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Poland: US Moves First Missiles, Troops Near Russian Border
Rick Rozoff, Stop NATO, May 29 2010

On May 26, Polish news media announced that the first US PAC-3 interceptor missile battery and 100 US troops were officially welcomed by DM Klich, US Ambassador Feinstein and Brig-Gen Bellini of US Army Europe at a ceremony in Poland. US troops, it was further reported, had arrived over the previous weekend from a base in Germany to unload over 37 railway cars and assemble the PAC-3s in the Polish town of Morag, only 60km from Russia’s northwestern border in the Kaliningrad district. Details concerning the PAC-3 deployment and the stationing of as many as 150 US servicemen were finalized in a supplemental SOFA between Washington and Warsaw in February. The Telegraph characterized the development as follows:

The mission amounts to the most significant deployment ever of US forces to Poland, which once was behind the Iron Curtain but is now an enthusiastic member of NATO.

At the unveiling of the missile battery the Polish defense chief stated, allowing for an imperfect translation:

Placing the Patriot batteries in Poland makes the country more secure and contributes to Poland’s cooperation with the US. The more US and Europe in Poland, the more Poland in US and European politics.

AP reminded its readers on the occasion:

The US military has previously carried out training exercises in Poland, and has also trained the Polish air force to operate F-16 military fighter planes, which Poland bought to modernize its military.

In fact between Nov 2006-Dec 2008, Poland received 48 F-16 Fighting Falcon warplanes and the Pentagon and NATO conduct regular military infantry, naval and air exercises at Polish bases. What is qualitatively different about this week’s events, though, was spelled out by Andrew Paul, a spokesman for the US Embassy in Warsaw, who acknowledged that the Patriot garrison involves a longer time commitment than anything before, and marks the first continuing presence of US soldiers and equipment in Poland. The US troops who arrived earlier this week are the first foreign ones based on Polish soil since the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact twenty years ago. Blaise Pascal wrote in his Pensees that what is truth on one side of the Pyrenees is falsehood on the other. The response east of the Polish-Russian border was less enthusiastic than it was on the other side. On May 28, Russian Deputy FM Grushko warned a press conference:

If the Patriot missile systems continued to be deployed on a permanent basis, that would be in breach of the pledge that NATO made when signing the Founding Act to the effect that the NATO nations would refrain from stationing major military forces in the vicinity of the Russian border.

He was referring to a provision of the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between NATO and the Russian Federation signed in Paris in 1997, one which confirms adherence to the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe originally signed by the 16 members of NATO and the six members of the Warsaw Pact in 1990. The former GDR was by that point part of a united Federal Republic. The 1997 NATO-Russia accord states:

Russia and the member States of NATO reaffirm that States Parties to the CFE Treaty should maintain only such military capabilities individually or in conjunction with others, as are commensurate with individual or collective legitimate security needs. Russia and the member States of NATO will, together with other States Parties, seek to strengthen stability by further developing measures to prevent any potentially threatening build-up of conventional forces in agreed regions of Europe, to include Central and Eastern Europe. NATO reiterates that in the current and foreseeable security environment, the Alliance will carry out its collective defense and other missions by ensuring the necessary interoperability, integration, and capability for reinforcement rather than by additional permanent stationing of substantial combat forces.

In short, moving NATO, and especially US, troops and military infrastructure into Eastern Europe, a few miles from Russian territory at that, on anything other than a temporary basis, and as was seen above, the US embassy in Warsaw itself identified the new deployment as a “continuing presence” of troops and military equipment in Poland, is an incontrovertible violation of the 1997 NATO-Russia agreement, as it is of the earlier CFE treaty on the reduction of conventional weaponry (tanks, armored personnel carriers, combat aircraft and helicopters, and artillery, to say nothing of missiles) in Europe. The first two times Washington and NATO deployed Patriot batteries were to Saudi Arabia in 1990-1991 and to Turkey in 2003, in both cases ostensibly to prevent Iraqi retaliation for US and allied attacks. No one in the White House, State Dept or the Pentagon has yet to offer an honest explanation for the presence of PAC-3 missiles so close to Russia’s border, ones which even with a limited range would, if used, intercept and destroy incoming missiles over Russian territory. As part of what the Pentagon calls its Phased Adaptive Approach to missile shield deployments in Europe, especially in the east of the continent, Poland has also been mentioned as a prospective site for the stationing of longer range SM-3 interceptors on Aegis class warships in the Baltic Sea, in a land-based version (Aegis Ashore) on the Polish mainland or both. According to RIA Novosti, Feb 24 2010:

The US plans to deploy more powerful anti-ballistic missiles in Europe by 2018-2020. These will probably be silo-based missiles, for example upgraded SM-3 missiles with high runway speeds and interception altitudes exceeding 1,000km, making it possible to destroy not only ICBM warheads but also ballistic missiles launched by Russia.

