Within a few days, the American missile defense base built in northern Poland will be put into service. “The Americans have informed us that the Redzikowo anti-missile shield, 250 kilometers from the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, will become operational on December 15,” declared Mateusz Morawiecki, the former Polish Prime Minister, presenting Monday, December 11 to Parliament his general policy speech before he was finally ousted in favor of Donald Tusk.
A project conceived fifteen years ago
The Redzikowo base, imagined at the initiative of US President Barack Obama in 2009, was planned to defend the West against ballistic missiles fired by countries such as Iran. Installation of the new base began in 2016 and it was initially expected to be operational in 2018. The US Missile Shield’s sister base in Deveselu, Romania, was launched much earlier, in late 2015.
“This place reminds me how close the United States and Poland are to each other,” US Ambassador to Poland Mark Brzeziński said during a visit to Poland last July, according to the media. Polish Wyborcza. “Poland is safe, protected by NATO weapons. We are living in a historic moment,” he added. “Our common cause is the future of Ukraine.”
From the start, Moscow saw it, as with other military installations in the region, as a threat to Russia. Vladimir Putin is opposed to these bases, which according to him are contrary to “a gray zone” of security.
More than 10,000 American soldiers
Poland, a NATO member and very close ally of Washington, has recently made numerous acquisitions of American military equipment including American Patriot air defense systems, F-35 fighters, Himars racket launchers and Abrams tanks. It currently hosts more than 10,000 soldiers on its soil. The AEGIS site, named after an American naval weapons system, will thus make it possible to respond to the threat of Iskander ballistic missiles installed in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. Due to their range, they are also able to reach almost any point on Polish territory while having the ability to maneuver to outwit opposing defenses.
According to the Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita center-right, the American base in Redzikowo is equipped with a long-range reconnaissance radar and 24 interceptors, capable of shooting down enemy missiles during the maximum and final phases of their flight with direct fire. On site, the soldiers have various facilities at their disposal: equipped apartments, a canteen, a medical clinic, a cinema room and even sports facilities. The military zone, which cost almost $900 million, is tightly fenced and guarded by Polish defense.
But the installation of the base does not delight all the inhabitants. “If a serious armed conflict breaks out, the first strike will be aimed at our shield. If tactical nuclear charges are used, since the shield is only a few kilometers from the city center, one can imagine what will happen to us,” worried Ryszard Kwiatkowski, former deputy mayor of the town of Slupsk which has some 90,000 inhabitants, during a report produced by AFP in March 2022, just after the start of the war in Ukraine. He described as “absurd” the presentation of this system as having to combat long-range missiles that could come from the Middle East and in particular from Iran. “It was from the start directed against Russia, now we no longer hide it,” he said. For the moment, Russia has not yet reacted to the Polish announcement.