Poland is the new military power of Europe.

Absolutely, The second NATO is dissolved and the US army is safely home. Plus a promise from you to never, ever call DC. Just die...

They are, and they've come a long way in accuracy.

Of course....everything else would be to embarrassing!

Poland is a strategic location, but scarcely a military power.

You'd be surprised. Poland has a very large army and one that is well respected and has seen active service in a number of theatres including Iraq, They're currently developing their army (working with the U.K. and U.S.) and is likely to emerge as Europe's second military power after the U.K. it may one day overtake us even.

Again, as a landing strip for US or NATO aircraft and the like,
no question Poland is of strategic importance!

Europe's number one problem, and that includes Russia, is that Euros don't have one common language. That's why Illinois, a Bolshevik state, will never be at war with Indiana.

As I once suggested, switch to English and you will not need your lame me-too armies.

Poland is a full member of NATO and the NATO aircraft may well be theirs.

It also produces weapons and this is a growing sector (much to the chagrin of France and Germany who would rather sell to Poland or own their means of production rather than compete with them).

Do not underestimate Poland or the Polish Army.


I fully agree. It's worth mentioning that English is the main military language in Europe (the sole one really however the French squeal like little piggies about this sometimes) and the rest of the world and a lot of resources are devoted to language training for army officers. That's why/how I first moved Poland all those years ago,

You had this nasty civil war....


No disagreement here....I guess that's how NATO works too....even between the Turks and the Greeks! :)


Which ones?

Again....that would be another argument for a common army....no stupid competing between allied neighbours anymore....only the best of the best for all members! :)

Now we know that even different accents can be deadly.

They don't tend to learn Hillbilly or Glaswegian, yet do have to understand or be able to ask for clarification when encountering g either.


That statement is either hopelessly naive or more likely disingenuous.

Why not let Poland buy some arms producing companies in France and Germany; that would certainly be economically beneficial to Poland.

Why the heck?

Imagine the US states Ilinois and Indiana (examples shamelessly stolen from Novi) would compete with their militaries....instead of sharing the costs and getting the best the US can develop and produce elsewhere, not necessarily in Illinois or Indiana....logical, cheaper and just better than competing with each other, right? After all they will never go to war with each other ever again, but defend each other against outward threats. JUST LIKE THE EU COUNTRIES!

We really should agree to disagree here, I believe that has to do with you being a Brit....but you also have to accept that many mainland Europeans, so close to each other, not on an Island, will see things differently.

Agreed?

They're the same country. Poland is however an independent country.


A positive thing, and perhaps armaments produced by Polish-owned companies under the auspices of the Polish government will be the best Europe can develop.

So when you say common army you mean no more french, german, spanish, polish, etc armies working together as a whole, but an EU army where a spaniard commands a german who operates hardware produced wherever in Europe kind of thing?

I doubt that will happen!

My guess is that the initiative will come from, or at least be strongly supported by, Washington. And it will all be part of NATO.

First there will be more maneuvers and excercises in Europe....with mainly european NATO members...under european leadership. The US will support that, since they will profit from a more and better working european branch of NATO, since their future attention is no longer on Europe but on Asia.

From that there will more and more common buildups....soldiers training together....shared bases....it will be something natural, organical....nothing forced.

Of course you can only share something which you already have, so the existence of independent armies is not questioned at all. To grow together into a common army will need time and a strong common enemy!

But yes, shared hardware, soldiers training together on it, soldiers from different countries stationed together, preparing to fight the same threat....it will be a common army long before the populaces gets a name for it! :)

Of course....that all need some talks and treaties and especially funds....so that all will start in Brussels....with EU-members who share already so much....the language will be English and all will paid in Euro....so it will be an EU-army more or less...

What on Earth for, since it isn't universal in Europe.

...it's the EU currency?

What would you prefer?

It isn't though. It's the Eurozone currency, and not even all of the EU, never mind Europe as a whole, is in the Eurozone.


Zlotych.

Not yet anyway. The tendency towards one European currency is very clear though.

Poland would be foolish to accept it. Some a-hole in Brussels would be able to press a button and Poland is without money.

...curious....last time a country had no money left another EU country (had to) lend lotsa....(Greece crisis anybody?)

That is the prevailing opinion and one of several reasons that a number of countries in Europe don't want it, just as they'd not want their countries' armies to be under the control of the EU or more specifically those countries who dominate it.


Or probably ever. And it wouldn't be one European currency since Europe is not te( EU and the EU is not Europe.

Bizarre that a thread about the growing Polish Army has been derailed to be about the EU.

....I wonder why you are so hostile against any kind of unifying for the continent....your Kingdom has had it's own unifying after all....it shows it's possible even with different languages and histories....and makes a union stronger than it's lone parts, wouldn't you agree. Imagine North America still cut up in it's lone states...there wouldn't be a super power US of A today....

Why not for Europe too?

Not really. If we talk about Polands' military future, we inevitably end up with discussions about a European army.


A distinction that becomes smaller and smaller with time.

Hard to know who you're replying to since for some odd reason your quotes mis the posters names. Do you have a fault on your computer or phone?


Do we? That only happens here when there are Germans in the discussion. There isn't a 'European Army' and as far as I know, Poland are not proposing one.


If anything, it's larger than it was a decade ago.

A gentle reminder. This thread is about the Poland as a military power, its army and navy, its defence manufacturing capacity and its ownership of that.

HaHaHaHa!

@Lyzko

Mate,you really come out with some complete cr@p sometimes.....just remember to engage your brain before posting......


