soviet president during the discussions and treaty negotiations concerning German reunification. The interviewer asked why Gorbachev did not “insist that the promises made to you [Gorbachev]—particularly U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s promise that NATO would not expand into the East—be legally encoded?” Gorbachev replied: “The topic of ‘NATO expansion’ was not discussed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in those years. … Another issue we brought up was discussed: making sure that NATO’s military structures would not advance and that additional armed forces would not be deployed on the territory of the then-GDR after German reunification. Baker’s statement was made in that context… Everything that could have been and needed to be done to solidify that political obligation was done. And fulfilled.”]
Even if a verbal commitment had been made, it would only apply to the Bush administration. The Budapest Agreement - now that wasn’t a ratified treaty, but it was definitely in black and white. We sure tore that up. We guaranteed Ukraine’s territorial boundaries. The Russians invaded. We acted as if nothing had happened.
Russia in its various configurations has feigned paranoia* because its rulers can’t exactly say personal vanity drives their wars of conquest. That way lies popular revolution and dynastic extermination, as happened to the Romanovs.
In reality, an 11-time zone empire 2x the size of the US has no genuine fear of invasion. Its only fear is of not seizing the copious opportunities to strike in any direction it wants without much worry about being invaded in return, thanks to its nuclear arsenal. That’s why it keeps poking the eagle, supplying both material and personnel to kill GI’s in both Korea and Vietnam. Ultimately the bear will keep pushing until it sustains unacceptable losses, upon which it will withdraw to lick its wounds, as occurred in Afghanistan.
Russia doesn’t invade because it’s afraid. It invades because it’s not afraid. That’s the purpose of the aid to Ukraine - to fill the Russian Tsar of the moment with the fear of the kind of expense and casualties that leads to armed uprisings within his empire.
* Germany is justifiably paranoid. During the 30 Years War, many German principalities lost 50% of their population.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years%27_War
Nothing like that has ever happened in Russia. During WWII, Russia lost less than 10% of its people. And pre-war Germany was 1/50 the size of Russia.
39
posted on
07/08/2022 8:55:53 PM PDT
by
Zhang Fei
(My dad had a Delta 88. That was a car. It was like driving your living room.)
To: Zhang Fei
40
posted on
07/08/2022 10:09:52 PM PDT
by
SunkenCiv
(Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20, 21-40, 41 next last
Disclaimer:
Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual
posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its
management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the
exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson