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US air base to be in Poland [193]
I am waiting for them to tell me why the air base in Poland is a good idea, let alone the whole partnership.
Since you don't believe in the whole idea of an aliance with the US then it's kind of pointless to even discuss it but I'll try.
The US has in the past, and probably still is, aligned herself with some corrupt regimes using the "if my enemy is your enemy then you're my friend" mantra. Some would disagree with this premise but the truth is were we to set out very strict rules on our "minimum requirements" for a country to become an ally of ours we'd never have any allies at all.
There simply aren't any "perfect" countries and no matter what you require of a country's regime, ultimately if they didn't want democracy, free elections, etc. then it was hard for us to persuade them to do just that when "the other" side gladly accepted them as their ally no matter how they treated their citizens. We knew that and we knew that it was either us or them. Either way, this is really for a different thread as nothing here is simply black or white; in hindsight, winning over a large portion of Asian and African countries from the Soviet sphere of influence speeded up the collapse of that corpse. Thats' a good development in my book but many would've preferred the SU to prevail.
The question though is how will a tiny, mini US base in Poland help Poland? First of all realize that the US does not want a base there, right now we are recovering from a recession and military spending is on a back burner; the irony is that each time we try to shrink our presence in different areas of the world there are always competing interests in those countries.
In South Korea and Japan our forces have created enormous job opportunities for the local communities. Many nationalists (and they exists in all countries) want us to shrink our presence but few want us to be totally gone. After we pulled out from the Philippines the local communities went from some 8% unemployment to over 20% unemplyment. It's been many years since we closed Subic Bay in the Philipines and I was there just a few months ago and the place looks like a ghost town with houses falling apart and rampant crime and corruption. I met a few people who used to work supplying the US military and they were all unemployed and very miserable. The Philipines is a beautiful country with very genuine and kind people where politicians won elections promising to close several US bases but never replaced them with other opportunities. The politicians won, we left, the politicians got voted out and new administration has approached the US hoping for some kind of return of at least one base but it'd be too expensive to do it all over again. Now, that the US forces are gone, China all of a sudden is claiming several Philipino islands they've never claimed before as their own. Same with a Vietnamese island chain, and now Japanese islands too.
My point here is that political decisions often affect the local population more than you think. Our German bases pay some of the highest "rent per squere meter" prices in europe, thousands and thousands of German workers are employed by the US forces, we're talking car mechanics, electricians, food suppliers, computer chains, etc, etc. The US government is pumping in billions of dollars into the economies of the countries that are housing our units. As a child I remember walking by a Russian base in Wrocław, Russians "paid" for those bases with "transferrable rubles" or whatever the term was, which was a slap in the Polish government's face, basically they lived there for free. When the German government found out the US thought about moving some of the personnel to the new NATO countries they immediately looked for assurances from us that the bulk of our bases in Germany would remain in Germany. You and I know very well that Germans are good at doing business, always have and always will. Had our bases been a bad deal for the German economy they'd have begged as to leave, instead the opposite happened. Of course, there's a vocal anti-war movement, etc., but that's a totally different subject which would take far too long to discuss here.
Once Poland joined the EU and NATO there was and still is a perception within the Polish public that if Russia decided to invade Poland or let's say Estonia NATO wouldn't do anything as they don't view the new member states as "real" members. The mini bases is one way of trying to ease people's minds by deplying American soldiers onto those bases. Again, it's a little bit of a mind game but the Polish side felt that if America is serious about defending the Polish territory then what's stopping America from placing her own soldiers on the Polsih soil? In other words, "put your foot where your mouth is", and that's exactly what we are doing. Those will be very tiny detachments, primarily because the other European nations protested when presented with cuts to "their" bases so we are trying to keep everyone somewhat happy.
The world is evolving and China will be much more assertive but so will India. Those two countries do not get along because of China's support of Pakistan (the Pakistani atomic program was largely financed by the chinese government) so there will be lots of frictions in that region but it'll spread to other regions too as the world is much smaller todays due to bilateral trade agreements, etc. Russia is slowly slipping back into a pseudo-democracy, or a defacto one-party regime, there will be more friction with Russia's bordering nations and making sure the Baltic Sates, Poland, Romani, etc., do not feel abandoned, or as second-tier NATO members was very important to the structure of NATO and therefore the decisions were made to base small amount of troops in those nations. The anti-missile shield plan was reworked partially to appease the Russians unfortunately but also to show the sizable Polish opposition to NATO that we are flexible and can work with the Russians when needed. Will there ever be time when everyone is happy? Nope, not now or ever. In europe many feel that America is running the show and that they want more say in the decision process. I can see that side of the equation and there have been chugs to the structure of NATO leadership. In the US though the perception is that NATO is an alliance and not a marriage of convenience, and of so how come one side of the alliance, the US pays the largest share of the cost structure? Not just in dollar (or euro, or whatever) figures but in percentage of GDP? Besides the UK, Holland and a few other players most countries do not spend as much money on upgrading their militaries as agreed upon. Sure, the economy sucks but it was the same way when Europe was humming along a few years back.
IF you truly feel opposed to us being there simply vote for whichever party that wants us to close our bases, and we will if the Polish parliament asks for that. The bases is a good example. However, when you resort to name calling and an indiscriminate attack on our military you simply shut down a means of communication.
