The development and changing attitude of the United States towards its military presence in Poland, according to Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Radoslaw Sikorski confused Russian President Vladimir Putin, who now does not know what the US will do. Sikorski said this on Friday at the Globsec Forum security conference in Prague during a discussion with the head of German diplomacy, Johann Wadephul. Originally, the new Hungarian minister Anita Orbánová was also supposed to discuss with them, but according to the moderator, she stopped on her way to Prague. writes TASR reporter.
“Regarding the deployment of troops, we in Poland are of course glad that President (Donald) Trump has clarified that the level of the American presence in Poland will be roughly the same as it was until recently, maybe even a little more. And what is particularly satisfying is that we managed to confuse Putin. Now he has no idea what we are going to do. This is how strategic deception is done,” Sikorski said, prompting the audience to laugh.
The German minister also praised the decision. “Every single NATO soldier east of Germany is deployed in the right place. So thank you, Mr. President, for clarifying that,” he said to Trump. At the same time, however, he pointed out that concrete military capabilities are more important than the number of soldiers who are deployed in one place or another. “Five thousand plus or minus really means nothing for the defense of Europe and for the strength of NATO,” added Wadephul.
In order to put the number of 5000 soldiers into context, Sikorski added that The United States currently has about 85,000 of them in Europe, Poland has 200,000 of them in peacetime and Ukraine almost a million in wartime.
Politicians also talked about the upcoming NATO summit in Ankara. They agreed that it will be shown there who fulfills what he promised last year in The Hague and how. According to them, both Poland and Germany took the commitment seriously. Wadephul emphasized that Germany has doubled its defense budget over the past four years and currently spends more than four percent of GDP on defense. In the case of Poland, it is 4.8 percent.
“This will be a verification summit. We made a commitment in The Hague, and until the summit, which is in Turkey in six weeks, we will all know what budgets are planned for next year. And we’ll see who’s on the right track and who’s not,” said Sikorski.
US President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that the United States will move an additional 5,000 troops to Poland. He made the announcement days after Washington announced it would delay the originally planned deployment as part of broader changes to the deployment of US forces in Europe. Trump justified his Friday decision by his close relationship with Polish President Karol Nawrocky.
According to Stanislaw Wziatek, Secretary of State at the Polish Ministry of Defense, the average number of American soldiers in Poland was approximately 10,000, whereas in the last period there were fewer of them due to the deployment of part of the forces in the Middle East.
The United States has been reviewing its military presence in Europe for a long time, and Trump has repeatedly stressed that the continent should take more responsibility for its security. Three weeks ago, the Pentagon announced that it would reduce the number of troops in Germany by 5,000.
