US air base to be in Poland

More or less. But it would be preferable to keep it at a distance, ie short of actually hosting bases. Build European bases where European armies are hosted.

There's always sucking up going on would you rather suck up to Russia? At least sucking up to America you'll get something out of it.

Why suck up to anyone at all, especially the US. You cannot say Poland will get anything out of it. Maybe eventually in the distant future. You are saying that the alternative is to suck up to Russia? why? Closer ties with the rest of Europe and building up Polands own military will suffice.

Slow down!!! what Poland's military? Poland's own generals said it's military is capable right now to protect itself maybe against countries like, Lithuania. Germany a much wealthier and better armed nation can't do anything to protect itself against Russia and you want Poland? Once America builds air force and anti missiles bases, a better defense agreement will be drawn up like the kind Germany has with the U.S. American investment will come in all forms. I'm sure Germany and South Korea got much more from American presence than they lost.

Thats why it needs to be built up!

Not just ties with Germany but whole of Europe.


Is this a joke?

Anyhow what exactly did Germany and South Korea get out of it?

"The United States has more than 300 billion dollars in assets in Germany(2004), more than it's total assets in Latin America. Germany accounted for 61.4 billion dollars of all U.S. FDI in 2001."

And that was years ago, investment has increased even more since then.

"Foreign direct investment (FDI) in South Korea climbed to a 10-year high in 2010.
Inbound investment from the United States shot up 72.2 percent on-year after July, with that from Japan advancing 93.4 percent after contracting in the first six months of this year."

english.cri.cn/6826/2010/12/29/2741s612460.htm

"In 2005, U.S. foreign direct investment in Korea totaled roughly $18.8 billion"

So Sky and Guesswho, how would this base be positive for Poland at all?

Ok gw answer the man I am waitng

I am waiting for them to tell me why the air base in Poland is a good idea, let alone the whole partnership.

How many times do you want me to repeat it? I already told you at the beginning of this thread how I feel about it. This is actually all I wanted to say in this thread.

How is that good? Insignificant.

I meant the jobs in the entire area where they'll be stationed. I lived in Germany and I can tell you that the presence of the US posts there is very important for any area they're located.

Sure thats a good point. But the international standing that Poland will be left in after this close relationship will not be good. On the whole its probably not the best idea, or the best way to go about it.

It will be the same story when Russians had bases, Poland does not need to host any military bases it would be a win for U.S. as it would position it army in global domination then Poland would be obligated to support American empire and the world standing would be reduce for sure from independent state to American bitzh not to mention of having target on you all the time.

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.

Not it won't. Ask the Germans in Ramstein, Kaiserslautern etc. and you will know the difference.
The Americans boosted the local economies in every area they're stationed in Germany while the Soviets didn't do jack sh*t for the Poles at all (except occupation of course).


exactly the same situation as in Germany

"Russia's ambassador to NATO has criticised plans to site US missiles in Poland and Romania as being "a potential threat to Russia", calling the planned system "a US anti-missile system in disguise".

"The third and the fourth phases of the proposed U.S. missile shield in Europe bear a potential threat to Russia," NATO ambassador Dmitry Rogozin said, Friday, after Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski confirmed this week that the US will be stationing a defensive rocket system in Poland as part of Barack Obama's European missile shield."

Sky you have some very good points in your long post there. I just think that Europe should replace the US in those roles, for reasons I have already stated. That and what Marek was saying that Poland would just be obligated to serve the United States upon request in any future conflict. We dont need the US just Europe.

I won't add anything to it, just think how reliable your European "friends", France and Great Britain were back in 1939 when you really needed them. OK, we didn't help either but we didn't promise any help to begin with.

Thank you and yes I do see some of your points too. One day your wish might materialize. There's a strong isolationistic movement in the US and there might come a day when the US gets tired of being unappreciated by foes and allies alike and withdraws from most alliances. My prediction is that it'd cause some major upheavals all over the world but that's for future generations to worry about.

I wouldn't say there is as "strong" isolationist movement in the US. I would say that we are broke, and if a president and a congress comes along that is serious about balancing a budget then one factor may be limiting our support to the rest of the world. If we were smart here in America, we would be electing people in 2 years that make that happen, (of course that would mean drawing attention away from Charlie Sheen for 5 minutes to make room for a clear and rational thought.. eek) but realistically its looking more like 6-10+ years before we will probably get serious, excluding a world wide economic collapse first.


