"U.S. Troops Enter Poland, 1st Deployment at Russia's " Topic

…Doorstep.

"American soldiers rolled into Poland on Thursday, fulfilling a dream some Poles have had since the fall of communism in 1989 to have U.S. troops on their soil as a deterrent against Russia.

Some people waved and held up American flags as U.S. troops in tanks and other vehicles crossed into southwestern Poland from Germany and headed toward the town of Zagan, where they will be based. Poland's prime minister and defense minister will welcome them in an official ceremony Saturday…"
Main page
link

Amicalement
Armand

Interesting times.

Glad they're there to show the flag, and hopefully provide for an effective deterrence to further Russian adventurism, and/or invasions and occupations. There's been far too much of that in the last 50 years, or so.

Agree!

Amicalement
Armadn

From what I have heard of Poles online, they are quite excited to have them.

From what I have heard of Poles online, they are quite excited to have them.

They're probably happy it's not the Germans or the Russians for a change! :)

All good things come to an end. I expect the Americans will wear out their welcome in Poland as they have in places like Okinawa and the Philippines.

The fact that this is a provocation to Russia, which has been invaded thru Poland twice in the last century (three times if you count Poland itself) is somehow irrelevant?

What would Americans think of Russian troops in Cuba, sent to guard against "aggression?"

Russia will find a way to make the US pay indirectly without resorting to direct military confrontation unless provoked or until the US is entangled in other global struggles. The cost will be high and relentless. The US public will be made aware of that high cost constantly by the free press. They will haemorrhage money and prestige until they leave. The Russian chess players are the masters of the long game while the US is a political goldfish with little ability to sustain difficult policy past 8-16 years. Time is your enemy. Time conquers all.

Cheers.
Rod Robertson.

People go on about the virtues of Democracy. Sadly, Democracy is very short sighted and not designed for long term political efforts.

What about ALL of the numerous provocations and threats by Russia and Putin that preceded this response, comrade?

More laughs from Rod today! Thanks, Rod.

Putin hasn't gotten over losing the Cold War to Reagan, and the breakup of the old Soviet Union.

If it weren't for their nukes, and oil and natural gas, they'd be a third-rate country.

I suspect California has a larger GDP than Russia right now, but don't know for sure. That state alone has the 6th largest economy in the world, with a GDP of more than 2 Trillion.

Yep, looks like I'm right. Russia doesn't even make it into the top 10:

link

What about ALL of the numerous provocations and threats by Russia and Putin that preceded this response, comrade?

Putin hasn't gotten over losing the Cold War to Reagan, and the breakup of the old Soviet Union.

Ya know we touched on this back in December and I wasn't able to follow the thread due to an exercise (12-hour night shifts FML). So I'll pick up where I left off, from a slightly different angle.

The Soviet Union died. Why is the new Russian government not entitled to start fresh with a clean slate of diplomatic interaction, the same way the post-WW2 Germans and Japanese were? Hell, we put Mannstein and other generals to work rebuilding the German army ( link ). We uplifted and empowered the new governments rather than demonized our former adversaries at every opportunity.

In that previous thread, I challenged you to cite provocative actions by Putin, starting from his rise to power up to 2007. You dismissed it as a "cherry-picked timeline". Putin is no more accountable for the sins of the Soviet Union than Manstein was for those of Nazi Germany. Antagonizing him just because he was a KGB member is the same thought process that kept former Ba'ath Party members out of the new Iraqi government, and we see how well *THAT* has worked out for us.

The new Russian Federation's leadership should have been in a position to dig their own hole via aggression and belligerence, in order to earn the antagonism that now permeates the West. And that trail of belligerence should be traceable and verifiable, moving forward in time from Day 1 of Putin's Prime Ministership in 1999.

Show me the data.

Steve Wilcox – The Americans are less likely to "forget to leave" ;)

Seems like a good training exercise and opportunity for interoperability ops among NATO forces.

To answer Noble.
Becauae Russia hasn't changed as a country is the simple answer.

