U.S. and Polish defense officials are in the final stage of discussions about increasing the U.S. military presence in the former Soviet bloc country, and Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Błaszczak has all but guaranteed a deal will be signed by the end of the year. These negotiations come eight months after Polish President Andrzej Duda traveled to the White House and publicly broached the possibility of a so-called “Fort Trump” on Polish territory. “We believe that the presence of the United States is a guarantor of security in our part of Europe,” Duda said at the time.
There is no question that an additional influx of U.S. troops and the construction of a permanent U.S. military base in Poland would serve Polish security interests. In fact, a Fort Trump (or Bush or Obama) has been a long-standing policy goal for various governments in Warsaw over the last two decades. For Washington to seriously consider the proposal, let alone actively court it, is a significant policy achievement for Poland.
What America would receive from the arrangement, however, is another story entirely.
A large, permanent U.S. force structure in Poland is worse for U.S. national security interests for a number of reasons, especially because it will only unwisely sink more of our limited military resources into securing a wealthy continent more than capable of taking primary responsibility for its own defense.
Building a large military base in Poland or even adding more U.S. troops to the several thousand that are already there will be entirely counterproductive to one of the Trump administration’s most important foreign policy objectives: incentivizing the rest of the NATO alliance to spend more on their defense and embrace primary security ownership in their own neighborhood. Trump’s rhetoric aside, the fundamental principle of rebalancing responsibilities within the trans-Atlantic alliance is both strategically sound and fair to the American taxpayer.
Trump is hardly the first to push Europe toward greater self-reliance — U.S. presidents as far back as Dwight Eisenhower have fumed over Europe’s disinterest in contributing to NATO’s collective military capacity. That dissatisfaction has rightly become more pronounced after years of declining European defense budgets proportionate to GDP, resulting in a cavernous spending and capability gap between the U.S. and nearly all our NATO allies on the other.
Deploying more U.S. troops in Poland at Warsaw’s request would reverse any progress toward more prudent burden-sharing. This is like cutting off a teenager’s allowance to instill a sense of financial responsibility while handing him a few hundred dollars for an all-inclusive shopping spree. If it grants Warsaw’s request, the Trump administration will thwart its own burden-sharing initiative. As Barry Posen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology explained when news of “Fort Trump” first broke, “It is hard to imagine a more counter-productive peacetime deployment of U.S. military forces.”
The drawbacks of a greater U.S. military investment in Poland go beyond true burden sharing. By placing even more American troops in Eastern Europe, Washington would increase tensions in a U.S.-Russia relationship that is perhaps at its least productive since the Cold War.
Moscow will view more U.S. troops near its western border as a purposeful provocation meant to further constrain its power and freedom to maneuver. NATO encroachment in Eastern Europe has been a consistent Russian complaint for three decades, and it is gaining more salience among the Russian political and security elite due to the alliance’s continued incorporation of new members on the eastern periphery.
It doesn’t take a geopolitical genius to understand Russia’s (not just Vladimir Putin’s) position. Any state, especially a great power, surrounded by a military alliance literally established to constrain its behavior will do what it can to counteract that group. This is precisely what Russia has done by annexing Crimea; supporting and at times commanding separatist forces in Eastern Ukraine; bailing out the Bashar Assad regime in Syria; and attempting a violent coup in Montenegro to forestall that country’s inclusion into NATO.
Rather than deter Russia, NATO expansion and U.S. military mobilization to Eastern Europe has resulted in worse behavior and has caused more misunderstanding and distrust in the overall bilateral relationship.
Fort Trump would exacerbate this situation. It is impossible to improve U.S.-Russia relations if Washington authorizes a permanent deployment in Poland — the relationship, necessary for avoiding a potential conflict between the world’s two largest nuclear superpowers, will deteriorate further. Creating an American tripwire near Russia’s border does not serve U.S. interests in any way.
Rather than expanding its commitment to a continent that should be more responsible for self-defense, the Trump administration should force Europe to take the lead in defending its own continent. Pressing the issue will not only help reorient U.S. foreign policy resources toward more significant geopolitical issues (such as China’s growing power in Asia) but is perhaps the only way the United States can keep the door open with the Russians on issues of mutual concern, such as an extension to New START before the agreement expires in February 2021.
Europe’s military capacity is sorely lacking because the U.S. taxpayer and service member has been doing the heavy lifting since the Cold War ended. More Americans in Europe will merely compound the problem, convincing governments from Warsaw to Brussels that Uncle Sam will always be there holding the bag — no matter what the president says. Actions speak louder than words.
Daniel DePetris (@DanDePetris) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a fellow at Defense Priorities.
