Duda Admitted That Hosting America’s Missile Defense Base Is All About Anti-Russian Optics

Practically everything of significance that happens in Poland from now till next year’s presidential election should be assumed to be connected to that event.

Russia’s consistent claims that Poland’s hosting an American missile defense base were aimed against its interests were hitherto condemned as paranoid propaganda by the West, but they’ve now been vindicated by none other than outgoing President Andrzej Duda. The Polish leader quoted his deceased predecessor Lech Kaczynski on the occasion of that facility’s opening last week by revealing to everyone that he supposedly told him that:

“Andrzej, these missiles will not defend Poland.

They will actually protect areas far, far away from Poland from missiles that could potentially be launched from Iran, for example. But this will be an American missile base, which will contain some of the greatest secrets of the United States and which the United States will guard.

And this is very important, because this American base will be built on our soil, in Poland. And from that moment, when this base stands here, the whole world will see clearly that this is no longer the Russian zone of influence.

And from the Polish point of view, this is the most important thing strategically.

Duda then wrapped everything up by saying that “If somewhere in the world someone is unhappy with having American soldiers and an American base, then come to us, we cordially invite you. We will always welcome you with joy.” Quite clearly, Poland’s hosting of this American missile defense base was always all about anti-Russian optics, both to signal hostility towards that country but also to virtue signal support for the US. That was already obvious enough to all objective observers but now it’s confirmed.

The problem though is that Poland undermined its own and the US’ reputations by admitting this open secret after they both spent years claiming that it was solely about defending against Iranian missiles without any anti-Russian angle whatsoever. It’s a pure coincidence that the facility was opened shortly after Trump’s historic electoral victory, but the timing of Duda’s strategic decision to reveal what his predecessor supposedly told him serves the purpose of further strengthening ties at a sensitive moment.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski from the ruling liberal-globalist coalition, which is opposed to Duda’s now-opposition (and very imperfect) conservative-nationalists, are on record making very irresponsible past statements about the returning American leader. They’ve since scrambled to walk back or outright deny them while reaffirming that bilateral ties will remain strong no matter who’s in office, but it still looked really bad and could possibly provoke Trump into treating them poorly.

Their strategic partnership could suffer in that scenario, even if their tiff never expands beyond the realm of nasty statements and bullying into having tangible political or economic consequences, so Duda might have felt pressured into revealing more than he should have for “patriotic” reasons”. He and his predecessor who he referenced represent the opposition, which wants to hold onto the presidency during next year’s election, but this might prove to be a challenge for two interconnected reasons.  

The first is that the ruling liberal-globalist coalition has adopted policies towards Ukraine that are more conservative-nationalist than the opposition’s back when they ruled the country until last December. They first demanded that Ukraine exhume and properly bury the Volhynia Genocide victims’ remains, which was followed by cutting off free military aid to Ukraine by offering loans from now on instead. These policies are very popular and could attract some of the opposition’s supporters if they continue.

The second reason is that the ruling liberal-globalists are carrying out an anti-Russian witch hunt against the conservative-nationalist opposition modeled off the one that their rivals carried out against them back when they had power. Their “Russian influence commission” wants former Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz investigated for “diplomatic treason” while a journalist sensationally claimed that the prior government initially wanted Ukraine to lose to Russia and planned to exploit that to their advantage.

The combination of the ruling liberal-globalist coalition’s adoption of much more conservative-nationalist policies towards Ukraine and the latest developments in their anti-Russian witch hunt could have therefore pushed Duda into making a strongly pro-American and anti-Russian statement. He might have then revealed more than he should have because he also wanted to repair the damage that Tusk and Sikorski’s well-known irresponsible past statements about Trump could have caused to their ties.

The politically self-interested benefit in doing so would have been to remind Poles that it was under his party’s rule that their largely pro-American country comprehensively expanded relations with the US in the most anti-Russian ways possible so that they vote to keep them in the presidency next year. All in all, given how important the upcoming election will be, practically everything of significance that happens in Poland from now till then should be assumed to be connected to that event.