The current Patriot missile deployment, coupled as it is with what will certainly be the long-term if not unlimited stationing of US troops on a rotational basis or otherwise, signals an advance over previous, if already persistent and mounting, US and NATO military presence and exercises in Poland, the general Baltic Sea region and throughout Eastern Europe as a whole. NATO opened its Joint Force Training Centre headquarters in Bydgoszcz, Poland in Mar 2004. Since then it has focused on “joint and combined training at the tactical level,” particularly for NATO’s war in Afghanistan, and on providing “support to the NATO Response Force joint and component commanders in the training and exercising of the NRF.” Regarding the deployment of Polish troops for combat missions abroad, the nation’s first since WW2, four years ago then Polish DM and now FM Sikorski spoke of the fact that over 10,000 of his nation’s troops had served in the Iraq war zone and said:

They are the core of the new Polish military. They had not been in a warlike situation for half a century. They go out as civilians in uniform but they come back as real warriors.

Poland will soon have 2,600 soldiers under NATO command in Afghanistan, the largest overseas military deployment in its history, with 400 more troops held in reserve for duty in that war zone. 23 Polish troops have been killed in Iraq and 16 so far in Afghanistan, the nation’s first post-WW2 combat and combat-related deaths. Sikorski’s waxing militant over his nation’s acquisition of its first battle-hardened warriors since the opening days of WW2 can only be understood in the context of Poland bordering the only two nations in Europe truly not within the US and NATO military orbit, Ukraine’s status in this respect being still to be decided: Belarus and Russia. The Polish FM (since 2007) was a citizen of the UK from 1984 onward and a resident of the US from 2002-2005 where he was resident fellow at the AEI and executive director of the pro-NATO New Atlantic Initiative, and returned from the U.S. to become Poland’s defense minister in 2005. He is married to US journalist and fellow former AEI affiliate Anne Applebaum. He was back in Washington late last month visiting several of his old haunts. While at the State Dept, Sikorski met with Sec State Clinton, who described the government her visitor represented as “one of our closest friends and allies,” and pledged the US’s “commitment to Poland’s security.” A statement issued by the top diplomats said the two allied countries would look to more closely cooperate within NATO and on the future development of a European missile defense program. The two also discussed the war in Afghanistan, and even for good measure, to leave out not a single bone of contention with Russia, Sikorski said if US companies exploring energy resources in Poland ‘strike it lucky,’ it would enhance the energy security of Poland and Europe and forge new investment links between Poland and the US. Sikorski also met with Sec Def Gates and former NATO SAC and current US National Security Advisor Gen Jones, about whom more later, and addressed the annual awards dinner of US’s preeminent advocate group promoting the globalization of NATO, the Atlantic Council. Gates promised Sikorski 24 mine-resistant military vehicles for the Afghan war and the latter told the former:

We are there as part of the NATO mission. We’ve gone in together and we will also leave Afghanistan together.

Given the boost in Polish troops and US-supplied combat vehicles, that joint departure will not be anytime soon. Over the past five years, Sikorski has been a major player in the consolidation of Poland as the Pentagon’s and NATO’s main military outpost in northeastern Europe and, along with Bulgaria and Romania, in so-called New Europe, in New NATO, as a whole. In 2005, the US signed a ten-year agreement with Romania for the acquisition and upgrading of four military bases and a comparable agreement with Bulgaria the following year for three bases in that country. This February both Black Sea nations disclosed plans to host US SM-3 installations. In 2006 then EUCOM chief and NATO SAC Gen Jones said that the US was planning to use the Mihail Kogalniceanu air base in Romania not only for land troops, “but also for naval and air special units.” The US Joint Task Force East is now headquartered there. “The general added that the east European force [what is now Joint Task Force East] will significantly improve the US’s capacity to plan, coordinate and carry out operations that regard security cooperation in Eurasia and the Caucasus.” NATO has conducted a now six-year operation in which warplanes from several member states patrol the airspace over the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. In the last-named country the Zokniai/Siauliai International Airport is home to the NATO air squads. “The presence of NATO fighters represents a dramatic transformation from Siauliai’s not-so-distant past: the base was until 1992 a Soviet facility and housed types including Ilyushin Il-76-based A-50 airborne early warning and control system aircraft and RSK MiG-29 fighters.” The current four-month rotation which started on Apr 30 consists of four Polish jet fighters.

