In what may be seen as a dangerous escalation in tensions, Poland wants to station nuclear weapons in the country in response to Russia’s decision to deploy them in Belarus.
Polish Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, has called upon NATO to allow Poland to host such weaponry on its soil, which he says falls within the framework of the pact’s nuclear-sharing programme.
Morawiecki, quizzed by reporters in Brussels, signalled the country’s intention to join the system. However, he acknowledged that the final decision on Poland’s access to American nuclear weapons would depend on the United States and NATO partners.
Morawiecki obviously believes the matter is urgent. “We declare our desire to act quickly in this regard,” he said. The Polish PM added that Poland does not want to “just sit idly while [Russian president] Putin builds up all sorts of threats”.
Poland has already discussed the matter with the US. In September last year, Poland’s President, Andrzej Duda, said in a newspaper interview that his country had held talks with American authorities about the possibility of joining the nuclear programme.
The NATO position is a component of its nuclear deterrence capacity; the programme makes nuclear warheads available to allied states that do not have their own such weapons. Since November, 2009, as part of this nuclear sharing deal, these weapons have been deployed in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey.
Poland’s request to participate in the NATO programme is consistent with its calls for the strengthening of the eastern flank of the organisation following Russian aggression in Ukraine. It is also a mark of Poland’s increasing fears over nuclear weapons in Belarus.
The Polish bid is in line with the country’s rearmament policy. It has already announced that it will spend 4 per cent of its GDP on defence this year and plans to double the size of its military forces to 300,000 troops.
On June 27, Belarusian President, Alexander Lukashenko, claimed that most of the tactical nuclear weapons Russia was locating in his country had already arrived. That revelation, combined with Russian rhetoric that it was prepared to abandon its ‘no first-use’ policy on such weapons, has seriously alarmed Poland.
Still, there is some confusion about who will actually administer the use of the nuclear armament in Belarus. It had been assumed by most observers it would fall fully under Russian control but Lukashenko has said he’s tasked his defence minister with producing its own ways to utilise them.
Such talk, together with the announcement that the Wagner group of Russian-backed mercenaries is being relocated to Belarus, is pushing Poland to lobby for greater NATO protection.
