2700 U.S. soldiers backed by a column of tanks are rolling across the central lowlands of Poland, in an operation dubbed “Atlantic Resolve.” It is, according to the Guardian, “the biggest deployment of US troops in Europe since the end of the cold war.”
The first troops have crossed the German border and arrived in Zagan, the Silesian town where the Nazis held POWs during World War II, and will advance east towards the Belarus border. (Poland shares a border with Russia — the Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad — to the north, but is separated from the Russian mainland by Belarus and Ukraine.) The troops will be increased to 3500 and eventually be stationed in Estonia (which borders Russia), Bulgaria, and Romania.
The Russians are not happy. Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov declares:
We perceive it as a threat. These actions threaten our interests, our security. Especially as it concerns a third party building up its military presence near our borders. It the U.S.] is not even a European state.
The Russians are right to be concerned. What if 3000 Russian troops had amassed in Acapulco, intending to advance towards the Rio Grande? Congress would be calling for war. Atlantic Resolve simply illustrates that NATO is resolved to threaten and anger Russia. Why? Because Russia invaded Ukraine, we’re told, in 2014, thereby threatening NATO, don’t you see? And before that, in 2008, it invaded Georgia. Don’t you see how aggressive and expansive it…