The Baltic Sea region is the site of near-continuous NATO and US military maneuvers: The Pentagon is reported to have spent over $1m recently on road construction and repairs for this year’s Baltic Operations (BALTOPS), annual military exercises which are the largest conducted in the Baltic region. “The US military is carrying out the entire job itself ahead of June’s NATO military training exercise. “BALTOPS provides a basis for promoting mutual understanding and maritime platform interoperability between US Navy, NATO, and non-NATO participants through a series of multilateral training exercises in air warfare, shallow water undersea warfare, electronic warfare, air control, air defense, surface warfare, communications, fast patrol boat operations, seamanship, and mine warfare.” BALTOPS 2009 was led by the US Navy’s Carrier Strike Group 12. Starting on May 31, EUCOM and Naval Striking and Support Forces NATO will lead military drills with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in the second Baltic Host operation, the first of which was held last year in Estonia. This year’s will be held simultaneously in the capitals of the three Baltic nations and will for the first time include participation by the armed forces of Denmark, Germany, Norway and Poland. “All participants acknowledged the ‘Baltic Host 2009′ exercise to be very successful and agreed on the fact that it should be established as a permanent training cycle organised in the Baltic States.” Last month, US troops were among 6,500 forces involved in the NATO Response Force’s Brilliant Mariner exercises in the Baltic and North Seas, along with 31 warships, four submarines and 28 aircraft. “Exercise Brilliant Mariner is an opportunity to really put NATO forces through their paces,” said NATO’s maritime commander Adm Soar.

Starting in Oct 2008, NATO’s Allied Air Component Command Headquarters Ramstein began regular air training exercises over Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. “Launched as rehearsal for the NATO Baltic Air policing mission, the events have now turned into a wide-spectrum exercise training air assets to conduct various aspects of air operations. Previous exercises focused on improving means of securing sovereignty of the Baltic airspace as reflected in their former name Baltic Air Sovereignty Training Event. “The exercise was renamed Baltic Region Training Event, to highlight the broader tasks of the third event. In the future NATO plans to conduct such type of training on a regular basis during rotations of every air contingent deployed on the air policing mission.” Russia, a Baltic Sea littoral state, was not invited to participate in any of the above exercises. It is the only nation against which such maneuvers are conducted. The fact that regular, almost uninterrupted, war games are held under US leadership in the Baltic Sea leaves no other interpretation.

Poland, though, is the main US and NATO military ally in the region, as Bulgaria and Romania are on the Black Sea. As seen above, Poland received the first of 48 US F-15 Fighting Falcon multirole jet fighters in 2006 and the last of them two years later. The purchase was the largest military deal in Poland’s history, one paralleled by Romania’s plans to buy from 48-54 of the same planes, with Bulgaria to follow suit. At the time of the first delivery to Poland then commander of USAF Europe and NATO Allied Air Component, Gen Hobbins, represented the USAF chief of staff at a special ceremony to welcome the warplanes. His comments included:

Poland’s acquisition of the F-16 cements the relationship between the USAF and the Polish air force for several decades to come. This ceremony demonstrates that Poland has become a very powerful and more vital member of NATO than ever before. Poland’s F-16s represent the most sophisticated aircraft in Eastern Europe and will serve as a military-to-military engagement magnet for forces in Europe. These aircraft are extremely capable in any of the NATO roles, whether they’re utilized in counter-air missions in the NATO Response Force, or air defense with ISAF in Afghanistan.

