Poland and UK sign
Warsaw Defense Plan to ‘Deter Russian Threats’ – Wider Accession is Needed
Poland and the United Kingdom have signed the Warsaw Defense
Plan, an agreement to enhance their cooperation on security. The aim, said the
British Ministry of Defense, is to “deter Russian threats.”
The plan, which follows on from the two countries signing a
strategic defense partnership earlier this year, will include joint development
and production of defense technologies and military exercises in the Baltic
Sea.
“Poland is one of the UK’s closest allies – from flying
together in the Battle of Britain, to breaking the Enigma code, they have been a
vital partner for our defense for nearly a century,” said British Defense Secretary
Wes Streeting on a visit to Warsaw, according to October 28 edition of Notes
from Poland.
“The new Warsaw Defense Plan honors this cooperation and
sets out how we will continue to work together today, building a stronger
Europe in a stronger NATO,” he added.
His Polish counterpart, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, declared
that “the Polish-British alliance has never been as strong as it is now.” Both
he and Streeting also emphasized the importance of working together to support
Ukraine.
That is a great and timely idea. However, there is a better
one that should not be overlooked.
It is not a secret that Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia,
Estonia and others are concerned that Russia will not be able to contain its historic
aggressive mentality and will set out to reconquer all of the recently independent
countries in its “near abroad.” Knowing this, all of them are funneling money
into their treasuries to build and maintain armed forces that can at least hold
at bay Moscow until the United States and the free world understand that is
going on. They are erecting walls and ditches, which will keep Russian
cutthroats on their side of the red line.
Since Russia’s latest invasion of Ukraine, many military and
political leaders in Europe, the free world and not to mention Eastern Europe have
been loudly championing the formation of a military, political bloc of the
former captives that would deter Russian threats, invasions and occupation. One
of the mainstay themes of this blog, The Torn Curtain 1991, has been the
necessity for the former captive nations of Russian subjugation to form a
multilateral alliance for their common security, stability and development in
the face of Moscow’s enduring aggression.
“The European Union and its member states have stepped up
with unprecedented commitment to Ukraine, not just in security assistance, but
economic, and humanitarian, refugee assistance, and so much more,” said former
President Joe Biden. His admonitions rang loud with the concepts of unity,
togetherness and coalition that now need to be given life. The ideological and
structural foundations for such an alliance of x-captive nations of Russian
subjugation were laid at many conferences in Kyiv, Warsaw and elsewhere.
The last time this type of alliance was called into
existence was during the Second World War. The Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations
was created as a coordinating center for the liberation of captive nations of
the Soviet Russian empire. The ABN attributed its existence and its ideological
foundations to an underground conference of representatives of non-Russian
peoples that took place on November 21-22, 1943, near Zhytomyr, Ukraine, on the
initiative of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, and at which a
platform of a joint revolutionary struggle against Russian communism was
formulated. The goal of the ABN was the dismemberment of the Soviet Union into
national states – in other words, the de-colonization of the USSR. Among the
participating nations of varying periods of time have been Ukrainians,
Armenians, Bulgarians, Byelorussians, Cossack, Croatians, Czechs, Estonians,
Georgians, Hungarians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Slovaks, Turkestanians,
Vietnamese and Cubans. Others such as Poles were regarded as kindred spirits.
I had also cited an interview with Pavlo Klimkin, when he
was minister of foreign affairs of Ukraine, who advocated the creation of
such a far-reaching bloc. Outraged by the Russian invasion of
his homeland, Klimkin suggested soon after President Petro Poroshenko’s visit
to Canada and the United States the creation of a Coalition of Freedom to
defend democracy and Western values in a troubled world.
“It is about security for everyone,” Klimkin had said during
an exclusive Fox News interview on the eve of the 71st UN General Assembly
in 2016. “If someone in this interchangeable and intertwined world cannot feel
secure, how can US citizens here feel secure?”
Klimkin explained that Ukraine is confronting – and still is
– a threat any nation can face, adding “we need a network of security.” His so-called
Coalition of Freedom would consist of “countries which are committed to
freedom, to democratic values, where we are not talking about spheres of
influence, but the values and real interests of democratic countries.” Indeed,
his theme fits today’s Russian-inspired dangerous global agenda, especially
that faced by the former captive nations. The Polish-Lithuanian-Ukrainian
Brigade is another example of a united army to stem Russia’s aggression. The
idea of a European army was first discussed in the 1950s. It was proposed by
France and would have consisted of the “inner six” countries
(Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands,
and West Germany), in order to strengthen defense against the Soviet
threat without directly rearming Germany in the wake of World War
II. In 1952 the Treaty establishing the European Defense
Community was signed but not ratified by the signatories.
However, during the Cold War, Western Europe relied
on NATO for defense, precluding the development of European cooperation. Immediately
after the “fall of communism,” the defense apparatus was preoccupied
by NATO expansion into the former Soviet bloc. The idea of a
European army gained popularity after the September 11 attacks and
NATO’s involvement in conflicts outside of Europe. In a phenomenon dubbed
diversification of European security, NATO has come to be responsible for “hard”
threats while the European Union has taken a greater role in "soft"
threats, including peacekeeping in the western Balkans. The 2009 Treaty
of Lisbon also furthered defense integration within the EU. This has led
to support for a European Defense Union, which would be a step higher in
collaboration than the current Common Security and Defense Policy.
Today, the threat to global peace, security, independence
and sovereignty posed by Moscow still exists.
Faced with Russian aggression and the US shifting its focus
away from Europe and threatening Greenland, Andrius Kubilius, a Lithuanian
politician who is currently serving as the European Commissioner for Defense
and Space in the Second von der Leyen Commission, argued for a “big bang”
approach to re-imagining Europe’s common defense.
“Would the United States be militarily stronger if they
would have 50 armies on the States level instead of a single federal
army,” he said at a recent Swedish security conference. “Fifty state
defense policies and defense budgets on the states level, instead of a single
federal defense policy and budget?”
“If our answer is 'no,’ [the] USA would not be
stronger, then — what are we waiting for?”
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also cited the importance of a
separate armed forces under the command of Europe.
Zelenskyy, whose country is the only one to be facing real
bloody Russian aggression, the kind foreseen in the NATO principles, on January
20 of this year reiterated his call for the creation of a joint European armed
force of at least 3 million personnel.
“Russia plans to have an army of 2 to 2.5 million personnel
by 2030. So a European army, while each country keeps its own sovereign forces,
must be able to respond. It should be no smaller than 3 million,” Zelenskyy
told journalists.
Zelenskyy’s statement comes nearly a year after he first
called on European partners to create a new armed force at the Munich
Security Conference on February 15, 2025, amid uncertainty over further
U.S. support if Russian aggression escalates. Unfortunately, European leaders
have taken no steps toward implementing the initiative in nearly a year, according
to Zelenskyy.
“Maybe now, with all the new challenges, European leaders
will take it more seriously,” the Ukrainian President added.
Zelenskyy said the newly created army would not aim to
compete with the US and would not require dissolving NATO. He added that
Ukraine could become a cornerstone of such a force due to its combat
experience, as well as its military technology and logistics expertise.
“Because we have real wartime experience, we share our
technologies with our partners. They give us intelligence — for example, France
provides intelligence, and other countries do as well,” Zelenskyy said.
Consequently, rather than a piecemeal approach, quickly form
one grand military force for the sole purpose of defending the regional security
of Europe as well as the national security interests of all European nations
against Russian imperialism.
