Poland’s Request to Host US Nukes Is the Ruling Party’s Latest Electioneering Spectacle
PiS is gambling that giving the US a strategic edge against Russia through the hosting of its nuclear weapons could make its ruling liberal-globalist elite regard them as valuable enough to not replace with their like-minded ideological allies in the opposition as punishment for restricting abortion and not glorifying LGBT.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki is exploiting Russia’s decision to store tactical nukes in Belarus as the pretext for requesting that his country host similar such US weapons just like a handful of NATO members already do. There’s no legitimate need for America to agree to this since its present nuclear force posture in this part of the world is sufficient for ensuring its interests. Moreover, NATO’s Article 5 obligates the US to defend Poland in the far-fetched event that it comes under Russian attack.
The only reason why Poland wants to host US nukes is because its leadership wants to signal their country’s reliability as an American ally, which is envisaged to advance their interests in several ways. First, the prestige associated with this is meant to showcase their rise as a regional power, which secondly serves to strengthen the case that they supposedly deserve to have their own “sphere of influence” in Central & Eastern Europe (CEE).
Building upon that motivation, the third goal is to reinforce perceptions in this part of Europe that Poland is more capable of ensuring those countries’ security together with the US than Germany is, with whom it’s fiercely competing for influence there. Fourth, by simply talking about hosting US nukes, the ruling “Law & Justice” (PiS) party hopes to retain the support of its conservative base ahead of fall’s elections amid concerns that some might defect to third parties to protest their policies.
Most Poles adore America so PiS hopes that flirting with the idea of hosting US nukes could make their base forgive them for embracing open borders with Ukraine and scandalously changing their country’s largely homogenous post-war demographics as a result. On the topic of the ruling party’s re-election strategy, the fifth reason why they want these weapons on their territory is because they think that it’ll make the US’ ruling liberal–globalists curtail their pressure campaign against them.
PiS’ recent creation of a so-called “Russian influence commission” that’ll brand those supposedly found guilty of this with a scarlet letter is widely considered to be a way for them to dissuade Poles from voting for the opposition that most expect will be implicated in this witch hunt. Despite all that they’ve done in support of NATO’s proxy war on Russia through Ukraine, the Western elite still hates them for restricting abortion and not glorifying LGBT, which is why they support the opposition against the incumbents.
PiS is therefore gambling that giving the US a strategic edge against Russia through the hosting of its nuclear weapons could make its ruling liberal-globalist elite regard them as valuable enough to not replace with their like-minded ideological allies in the opposition. If the US stops criticizing PiS for its “Russian influence commission” and other policies as a quid pro quo, then it’s expected that its EU vassals would take the hint and follow their lead, thus making it easier for PiS to win re-election.
This calculation wrongly assumes that their opponents would refuse to host US nukes if demanded to do so despite being ideologically aligned with that country’s ruling liberal-globalists and having being placed into power partly as a result of the West’s pressure campaign against PiS. The US therefore wouldn’t gain anything in this respect from PiS winning re-election that they wouldn’t also gain from their opponents except that the incumbents would continue fiercely competing with Germany for influence in CEE.
Therein lies the only possible reason why the US might agree to base some of its nuclear weapons in Poland ahead of that country’s elections since its policymakers have an interest in fueling the aforesaid competition for the purpose of more effectively dividing-and-ruling the EU and containing Russia. The opposition’s victory would likely lead to Poland becoming a German vassal alongside its existing status as an American one, but these same policymakers might not trust Germany becoming a continental power.
Their calculations are unclear due to the opacity that characterizes their decision-making so it can only be speculated whether they’d prefer a PiS-led Poland continuing to rise as a regional power or Germany becoming a continental power after turning Poland into its largest-ever vassal upon deposing PiS. In any case, Poland’s ruling party only wants to host US nukes for purely self-interested and political reasons since this scenario doesn’t bolster their country’s security any more than Article 5 already does.
This insight enables one to obtain a better understanding of just how nervous they are that they won’t win re-election, or at least without having to possibly form a coalition government with the anti-establishment Confederation party, otherwise they wouldn’t resort to such a spectacle at this time. That in turn suggests that the liberal-globalist pressure campaign against PiS has thus far been more successful than they’ve made it seem, which is a cynical argument in favor of the West continuing it.
The only reason why the US might consider curtailing this campaign is if PiS’ request to host its nukes convinces policymakers that their country’s interests would best be served by facilitating Poland’s rise as a regional power under their rule instead of letting it become a German vassal if the opposition wins. There are pros and cons to both, but it’s impossible for observers to know which of these two possibilities they prefer right now, though everyone will eventually find out as fall’s elections approach.
