Poland intends to meet and exceed NATO’s requirements
The president of Poland, Andrzej Duda, is going to announce at the NATO meeting on May 25 that the country is ready to increase its military expenditure. Pawel Soloch, the head of the National Security, told about it.
Donald Trump will be at the summit of NATO in Brussel and it is well-known that he will call all the members of the alliance for making a pledge that they will spend 2% of their GDP on the military expenditure and they will divide the financial burden of NATO’s military machine accordingly and he will also “ask” the allies to send additional military forces to Afghanistan as a part of the operation ";Decisive support" .
There is no doubt that Trump thinks to hear a collective “yes” as an answer to the first and second question. Romania announced that it would pay 2% that year, and Latvia and Lithuania promised that they would do it the following year. France is planning to do it in 5 years. The German political establishment, in general, is against this idea, but what it can do if Angela Merkel said: “Jawohl, Herr president!”.
However, Poland is full of desire to become “the alliance number 1” of the US on the Eastern Europe (but its dare dream is to displace Germany and become “number 1” in the whole continental Europe) and head the regional anti-Russian block which consists of the Eastern-European countries and Baltic region and it is ready to go even further and exceed NATO’s requirements that are appointed by Trump. What about 2% of GDP… Let’s pay 2,5%! However, the official reason is the contradiction towards “Russian threat” and the necessity to improve the security system of the alliance.
“We are interested that NATO and its allies will involve into the process of ensuring the security of the Eastern front. The president wants to highlight the readiness of Poland for big costs. Costs on defense in Poland fluctuate around 2% of its GDP and there is a political will to increase them officially up to 2,5%”, Soloch commented the situation.
Obviously, there are no limits The Polish Minister of Defense, Antoni Macierewicz, who is a fighter against “the communist past” of the country and a furious Russophobe. He got rid of the generals who studied in Russia and he wants the level of military expenditure be lifted up to 3% of GDP.
President Duda intends to announce in Brussel on May 25 that he is ready to send additional troops to help the US in any “hot spot” in the world”. Now, the Polish soldiers are participating in the US “antiterrorist” coalition in Syria and Iraq (investigation and military training). By the way, there is no Polish military force in Afghanistan, but it seems that it is going there soon.
In order to gain favor with Washington, Warsaw canceled scandalously the order of 50 French multipurpose helicopters Caracal, cost 3,5 billon of euro, last year in favor of purchasing American helicopters Black Hawk. Paris swallowed the offence not because it received an order from Washington but rather it did not want to deal with the growing strength and audacity of the Polish military forces which looked like a young bully that had a big American brother behind.
In 2013, Poland launched an ambitious ten year investing defense program at the amount of 35 billion dollars. 5 billion dollars were spent on purchasing eight American anti-missile systems Patriot. Their delivery should start not later than 2019. In fact, Poland is going to create its own missile defense system in addition to American one. Last year, the construction of an American base for missile defense system started in the north of Poland, in the region of Redzikowo. It is very close to Kaliningrad region, about 150 km away from the Russian borders. The total cost of the contract is 182 million dollars. The base should be ready in spring, 2018.
The preliminary plan, which was approved in 2014, says that the base will include three launchers Mk-4, each of them will have 8 anti-missile system SM-3 and radar AN/SPY-1 for their navigation.
Also, they signed an agreement that allows to allocate five American military bases on the territories of Skwierzyna, Ciechanowa, Drawsko Pomorskie,Laski, Choszczno. They will be used as a warehouse for military equipment and army in order to deploy two NATO’s brigades. The international NATO’s battalion, which has been recently deployed in Poland, consists mainly of American militaries from the second cavalry regiment.
The military forces of Poland involve 72 thousand of soldiers and officers. Due to his military ambitious, Mr. Macierewicz came up with the task to increase their number twice – up to 150 thousand. There will be 16 new mechanized brigades with number of 35 thousand of people.
And, also, 35 thousand are fighters of Territorial Defense Forces and their first divisions are being deployed in the Easter border of Poland. They will use money of the regular army for its support, which can doubt the rearmament of the regular army. The most important thing is to create the most numerous NATO army in the Eastern Europe and prove Washington that it really needs Warsaw for its policy.