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So, in Polish internet, there's currently some noise about mobilization. One user got summoned for the month-long military exercises, which supposedly ends with being forced to take an oath (which seems like a weird concept), and then being moved into 'active reserve'. Which means you can potentially get summoned for such exercises for 90 days per year.
A (translated) summary/context from /r/Polska:
Direct link to the results of that vote. Voted: 455, For: 450, Against: 0, Abstained: 5, Didn't vote: 5
@AM_Zukowska is a member of parliament, left-wing. Translation of some tweets:
I've also translated a text published by "Krytyka Polityczna", which is left-wing. Relevant context: in February there was a poll asking about support for mandatory conscription, here are the results, by gender. Women: 49% for, 47% against. Men: 39% for, 58% against.
Translation is in the separate comment (reply to this one), due to character count limit.
Interesting. Poland has been conducting a major military build up recently, buying a large number of Korean and American tanks, to go with their Leopards and upgraded T-72s. This quasi-training/mobilization would make sense to go with that. I don't understand what the point is, in strategic terms. They're in NATO, they've got good relations with the US. They've already got a large army by NATO standards. They can expect the rest of NATO to support them in a war.
What is the point of scrambling to buy hundreds of modern MBTs and creating a logistical nightmare? They're under a nuclear umbrella and their treaty allies have a military budget 10-20x larger than the only vaguely threatening force in the region? The only area Russia has parity is nuclear weapons, indeed they have superiority in that they have 2000 tactical nukes, much more than NATO. So what good is this large conventional force? I suppose it could help out the Ukrainians. But how does assisting Ukraine improve Polish security?
Imagine that the Russians had quickly won the war in Ukraine. Does it follow that they would invade Poland, who is in NATO and protected by nuclear powers? Poland also hasn't been fighting a low-level conflict with a Russian minority either, as in Ukraine and Georgia. There are Russian minorities in the Baltics and there's Transnistria, but there's no actual fighting there.
Now since Russia hasn't quickly won the war in Ukraine, surely it is even less likely that they would attack Poland. If there is a war between NATO and Russia, Russia would quickly start to lose. Then they'd use their massive advantage in tactical nukes to compensate, that's longstanding Russian doctrine. So what good are the tanks and the large conventional force Poland is making? Other than assisting with delusional US wars in the Middle East (Poland was amongst those who enthusiastically joined Iraq II), what can they do?
I suppose the Poles have been burnt by trusting their allies before. Maybe they think it's better to be safe than sorry. However, I think that the armies of Poland and Europe generally are just opportunistically expanding themselves now that they've got a decent-sounding excuse. Apart from tactical/strategic nukes and an embarrassing shortage of ammunition, they've already got more than they need.
Relying on nuclear weapons alone for defense is foolish. They are really only a deterrent against the most extreme of threats, and even then, they are untested. Would Poland nuke Moscow over a few little green men crossing the border on special operations? Would they initiate doomsday over an air strike? Nukes don't do anything to deter lesser challenges to sovereignty, because actors like China and Russia know that no one is crazy enough to doom their civilization over these sorts of things- otherwise, why would any militaries exist outside of their nuclear capability? We tried that experiment after WWII and it resulted in an army completely unprepared for the realities of Korea.
So with that out of the way, let's look at the allies situation. There has been a lot of doubt about the commitments to allies that NATO really has. Some members have mixed loyalties, some have other priorities, and some shirk responsibility. Or, as in the case of Germany, all of the above. America may be strong and willing to fight, but it tends to get tied up in world affairs, and it takes quite a long time to move a large force and build the facilities needed to sustain them. It is far better to have your own force that is guaranteed to be in your country, committed 100% to its defense, and ready to fight, than hoping that 3 months after you're invaded, the Americans will finally be delivering Abrams tanks on the front line, and that they aren't prioritizing an invasion of Iran or something. There's a lot of talk of how deployable US forces are, but it takes quite a lot longer than people appreciate to set up in large numbers for prolonged periods. Look how long it took for us to start getting more Abrams tanks to Poland after the invasion of Ukraine to paint a clear picture of why they want their own tanks.
You don't have to rely on them solely, you just don't need an army the size of Poland's unless you're looking for offensive wars. If there's a border conflict with little green men, you can use your reasonably sized army to fight them. You don't need over 1000 tanks for that.
The US didn't signal that it would defend South Korea before the war, let alone that it was under a nuclear umbrella. It wasn't included in the Asian Defense Perimeter under Acheson. The 'reality' is that the US didn't know what it wanted or what it was doing, that's why it was unprepared for Korea. Nukes work just fine for defense if you behave maturely and soberly in clearly designating and signalling what you're willing to defend with nuclear weapons.
Why should Poland trust that America would sacrifice New York for Warsaw if they can't even be sure that American ground forces will show up on time? The logic that calls for a large Polish army calls more loudly for a Polish nuclear deterrent. Furthermore, why are American ground forces even needed? Are the French, German, British, Spanish and Italian armies not enough? Are we stuck in 1979 when the Soviet Union fielded 200 divisions? Russian conventional forces are not that threatening.
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