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Washington and Warsaw have signed a defense agreement this Saturday by which the United States will deploy in Poland a thousand of the soldiers that it maintains stationed in Germany and that it announced last month that it would redistribute in other European countries in protest of Berlin's contribution to NATO , which he considers insufficient.
With the pact, agreed last month, the number of US troops in Poland will rise to 5,500. Should a threat rise, the United States could quickly bring up to 20,000 troops into the country, if necessary, said Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak. The headquarters of the US Fifth Corps will also move from Germany to Poland.
The agreement also includes a training package for the Polish reconnaissance and command forces, at a cost of 500 million zlotys (about 115 million euros) per year.
The document, called the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), has been initialed in Warsaw by Blaszczak and by the Secretary of State of the United States, Mike Pompeo, in the framework of the European tour that he carries out, focused on energy security issues and 5G networks. Pompeo has previously visited the Czech Republic, Austria and Slovenia.
The Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jacek Czaputowicz, assured that the presence in his country of US troops is key to deterrence and defensive potential, since it is "closer to the potential source of conflict", alluding to the proximity to Russia and its annexation of Crimea in 2014. “This is going to be an extended guarantee. It also serves to increase the security of other countries in our part of Europe ”, declared the Polish President, Andrzej Duda, at the signing of the agreement.
Last month, the US Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, announced the withdrawal of a third of the nearly 36,000 military personnel permanently settled in Germany and specified that 6,400 will return to the US and 5,400 will be relocated to allied countries. The F-16 fighter squadron from the Spangdahlem base will go to Italy to reinforce the presence near the Black Sea and the headquarters of the United States Forces in Europe (Eucom) will move from Stuttgart to Belgium. The president of the United States, Donald Trump, had already threatened the measure in June as pressure on Berlin to increase its contribution to NATO.