I can't see an EU army ever happening,too complicated,typical EU idea,no thought put into it at all.


My thoughts exactly,there seem to be some posters on here that are obsessed with The EU and very frightened of something rocking their "EU Boat", like Brexit or a strong Polish military.

They need to get used to that boat rocking....the Eurozone is officially in recession,Brexit Britain is not......

No need to be rude to Lyzko; what he said was quite accurate - at the moment Poland is not a strong military power. We will be, when the reform ends and all the purchased weapons arrive, but at the moment our army is simply average and our reserves have been diminished by sending a constant stream of equipment and ammo to Ukraine for the last 16 months.


Are you saying Brexit was a success and Brits are happy that it happened? :)

Not as strong as it plans to be. Yet Poland is a military power. It seems odd that anyone wouldn't want Poland to be an independent sovereign state with their own army.


Not completely but yes partly. I don't want to repeat rhetoric from the disgusting farage however I'll refer to something he said and to a famous quote from Charles de Gaulle.

farage used to refer to the EU as the Fourth Reich. That's a very loaded term since the German people during the Third Reich committed the greatest crime the human race has ever seen however let's unpick the Reiches and the numbers. The First Reich was the HRE, basically the individual German states under one umbrella and some states elsewhere plus whatever influence/pressure/blackmail/terror they could inflict on states around them. It all sounds very 'game of thrones' and indeed was, although it lasted until the nineteenth century when Napoleon ended it. A utopia it was not, certainly.not for Poland who was partly occupied by them.

The Second Reich was the German Empire under the Prussians from the 1870s. They invaded France twice, occupied Poland and unleashed WWI. It continued until they were humiliatingly defeated by Britain, the US and others in 1918. The Third Reich (the only to be democratically elected by Germans, whose unparalleled evil is a stain on humanity and on those who collaborated with it, is something so unforgettable that nobody needs me to remind them of the Dirlewanger Brigades, the Einsatzgruppen, the Wolf Massacre and the reason Warsaw contains mostly post war buildings and why few Varsovians have any pre-war connections to the city. Poland remembers well what happened. There are however those who want to see another attempt at a United Europe, a Fourth Reich.

They don't mean a Europe of independent sovereign states with access to markets etc. They mean a superstate. A poster in this thread has even suggested that the EU has the characteristics of a country with a capital etc.. in countries (you won't notice this so much, Milo, as a Londoner however I do as someone from the industrial conurbation of South Yorkshire, one of the poorest regions in Western Europe) wealth tends to flow towards the centre. The sheer amount of industry and business around Europe which is under the ownership of French and German companies is huge. There aren't many Polish multinationals in Europe, are there? Did you notice the outrage when I suggested Poland should manufacture armaments and own production facilities elsewhere on the continent.

Lots of waffle here but I'll try to be quick. De Gaulle, the father of the EU made a much quoted and famous saying "Europe is France and Germany. All the rest are just decoration".

That is what this is all about.

And there's no reason that Poland shouldn't have a string, maybe the strongest, army in Europe, under Poland's command and free to operate as they wish rather than by a Brussels which is dominated by two states. A poster was dodging the question about how much of a countries army should be under his 'Euroarmy, and how much shouldn't. He finally tacitly admitted that he meant all of that countries army. If that happened and, say, Poland wanted to use their army, it wouldn't be possible without the EU's say so, since it would be under the control of Brussels not Warsaw.

The dangers are obvious.


Given that the Eurozone is in recession and is likely to be for some time and that Britain isn't (despite Macron/Merkel's failed attempt to pcon ince businesses to relocate out of the EU) I'd say it's well on the way to that.

Remember one of the reasons for brexit was that France and Germany wanted to move the massively lucrative and prestigious London Financial Markets to Frankfurt and Paris. They even tried a hostile takeover of the LSE and were outraged when it failed. Meanwhile they block takeovers of their own businesses by other companies in Europe. Micron, while happily assisting French companies to buy other European countries, infrastructure, even blocked the sale of a yoghurt business on the grounds of 'national security'.

With friends like those, strong armies are needed.

It is not just a loaded term. It is disgusting slander of the greatest political project that has ever been undertaken. Trying to put the cooperation between democratic countries with the goal of peace and prosperity into a tradition with Hitler is intellectual dishonesty of the highest order.


The benefits as well. No more wars in Europe between European countries that are members and greater security since only a European army will be able to offer protection in the future sue to the rising costs of modern equipment.

Not to mention that I to imagine a scenario in which Poland would want to use an army on an essential issue but would be voted down by the other countries. How would that look like? An intervention in Africa?


And you think that is due to Franco-German malice and not because Poland only gained free access to Europe with its EU membership less than 2 decades ago? Competition is good and benefits the consumer. I doubt though Polish endeavour in the arms industry will pay off for Warsaw though.


Nonsense. Leaving aside that de Gaulle is usually not credited as a founding father of the EU, that he often spoke in provocative terms and that he lived in a time when this was an somewhat accurate assesment of Europe at the time (with only 6 EU members) this is not what the EU was ever about. The EU was founded by people who had survived two world wars and tyranny and who knew that close cooperation and integration were the only way to avoid a repeat of the past and to defend against future threats.

That reconciliation between France and Germany lies at the very heart of the EU should tell anyone with even a modicum of historical knowledge how absurd the comparison with Napoleon or Hitler truly is. But I suppose it is easier for many to claim that they are fighting a Fourth Reich than to admit that one simply does not like foreigners and while blaming the EU for their presence.

coe.int/en/web/about-us/founding-fathers