The following year, after Bulgarian and Romanian air bases had been acquired by the US and NATO, Hobbins said:

We’re moving in with some of our newest NATO allies like Romania and Bulgaria. One of the best benefits, there is the actual ability to train with these new nations and build a long lasting relationship. It’s being involved, their weapons training detachments allows us to build trust and confidence with our friends and neighbors. Poland is another good example of moving east. That’s going to bring the newest, most modern and sophisticated fighter to that area of the region. We will actually be able to rotate fighter units through there.

The suggestion was made by a USAF official that F-16s currently stationed at the Aviano Air Base in Italy be transferred to Poland. In Mar 2009, the Pentagon delivered the first of five C-130 Hercules military transport planes to Poland, the last expected to arrive this summer. The US commander in charge of the transfer said at the time:

Ultimately they want to deploy C-130s to the NATO mission in Afghanistan. Our mission is the help assist them to become fully operational to NATO standards.

According to Brig-Gen Mikutel, Poland’s 33rd Air Base commander, the Hercules will be the biggest of the country’s aircraft. The preceding month, the Polish daily Rzeczpospolita revealed that NATO had allotted over €1b for the development of military infrastructure in Poland:

The modernisation of seven military airports, two sea ports, five large fuel bases (12 are planned) and six strategic long-range aerial radars has already been completed. In addition, NATO will equip military airfields in Powidz, Lask and Minsk Mazowiecki with new installations to improve the logistical and defence capacity of these bases. Air defence headquarters are to be set up in Poznan, Warsaw and Bydgoszcz; a radio communications centre will be located in Wladyslawowo on the Baltic coast. A newly built training centre in Bydgoszcz should be fully equipped with computer devices by the end of the year (total cost €40m).

In Jun 2009, Polish DM Klich said that NATO would inaugurate a Joint Battle Command Centre in the northern city of Bydgoszcz where NATO has run a Joint Force Training Centre since 2004. The defense chief said:

The Alliance has made the decision to open a new NATO cell, a new joint regiment within NATO. According to the decision, commanders from three regiments will be located in Bydgoszcz. In Bydgoszcz, we will have the permanent commanders of a battalion and other components: one of six joint mobile modules, a security component and logistics and support operators, which include approximately 200 NATO troops. NATO has decided to heavily invest in Poland by modernizing military infrastructure including air and sea bases.

On the same day the same source, Polish Radio, reported:

Poland will appoint seven generals to NATO. One of them will be deployed in the NATO headquarters in Norfolk, USA. [Allied Command Transformation.] Poland will have twice as many generals in NATO’s structures as a result of the alliance’s command reform and recognition of Polish troops who participate in NATO’s missions.

In October, Klich said:

We will spend about 60b zloty (€12.3b) by the year 2018 to modernize Poland’s armed forces, with emphasis on 14 programs: air defense systems, combat and cargo helicopters, naval modernization, espionage and unmanned aircraft, training simulators and equipment for soldiers.

By November, the Polish Air Force had flown over 100 missions with the first US C-130 troop transport plane, and according to a Polish military official:

The entire donation of five totally refurbished aircraft, support equipment, supplies, training, and contracted logistics support, is valued at $120m and 100% funded through bilateral military assistance grant money.

Poland’s air bases, particularly that at Powidz, where the US has conducted special forces training, and training sites like that at Wedrzyn where US troops have provided combat instruction, regularly host US and NATO military personnel in support of operations that have nothing at all to do with the defense of the host nation. A USAF Europe analysis of Nov 12 2009 placed the intensified US military buildup in Poland in percipient and convincing perspective:

Poland will give the US a minimum of two things when it agrees to a missile base on Polish soil. It gives the US a base from which it can challenge Russia and a leveraged increase in troops on the ground in Europe. The unspoken issue is that the US will have a base in Poland that will fix the Polish border and that Poland will have the US behind it to protect that border. It puts US troops, albeit small numbers, in the Russian ‘near abroad’. It tells Russia, you tread on Poland, you tread on the US. It is a clever and cheap way for the US to build an anti-Russian army in Eastern Europe. Just provide the equipment and let someone else maintain it and provide the manpower. Let Poland worry about paying and training the troops. The end result is that the United States can extend its influence through a low cost Army in Poland.

By setting up a Patriot missile battery 35 miles from Russian territory and basing troops there, Washington is well on its way to achieving that objective.