At this time Europe, as a whole, is incapable and unwilling to fight the real threat in today's world, which is Islamic terrorism. Poland and Europe should show great interest in shaping what happens in the Middle East and North Africa for the simple reason if something happens in Pakistan or Iran and a crazy person get nukes or even dirty bombs, they are a lot closer to Europe than America. Islamic terrorism is not going to go away any time soon. If I were in Europe and the U.S. decided to leave that up to the Europeans, I'd get my butt back to America. Personally, I'd love it if we dealt with the Mexican drug cartels before Afghan insurgents, Libya, Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia.... but that might be an off topic thread.

That is why we need to have closer ties. Not just one way, Poland to Europe, but back and forth if you know what I mean. The US can remain a partner, but why promote publicly such ties with the number one target for these terrorists.


Right.
USA has never been isolationist, not even before world war 1. People may think so, but even back then they have been constantly invading nations in south and latin america.[quote=Dande]I wouldn't say there is as "strong" isolationist movement in the US

For 3rd world country like Poland, US military base in Poland is a blessing, a free manna from heaven. You should be eternally grateful and regularly pay tithe to the church from all the economic benefits you will receive, which will amounts to billion of dollars a year.

Benefits:

1. US Military base means your country is secure from invasion and preservation of territorial integrity, forever. No more Prussian/Russian/German/Austrian/Mongol/Turkish invasion.

2. US Military base means thousands of jobs for poor unemployed Polish people who would otherwise be forced to emigrate to UK, Italy, Germany and other EU countries where you will be scrubbing toilet and pick tomatoes for less than $5/hr, live with 10 other immigrants in a tiny 50 Sqm apartments.

3. Knock on effects of superior American standards in planning, design, construction of Military bases will set the bar high for Polish Military.

4. Easier co-ordination and co-operation between Polish Miltary and US Military, transfer of technology, military hardware and training.

5. Job security for tens of thousands of people, as long as US military base exist.

6. Many Polish kids will be able to get superior American Education, operated by department of defense.

7. Better roads and infrastructure for access to US military bases and the surrounding areas. Polish gov't will be shamed into providing better roads to save face, which will benefit locals.

Possible drawbacks:

1. It will anger Russia who still believe Poland is her backyard and her play ground, and will try to make problems for Poland particularly in trade.

2. Russian missiles will be pointed to Poland (even though it is doubtful that those rusty soviet missiles will reach their target)

3. Antagonism from locals, particularly racist Poles who will oppose to the presence of a large numbers of Black American soldiers, and will be angered by the fact that Black American GI will be dating Polish girls and boys, who undoubtedly will prefer well paid $ rich American GI's over poor polish blokes.

4. A flash point for protesters, especially those people who refuse to accept their country is just a dot on the face of the earth.

5. US Military base =magnet for prostitutes, drug dealers and potential increase in crime, especially rape, drugs and alcohol related crimes, which will ocasionally cause diplomatic incidents and nationalistic fervour and protest ( US criminals will be trialled under US Military law and not by Polish Law, so many Poles will consider this as an insult).

A single visit of US Aircraft Carrier to Sydney normally contributed $ 5-10 million to local economy, so Americans are very welcome here :D

That's awesome news for Poland. Sounds like it will really help out!

America needs jobs. We can no longer afford these overseas military bases. What are they, up to 800? This is where our deficit is, it's not in the social entitlements it's in these foreign military bases and defense contracts.


You want discipline? You're living in the wrong country. America has never been disciplined, nor has it had a disciplined army. Germany is disciplined. Move to Germany if you want discipline.

Yes.. this is f**kng genius. We can borrow more money from the Chinese in order to have a military base in a foreign country that doesn't want us there anyway.. and which does nothing whatsoever to help millions of poor we have here in the US. We are truly some of the dumbest s.o.b.s to ever breathe air sometimes.

They will do it whether we like it or not.


You're dreaming. It used to be like that, not anymore. I lived in Germany long enough to know what I'm talking about.
America needs drastic changes and it's only possible with more discipline. You don't need to agree with me.

If they are going to build another base, which they will probably do no matter what, might as well build it in Poland so they can benefit from the investment.

Yes, it needs to bring back its manufacturing and its soldiers from overseas and that will balance the budget. We need to get back to what we were before WWII. Right now our Army is the Army of the Globalist banking class. We have no business in Afghanistan or Iraq or Europe or Japan. Enough is enough.

yes and no. Yes, because in the short run it will help to cut down the budget deficit but in the long run, we're gonna lose influence in important parts of the world which supply us with oil etc. and everything will be getting more and more expensive.