Russian infringement of INF Treaty affects also Poland - Head of BBN - News - National Security Bureau

30.07.2014

Russian infringement of INF Treaty affects also Poland - Head of BBN

Infringement of the INF Treaty by Russia, as reported by the US State Department Tuesday, affects the area of strategic deterrence which is very important for Poland's security, Stanislaw Koziej, head of the National Security Office BBN, said Wednesday.

From Poland's point of view as NATO member it is more important to prevent a war by deterring a potential aggressor than to focus on ways of winning a war, Koziej argued. A war would be waged in Polish territory because Poland is a frontier state of NATO, he explained.

Preserving strategic balance is extremely important in conditions of a cold war, he went on. "Since there are signs we may have a (new) cold war, if Russia decided to abandon the INF Treaty it would run a high risk of seeing the West, consolidating in the face of Russian conduct in Ukraine, take similar and adequate (defence) steps. In such a scenario Russia would find itself in a very disadvantageous strategic position resembling that of the USSR in the 1980s," Koziej claimed.

"I suspect that Russia will not decide to renounce the INF Treaty in the near future," he predicted.

Asked if could envision the deployment of US intermediate range missiles in Poland Koziej said the matter was irrelevant at present because NATO had pledged not to deploy nuclear weapons in the territories of its new members.

 

Source: PAP