The former Warsaw Pact countries all rejected the USSR in the 1989-1990 time frame. Romania did it violently. Prior to Putin acceding to power sure but those countries had no interest in regressing back and being onvaded as they were during the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. That was prior to Barbarossa when Germany and Russia devided to carbe up Eastern europe for themselves.
Those countries then and now decide their own fate and that is something Putin cannot accept.
Russia has invaded militarily on pretense. Chechnya after killing Russians by blowing up their apartment buildings.
Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine to "protect" Russians.
Putin has also ordered the killing of Litvonenko in the UK with Polonium 210 (the isotope ratios enabled the identification of the source reactor).

As to Russia stationing troops in Cuba that is a ridiculously tired argument. Russia frquently visited Cuba duing the cold war not to mention the various airspace tests over Alaska.

What you are presenting is an intentional effort to ignore what happens when a country joins NATO.
That country's military trains up to a standard and the weapons standardise as well. That country's military doesn't suddenly multiply 10x but it does now have alot of support should their neighbor with a history of invading them and 50 years of human rights violation and oppression decide to invade again because the price of oil increased and there is suddenly money available.
Putin was in Germany when the wall came down he is a soaked in the USSR former KGB officer and he still craves that time.

It's also worth noting that Polish military spending expanded sharply post-Ukraine.
They have been watching their neighbours east with a lot of wariness.

I think the Poles are justifiably being prudent.

"I think the Poles are justifiably being prudent."

Yes, with the ever changing geographical borders that Poland has lived with there are bound to be some "oppressed russian nationals" begging for freedom.

Hyperbole ?

"In that previous thread, I challenged you to cite provocative actions by Putin, starting from his rise to power up to 2007. You dismissed it as a "cherry-picked timeline". Putin is no more accountable for the sins of the Soviet Union than Manstein was for those of Nazi Germany".

Yes, we did, and as I pointed out back then, I suspect, Putin is old skool, ex-KGB, which is sort of like talking about American ex-Marines (from what I'm told, there aren't any – once a Marine, always a Marine. I suspect the same applies to KGB agents).

You've also conveniently glossed over ALL of the numerous provocative acts Putin and or his generals/personnel have conducted, even since 2007, of which I provided a pretty lengthy and convincing laundry list, so I won't repeat that again. Any one familiar with current events and provocative Russian actions, up to and including: conducting military combat in other countries than their own; blatantly assassinating opposition leaders; invading, stealing, and annexing foreign lands; and threatening to use nuclear weapons on peace-loving foreign countries and their citizens will know what I mean.

Putin isn't the choirboy that you seem to profess, and given all the above, he certainly doesn't deserve a "clean slate".

kiltboy:

Yes, countries are free to associate with whoever they want. How Poland interacts with Russia is Poland and Russia's business. My problem is with the direct and deliberate actions of the US that have turned NATO's expansion from "something that makes Russia slightly nervous" into "something that makes Russia feel cornered and at risk of invasion". And the two key events are the US withdrawing from the ABM treaty in 2002 and the decision to station ABMs in Eastern Europe (particularly Poland) in 2007.

Russia has invaded militarily on pretense.

And so has the US. We've had a thing for "regime change" this century. So the world's strongest military runs an alliance that has been creeping towards your Western border for the past 20 years. The same direction from which you've received 2 invasions that cost tens of millions of lives within living memory. If you argue that Poland is justified in their aversion to Russia then the argument holds equally that Russia is justified in their aversion to less-than-friendly military alliances positioned along the same Avenue of Approach the last guys used to burn half your country to the ground.

That country's military doesn't suddenly multiply 10x but it does now have alot of support should their neighbor with a history of invading them and 50 years of human rights violation and oppression decide to invade again because the price of oil increased and there is suddenly money available.

^This entire mentality is all Woodrow Wilson's fault. He started this trend of sticking our nose in Europe's internal affairs and we've been burning up blood and treasure playing World Police ever since. This, along with the creation of the Federal Reserve and the introduction of income taxes, are why I rate Wilson as one of the worst Presidents of the US.

