Biden: US troops to stay in Poland 'for a long time'
US President Joe Biden says American troops stationed on a temporary basis in Poland will stay in the country “for a long time,” in a move that would clearly violate a 25-year-old treaty between NATO and Russia.
Asked by reporters how long he would continue to keep additional US troops in Poland and other NATO member countries, Biden responded on Wednesday, “They’ll be there for a long time.”
It is unknown how many US troops are currently stationed in Poland, NATO’s main logistical hub for supporting Ukraine in an ongoing military conflict with Russia.
Earlier this year, the US ambassador in Warsaw revealed that over 12,600 American military personnel were in the country, the largest number in history.
But keeping the troops " for a long time" would come in direct violation of the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act, under which the US-led alliance is committed to carrying out its collective defense and other missions by “ensuring the necessary interoperability, integration, and capability for reinforcement rather than by additional permanent stationing of substantial combat forces” on the territories of the former Warsaw Pact states.
Twenty-five years on, the treaty is considered a dead letter by Warsaw, which accused Moscow of making it void by its “invasion” of Ukraine in late February.
Polish President Andrzej Duda’s foreign policy adviser Jakub Kumoch, said last month that Washington should permanently station troops and even nuclear weapons on Polish territory.
Russia has long expressed grievances to the United States about NATO’s eastward expansion. NATO, however, has sharply increased its presence at its eastern border, with some 40,000 troops spread from the Baltic to the Black Sea.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has on several occasions cited the post-Soviet expansion of NATO eastwards as a reason for Russia’s current military operation in Ukraine.
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