Poland Fears It Would be Buffer State ‘Sacrificed’ by the United States, Wants Nuclear Weapons to Guarantee Safety

RUSKOWO, POLAND - MARCH 14: Polish soldiers stand guard by the Airport Road Section (DOL)
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Oliver JJ Lane

Poland’s President says the country is in talks with the U.S. about having American nuclear weapons stationed in the country to deter Russian aggression, while a top Polish NATO general says getting the weapons is “important” to prevent the country becoming a vulnerable buffer that could be “sacrificed” by Washington to keep the peace with Moscow.

Poland is in talks with the United States about hosting nuclear weapons and has been for some time, the country’s right-wing President has said, while citing increasing militarisation by its eastern neighbour and former Cold War occupier Russia. President Andrej Duda, of the Law and Justice Party which held Poland’s government until last year and who is now generally at loggerheads with its new globalist-centrist Eurocrat Prime Minister Donald Tusk said this week that Poland is “ready” for nuclear weapons.

He said, in an interview with Polish media, Do Rzeczy reports: “This has been a topic of Polish-American talks for some time… If our allies decide to deploy nuclear weapons as part of Nuclear Sharing also on our territory to strengthen the security of NATO’s eastern flank, we are ready for it. We are an ally in the North Atlantic Alliance and we also bear obligations in this respect, which means we simply implement a common policy”.

The President pointed the finger at the Russian Federation, saying it is “increasingly militarizing the Królewiec district. Recently, it has been relocating its nuclear weapons to Belarus”. Królewiec is a Polish traditional name for what the Russians call Kaliningrad, and the Germans Königsberg — what was one East Prussia and after the Second World War, a Russian exclave in northern Europe.

Poland’s Prime Minister affected to react with surprise at the announcement, taking a disapproving tone in saying “I am looking forward to meeting President Andrzej Duda. I would like to know all the circumstances that prompted him to make this declaration”. Former Polish Defence Minister Mariusz Błaszczak hit back at Tusk’s counter-position, saying that talks had been ongoing on American nuclear weapons in Poland for years, and that his comments weakened the nation.

Discussing the issues around the matter of American nuclear weapons in Europe, General Bogusław Samol — former NATO Commander of Multinational Corps Northeast responsible for all “Allied operations across the north-eastern flank” — said it is important for Poland to become a host for U.S. nuclear weapons. Becoming a nuclear nation — if only by proxy — means Poland would be saved from a Ukraine-like fate, he said, being an Eastern European state that could be given up to the Russians, sacrificed to keep a wider peace.

The general said he doubted the U.S. would be rapid to respond even to Russian nuclear aggression in Europe. He told Polish television: “The superpowers are making sure that there is no global conflict. We, as a buffer country and our military units, will probably be sacrificed on the altar of the security of the United States or even Western Europe”.

Speaking on the same panel, former deputy chief of the General Staff of the Polish Army General Leon Komornicki said greater security for Europe could be guaranteed by inviting America to station an army in Poland: “At least one American division should also be stationed here. We have to demand it”, he told the audience.

“Entering the nuclear club is very important for Poland”, General Samol said, but said it was important to consider whether the weapons would actually be in Polish hands and able to Polish interests — to defend against an attack by Russia or Russian proxy Belarus, in other words.

General Samol’s comments touch upon the difficult point of nuclear non-proliferation. When Russia extended its nuclear umbrella to Belarus last year, it did so to a chorus of condemnation from the international community for its flagrant violation of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of 1968. The treaty bans new nuclear powers from being created by an existing power giving or lending its weapons to another.

Russia counter-claimed the United States already does this —  Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey all deploy American nuclear weapons on their own aircraft — but this practice predates the 1968 treaty and is essentially ‘grandfathered in’. By the terms of the treaty, the U.S. would not be able to invite more nations into that club.

The U.S. could theoretically deploy its own nuclear weapons controlled by its own forces inside Poland, however, as it has done in the past with the United Kingdom and  — according to recent reports — is soon to do so again. The United States has a permanent military base in Poland at Camp Kościuszko in Poznań. As noted, the camp is named after an 18th-century soldier who fought for an independent Poland, and then for the U.S. as a brigadier general during the American Revolutionary War.

 

Poland is not the only European state entertaining nuclear dreams as Russia continues to grind through Ukraine’s defences. As reported earlier this year, a top German politician said the European Union itself should become nuclear armed — a step “on the way to a European army”. Ultimately, the idea runs into the same problems of the nuclear proliferation treaty.

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