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Old 09-19-2018, 03:05 PM
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Arrow Fort Trump?—A Permanent U.S. Military Base in Poland?

Fort Trump?—A Permanent U.S. Military Base in Poland?
By: Peter R. Mansoor - Wednesday, September 19, 2018
RE: https://www.hoover.org/research/fort...ry-base-poland

Egads - Fort Trump - next he will have our troops wearing Trump hats. What an egotistical person.

Following a meeting in the Oval office on September 18, President Donald Trump said he is considering a request from Polish President Andrzej Duda to permanently station American troops in his country. Duda even offered to name the military facility “Fort Trump” and to provide more than $2 billion to help finance it. Poland desires the protection and stability that a permanent U.S. presence on its soil offers. One can sympathize with the Polish desire for a superpower security umbrella.

In the thousand years of its history, Poland has twice ceased to exist. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth fell prey in the latter half of the 18th century to the territorial cravings of Russia, Prussia, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Three partitions—in 1772, 1793, and 1795—first reduced the size of the Polish-Lithuanian state, and then made it disappear from the map of Europe altogether. For nearly 125 years Poland remained an aspiration rather than a reality, until revolution and defeat in war vanquished its more powerful neighbors.

The Second Polish Republic arose in 1918 from the ashes of World War I. Its history was anything but peaceful. War with the Soviet Union nearly ended the Second Republic’s existence in the cradle, but victory in the Battle of Warsaw in 1920 enabled Polish forces to expel the Red Army from Polish territory. The reprieve was all too brief. Despite fielding an army of nearly a million soldiers, 4,300 guns, 1,280 tanks, and 745 aircraft, Poland fell quickly to German and Russian aggression in September 1939. The Anglo-French guarantees of Polish sovereignty were brushed aside by Hitler’s panzer divisions and Stalin’s Red Army legions. Another period of darkness fell on Poland, which suffered heavily from rapacious German conduct and industrial-scale slaughter on its soil during World War II. The Wehrmacht brutally suppressed an uprising by the Polish Home Army in August and September 1944, largely destroying the city of Warsaw in the process.

Allied victory in World War II once again restored Polish sovereignty, albeit in heavily redrawn borders and under the oppressive weight of Soviet communist oversight. Only the end of the Cold War in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union two years later finally freed Poland from the grip of the Russian bear. The Third Polish Republic was inaugurated, with Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa elected president in December 1990. The last Red Army troops departed Polish territory in 1993.

Polish leaders, steeped in their country’s often tragic history, have sought not just freedom but security in the years since. Poland joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1999 and Polish troops have participated in U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. But Russian revanchism is deeply unsettling to Polish leaders, who understand all too well how their country once disappeared from the map when greedy tyrants decided to carve it up. Since the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, NATO troops have rotated through Poland and the Baltic States to deter Russian aggression in Eastern Europe. But Poland wants more: a permanent U.S. military presence on its soil, which alone in its view will ensure Polish sovereignty for the indefinite future.

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Personal note: I thought most of the new installations were named after a Medal of Honor or fallen Soldier? Fort Trump "my God" this guy has gaul to say the least. Next to it he will build another Trump Tower - he has to brand everything with his name - his ego is extreme to say the least. This would really piss off the Russians for sure. China may not be happy about it either. Who cares?

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O Almighty Lord God, who neither slumberest nor sleepest; Protect and assist, we beseech thee, all those who at home or abroad, by land, by sea, or in the air, are serving this country, that they, being armed with thy defence, may be preserved evermore in all perils; and being filled with wisdom and girded with strength, may do their duty to thy honour and glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

"IN GOD WE TRUST"
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Old 09-19-2018, 03:14 PM
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Fort Trump: Is a new US military base in Poland a realistic option?
BY: DW Made for minds
RE: https://www.dw.com/en/fort-trump-is-...ion/a-45567231

US President Donald Trump has said he is "seriously considering" a Polish request that Washington build a new military base in the country. DW spoke with two security experts to determine the viability of such a plan.

On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump and his Polish counterpart, Andrzej Duda, raised the prospect of building a new US military base in Poland. Duda even suggested it might be named "Fort Trump" at the joint press conference in Washington, stressing Poland's "very strategic location" and pointing to the need for an expanded US presence to counter Russia's aggressive behavior. Trump voiced openness to the proposal.

Although the name got the US president's and the world's attention, the idea came as no surprise to security experts. The Polish government has spent months actively lobbying for the project in Washington.

Read more: US-Poland base plans must include NATO, says ex-Pentagon official

Poland's former Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, for instance, told DW's Zhanna Nemtsova: "I worked very hard to bring it about. We want in Poland the kind of allied forces that would deter Russia but not threaten Russia."

At Tuesday's press conference, Trump said the US would "seriously consider" the proposal. But how realistic is it and what would the implications be? DW spoke with Heather Conley of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and Jorge Benitez from the Atlantic Council to get their assessments of the situation.

Lengthy process

Conley stressed the lengthiness of the US decision-making process: "When President Trump says 'we are seriously considering it,' it means that Congress has asked the Defense Department to study this proposal. The Defense Department, I think, has some very important questions." And "I don't believe US defense officials are that enthusiastic about this. I don't think there is great speed or enthusiasm for this."

A bilateral proposal that NATO would have to sign off on

Both Conley and Benitez picked up on the bilateral nature of the proposal. Conley said: "Whatever decisions are reached bilaterally would have to be in close consultation with NATO, and of course the NATO-Russia Founding Act [of 1997] would have to be part of that conversation. But again this is to ensure that there is a greater deterrence and readiness capability on NATO's eastern flank. The US bilateral arrangement with Poland, should it happen, would have to be inside that context."