I suspect, Putin is old skool, ex-KGB, which is sort of like talking about American ex-Marines (from what I'm told, there aren't any – once a Marine, always a Marine. I suspect the same applies to KGB agents).

I'm pretty sure I didn't get a carbon-copied brain installed in my cranium at Quantico. Rather than brainwashing us with flag-waving patriotism, they taught us to assess our adversaries motivations and objectives from their perspective. You can't make a pragmatic assessment if your head is filled with a Manichaean ideology of "My team Good. Other team Evil." Sadly I think most human beings can't sleep at night unless they feel their "tribe" is just, and will jump through whatever mental gymnastics necessary to come to such a conclusion.

You've also conveniently glossed over ALL of the numerous provocative acts Putin and or his generals/personnel have conducted, even since 2007,

Mako your logic is bass-ackwards. Like writing computer code where you assign a value to a variable that you haven't declared yet.

If I pull a knife on you first, and you subsequently pull out a pistol…I cannot fault you for brandishing a firearm. That is not a provocation, it is a reaction. *We* are the guilty party for starting this particular chain of events.

Putin isn't the choirboy that you seem to profess

There are no choirboys calling the shots. Anywhere. Not on our side, not on theirs. The very idea that anyone could possibly play the Great Game as a "choirboy", that sort of ridiculous idealism, is at the very heart of what's wrong with American/Western foreign policy in this age.

Hold on Noble, all this talk of Russia being invaded in living memory requires you actually name and date those invasions. The last one I am aware of would be Barbarossa in 1941.

Stalin signed the Molotov-Ribbontrop pact and STALIN INVADED Poland in 1939 as well as annexing several chunks of the Baltid states and Romania.
That's BEFORE the last terrible invasion of Russia.
You have argued that Putin should be treated as a new Govt with a clean slate while simultaneously expecting Germany to still be the Germany of the Kaiser and National Socialism hell bent on invading Russia.

All the member states iof NATO have to approve a new member state it isn't a US organisation and so far the US is the only member tate to invoke Article 5 after 9/11.

We are not provoking anything, Putin is reacting to the simple truth that many people do not want what Russia offers and Putin's fear is that the next revolution occurs inside Russia. That is why dissent is squashed and why dissidents are murdered.
Putin has to appear strong to a domestic audience as he fears internal change it is no surprise that he has organised a massive force for internal security should such an event happen.
He had advised Yanukovich to clamp down harder on the Maidan and that backfired.
All Putin has at his disposal is force which is why his interventions are military i.e. Annexing Crimea and invading Georgia, and Ukraine.

Legion-
"Hyperbole ?"

No, rather an historic fact. Blankets and bandages didn't prevent it from happening in the Ukraine. Perhaps an actual show of support to an ally can reassure them and give pause any bad actors with similar thoughts.

Why would you want to poke a sleeping bear in the eye?

Let's hope we don't "deter" our way into another Cold War.

This recent anti-Russia narrative is all driven by the press.

No, rather an historic fact. Blankets and bandages didn't prevent it from happening in the Ukraine. Perhaps an actual show of support to an ally can reassure them and give pause any bad actors with similar thoughts.

I know … I was just being a little factious …

I kinda thought it was driven by Little Green Men

kiltboy – Above you state:

Stalin signed the Molotov-Ribbontrop[sic] pact and STALIN INVADED Poland in 1939 as well as annexing several chunks of the Baltid[sic] states and Romania.
That's BEFORE the last terrible invasion of Russia.

Are you implying that because of the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939 that this action diminishes any claims of wrong against Germany by Russia for its invasion in 1941? That, in effect, Russia deserved the German invasion and the devastation it brought?

I kinda thought it was driven by Little Green Men

Nah … they are Little Greys … Woops ! Wrong thread … never mind …

That'd explain a few things I suppose :)

Indeed ! link

Chris Evans over at missing-lynx.com posted a link to a vid of some Abrams in the snow in Poland. Looks a bit cold:
YouTube link

I'm sure it is very cold …