By Gabriela Baczynska – Tue Jan 24, 12:12 pm ET
WARSAW (Reuters) – Poland fears planned defense cuts by the United States may stall the development of an anti-missile system on Polish soil and leave it more vulnerable to Russia, a senior government source said.
U.S. President Barack Obama's drive to cut nearly half a trillion dollars in defense spending over the next 10 years means Washington is reviewing already announced programs to reflect a stronger focus on Asia.
This review covers a planned U.S. missile shield endorsed by NATO. Missile interceptors are planned to be deployed in Poland from 2018 but the plan is vehemently opposed by its neighbor Russia, which regards the shield as a threat to its security.
"From Poland's point of view, the worst-case scenario is that Russia, sensitive to this issue, as a retaliation places various elements in Kaliningrad while the missile shield, now reviewed by Americans, never comes true," the source said under condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
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4 comments:
Paranoia will destroy ya... like the song goes. Russia has enough internal issues to deal with to keep it busy for the next generation. To put it simply, Poland is insignificant to Russia - perhaps that is what riles Poles so much. They like to think of themselves in a grandiose fashion.
gotta love the kinks!
BUT you're so easily convinced russia will STICK to its own pressing 'internal issues' while also dealing with a somewhat megalomaniacal thirst ('somewhat' ha!) to continue to be the 'world player' it's always seen itself as being?
you accuse poland of 'grandiosity'(?!) in light of its decades-long 'training' at the hands of unfeeling behemoths like the russians/soviets/bolsheviks yet you ever-generously fail to assess the equally grandiose levels of macho-based grandstanding and chest-thumping which russia always makes time for.
the overtness may perhaps waver momentarily, but it ALWAYS comes to the fore when opportunity presents - why else is there a russian response even, to the anti-missile system if not simply as russia continuing the SSR's p*ssing contest with the U.S.?
putin says 'you cannot do this to us!'
oh yes sure, 'everything's changed' you say?
HORSEpoop.
why spew this 'ha ha you persecuted pissant fools have lathered yourselves up over nothing' when all this sworn retaliatory crap is going immediately next door, on a russian 'island' they have no business even 'owning' there, were it not for yalta?
the polacks just aren't smoking enough weed apparently to buy into this sudden-onset 'come on people smile at your brother...love one another, right, now' hippie foolishness you've just insisted MUST be true.
recall that they've danced this dance before. the entire region has. it will hurt a LOT to be wrong, especially if disaster comes after they listen to 'calmer heads' - ie someone calling them 'chicken littles' for overestimating their presence in the grand russian scheme of things.
Just because you are paranoid doesn't mean someone isn't out to get you... OK RocDoc, I'll buy that, but I think you overestimate the power of Russia to do much against Poland, even if it was intent on doing so. Russia is in the post-imperial period all empires eventually end up.
I had hoped the Obama would bury the missile defense shield once and for all, but apparently it is too good a military cash cow to pass up.
The big mistake was not disbanding NATO back in '91. Its role was finished at that point, but the US managed to get Eastern European countries to buy into it as some kind of "insurance plan" against Russia, only to turn around and ask EE countries to supply logistical support and troops for its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
With these two wars drawing to a close one would hope that a reassessment of NATO take place. That if the "Allied" countries so badly want to keep a "military deterent" they should fold it into the UN and ask Russia, China and other countries to be a part of it, not continue to work at opposite ends.
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