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In the decades after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Poland was perhaps the most pro-American country in Europe. It came to NATO in 1999, houses around 10,000 American troops and has benefited enormously from the American political and military support.
Now, in just a few months, Poland has started confronting a new era, with new fears. President Trump has threatened to give the old American dedication to European security and performs rates that endanger the world economy. The Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, Wil NATO troops from Poland and has threatened further aggression beyond the war in Ukraine, the neighbor of Poland in the east.
Poland has responded vigorously. It takes more a leading role in the European Union, increasing his already important military editions and organizing a Swiss program for training ordinary citizens in the civil defense. It also warns countries in the rest of Europe that they too have to pay more for their own safety, because the United States under Mr Trump are no longer willing to pay so much of the bill.
Security is perhaps the only problem that unites Poland for a presidential election that starts within three weeks. More generally, the location of Poland on the eastern edge of NATO makes it a crucial stronghold against Russian damage to Europe.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk van Polen indicated In March, in view of “the in -depth change in American geopolitics”, Europe would be safer if we had our own nuclear arsenal. “The explanation shocked many because it implied that Poland and Europe could no longer rely on the American nuclear umbrella for protection.
“We see the architecture of global security and the global economy that vibrate under our feet, and we are a country that has benefited enormously from both globalization and Western solidarity,” said Radoslaw Sikorski, Foreign Minister and former Minister of Defense, in an interview.
A new era of insecurity
The most persistent answer to the long history of Warfish of Poland with Russia has been NATO membership, and the American military supports it. Poles consider American military obligations to be broad lines such as securing their liberties, said Mark Brzezinski, a former American ambassador in Poland.
Now, countries like Poles, which are especially vulnerable because of its long borders with Ukraine and White -Russia, “have new challenges that make us nervous,” said Mr. Sikorski.
Central to Polish fear is Mr Trump, who has spoken about reducing the presence of American troops in Europe. The cohort in Poland is part of around 85,000 American troops in Europe.
Poland Worries were raised Last month, when the US Army announced that it would move some troops of a base in southeastern Poland, close to Ukraine, as “part of a broader strategy to optimize American military operations.”
European leaders understand that some American troops can be turned elsewhere, but they fear that too great a reduction will transfer a message from weakness to Moscow. The Kremlin has demanded that NATO will get its troops from countries that joined after 1997, including Poles, but despite threats to do this, Russia did not dare to attack, even those bases used to support Ukraine.
The departure of American troops “would send a signal to Russia that this is a gray zone for Washington,” said Michal Baranowski, a top official working on the industrial defense strategy at the Ministry of Economic Development and Technology of Poland. “And we posts will never again live in a gray zone. And there should also be no gray zones in the European Union.”
Poles consider the relationship between American Europe as mutual beneficial and are surprised at the declared contempt of the Trump government for Europe, which can feel as a betrayal for some. For decades, the US helped to protect Europe against Russia, and in exchange, Europe was postponed to American leadership in the field of security and bought weapons from American manufacturers.
“That is a deal that works both sides,” said Mr. Sikorski.
Under former President Joe Biden, the United States established a permanent military presence in Poland in March 2023. The forward headquarters for the US Army’s V Corps is in what is called Camp Kosciuszko, named after a Polish general who fought for American independence against Great Britain.
Another American basis in Poland, an AEGIS Antimissile Defense installation that serves as part of America’s own defense against ballistic missiles, was transferred to NATO command last July as part of the Missile Defense Shield of the Alliance. That step was another effort to shift the burden on the defense of Europe away from the United States, even before Mr Trump took office.
Karolina Wigura, a Polish historian and philosopher, said it was bluntly, “Poles are anxious,” she said, especially after Mr. Trump had praised Mr Putin and the humiliation of President Volodymyr Zensky of Ukraine in the Oval Office at the end of February.
“You feel insecure, you feel a step of Yalta,” she said, referring to the infamous 1945 conference where the dying US President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, Eastern Europe handed over to the Russian dictator, Joseph Stalin.
“The old fear comes up again,” said Mrs. Wigura, “that Russia will attack us and the West will betray us.”
Poland’s reaction
Mr. Tusk, a former European Council President in Brussels, is a loud proponent of more military editions by EU members of EU, both collective and individually, to support Ukraine and to strengthen the own military capacity of Europe.
Poland already spent 4.5 percent of his gross domestic product in defense – the highest European countries – and strives for 5 percent, Mr Trump’s demand to NATO countries. The United States spend 3.4 percent.
Mr. Tusk tries to form a coalition of European countries that understands the deep threat to the European security of Mr Putin’s Russia and is willing to spend more to build a European deterioration that is less dependent on Washington. The likely candidates, Mr. Baranowski said his Poland, France, Great Britain, Italy; the Nordic and Baltic countries, which are also geographically close to Russia; And the most important, the largest economy in Europe – Germany. The new Conservative Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, was planning to visit Poland Immediately from his first foreign visit to France.
Poland has already identified military projects with a value of 40 billion euros, or $ 46 billion, which can be financed as part of a new € 150 billion EU loan program Mr Baranowski said before the defense.
Mr. Tusk advocated in Poland Training for civil defense. He called for military training for a month, with salary, for every citizen who wants it. Informed by the combat lessons taken from Ukraine, the program is expected to be treated by 2027 100,000 volunteers a year. Mr. Tusk has also proposed legislation to streamline military investments and construction.
United on security
Poland is confronted with a crucial presidential election, with the first round in three weeks. The country remains polarized between the party of Mr Tusk, the citizen platform and that of the former government, the right-wing nationalist rights and justice party.
But the country is largely united in military editions and defense, experts said.
The number of Poles that believes that the US would come to their rescue to their help is falling, said Wojciech Przybylski, editor -in -chief of Visgrad InsightAn independent think tank that focuses on Central Europe. “So we are at a crucial moment for our own safety,” he added.
In a sign of the eagerness of Poland to strengthen ties with America, the government has approved an earlier deal Made by law and justice with Westinghouse and Bechtel, two large American companies, to convert Poland’s first nuclear power station.
The invasion of Ukraine shows that Europe, 10 times richer than Russia, has to spend its own safety in order to scare Moscow to “risk a similar irrational attack” elsewhere in Europe, Mr Sikorski said.
“Europe cannot build what the US has, what the capacity is to hit a target all over the world,” he said. “But we don’t need that. We don’t have to be as good as the United States. We just have to be better than Russia.”
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