Read more: NATO views Vostok with both a shrug and a show of force

Benitez said: "The Polish offer would make sense as part of a multinational investment of NATO forces in Central Europe, such as the Alliance's Enhanced Forward Presence battalions in Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Accepting the Polish offer without doing it through NATO would mean more direct US resources for European defense without any matching investment by other NATO allies. This is counter to Trump's priority to make NATO allies less dependent on US military assistance. Building a US base in Poland would be a step in the opposite direction. It would make the US unilaterally more responsible for security near NATO's borders with Russia."

Undermining European security?

Benitez said the stationing of US troops in Poland would not, as Moscow warned in May, undermine European security: "Quite the opposite, more US troops in Central Europe will strengthen deterrence and thereby increase stability in the region."

'Russians will complain if a group of Girl Scouts visit Poland'

Speaking on Russian objections to the move, Benitez was quite blunt: "The Russians will respond with wild allegations and negative propaganda. But the truth is that the Russians will complain if a group of Girl Scouts visit Poland. Moscow tries to portray everything as a threat, even though the small number of US troops likely to be moved to Poland will be no threat to the quarter of a million troops Russia has stationed near its border with NATO"

Pulling troops out of Germany?

Asked about the threat that the US might shift troops from Germany amid growing US-German tensions, Conley said the scenario was quite unlikely: "With the world class and premiere facilities that the US has in Germany and Italy, both the cost and the movement to Poland would not make cost effective sense. I don't think it has anything to do with current US force posture in Germany."

The global picture

Conley, however, sees another issue as a potential impediment to realizing the proposal: "The other big question is: Where would those additional forces come from? What would the global footprint be if the US would decide to move additional capabilities farther to NATO's eastern flank? The global picture will be a very big constraint on any further US decision."

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Personal note: Don't get me wrong but a base in Poland would really piss off Russia. I think it's a damn good idea - but I'm not crazy about calling it Fort Trump. Poland's history has been a tough one for sure - but a base there isn't a bad idea. Just me thinking outside the box.

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O Almighty Lord God, who neither slumberest nor sleepest; Protect and assist, we beseech thee, all those who at home or abroad, by land, by sea, or in the air, are serving this country, that they, being armed with thy defence, may be preserved evermore in all perils; and being filled with wisdom and girded with strength, may do their duty to thy honour and glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

"IN GOD WE TRUST"
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Old 09-19-2018, 03:20 PM
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US Army Head: Poland May Not Be Ready for 'Fort Trump'
By: VOA 9-19-18 Agence France-Presse
RE: https://www.voanews.com/a/us-army-he...-/4578714.html

Photo link: https://gdb.voanews.com/5C00A0C6-6E7...w1023_r1_s.jpg
FILE - The first U.S. troops arrive at the Zagan base in western Poland as part of deterrence force of some 1,000 troops to be based there, Jan. 12, 2017

Poland might not yet be ready for a permanent US military base, the head of the US Army said Wednesday, the day after Polish President Andrzej Duda offered to host "Fort Trump."

Duda went to the White House on Tuesday to reiterate Poland's long-standing desire for a permanent US troop deployment to the eastern European country — a contentious move some worry would anger Russia and draw US troops away from long-established bases in Germany.

But US Army Secretary Mark Esper told AFP when he visited Poland in January, it appeared there was not enough space on offer to fulfill the training requirements for US soldiers.

"It was not sufficient in terms of size and what we could do in the maneuver space and certainly on the ranges," Esper said. "You need a lot of range space to do tank gunnery, for example."

He added that, in many cases, the terrain was "maybe not robust enough to really allow us to maintain the level of readiness we would like to maintain."

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Tuesday expressed similar concerns, saying there was a "host of details" that need to be studied alongside the Poles before any decision is made.

"It's not just about a base," Mattis told reporters. "It's about training ranges, it's about maintenance facilities at the base, all these kinds of things."

Trump said Poland is offering to pay Washington at least $2 billion to help meet the costs of the base, which Duda said could be called "Fort Trump," and that the US is "looking at it very seriously."

Duda said Russian military expansion, starting with a takeover of rebel areas of neighboring Georgia and more recently the annexation of Ukraine's Black Sea Crimea region, was part of "constant violation of international law."

Poland has been angling for a permanent US troop presence since at least a decade ago, when it was in talks with president George W. Bush's administration to host a missile-defense complex.

That deal eventually fell through under president Barack Obama, but Poland in March signed a $4.75 billion contract to purchase a US-made Patriot anti-missile system.

NATO last year opened a counter-espionage hub in Poland aimed at expanding the alliance's intelligence-gathering capabilities amid tensions with Russia.

The US-led alliance has also bolstered its forces in eastern Europe with four international battalions acting as tripwires against possible Russian adventurism in the region.

Esper is set to visit Europe next weekend, traveling to Germany, Bulgaria and France, where he will attend the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery for a commemoration 100 years after World War I.

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Personal note: I knew Russia wouldn't be too keen on a US Base in Poland- but it may not be a bad idea to offset Russia movements of late. Putin may have to call Trump and shower him with nice talk to offset a new base so close to home. Too bad Putin - I really dislike that KGB guy - he's a real dirt bag full of tricks!

Boats
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O Almighty Lord God, who neither slumberest nor sleepest; Protect and assist, we beseech thee, all those who at home or abroad, by land, by sea, or in the air, are serving this country, that they, being armed with thy defence, may be preserved evermore in all perils; and being filled with wisdom and girded with strength, may do their duty to thy honour and glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

"IN GOD WE TRUST"
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