This is why Biden is going to Poland

In the United States, Biden’s warnings that democracy is under siege by threatening autocrats may seem far-fetched, even after former President Donald Trump’s uprising on the Capitol and attempt to steal the 2020 election.

But in Poland, which borders Ukraine, freedom is fresh enough to be still a novelty. In a tortured history of the 20th century, the country divided between East and West, was constantly invaded, ruled by foreign tyrants and saw millions of its people cleansed or expelled as refugees from war-torn homes.

Poland finds itself back on the front lines of the conflict. It is on the dividing line between the states in the NATO club to which it now belongs and the Russian orbit of President Vladimir Putin, which includes another Polish neighbor, