President Joe Biden announced the foundation of a permanent US military base in Poland.
The move from the president comes as Russia has been been threatening Poland with a possible invasion if they got too cozy with NATO.
The new base was announced by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who tweeted: “In Poland 🇵🇱, we will permanently forward station the @VCorps HQ Forward Command Post, a @USArmy garrison headquarters, and a field support battalion. These forces will be the first permanent U.S. forces on NATO’s Eastern Flank.”
Joe Biden added his own stamp of approval while on a diplomatic mission in Europe this week, saying, “In a moment when Putin has shattered peace in Europe and attacked the very tenets of rule-based order, the United States and our allies are stepping up.”
The addition of the permanent US Army base in Poland as well as both Finland and Sweden joining NATO means that Putin has essentially been walled off from most of Europe. All NATO members pledge to help one another enforce their borders through military means if they are invaded.
According to Notes from Poland, “Biden also revealed that the US would maintain an additional rotational brigade in Romania, enhance rotational deployments in the Baltic region, deploy two squadrons of F-35 aircraft to the UK, station additional air defense in Germany and Italy, and seek to increase the number of destroyers stationed in Spain.”
These new military moves are in response to Vladimir Putin’s ongoing war in Ukraine, which has resulted in an estimate of nearly 100,000 deaths since it began. Russia has long opposed NATO, which was created to help strengthen Europe against the Soviet Union.
Throughout his war Putin has also threatened other countries not to interfere or join NATO, lest he would invade them as well. The new defense agreements are a significant response to that threat.
The Russian strongman responded to the news, saying, “We don’t have problems with Sweden and Finland like we do with Ukraine. We don’t have territorial differences.”
He continued, “If Finland and Sweden wish to, they can join. That’s up to them. They can join whatever they want.”
Putin did add, however, that if NATO added military infrastructure to these countries that could threaten Russia, he would “respond symmetrically and raise the same threats for those territories where threats have arisen for us.”
Do you think it was the right move by Biden and NATO to shore up these countries and their borders despite Putin’s threat? Is Putin even capable of maintaining another invasion after the losses in Ukraine?
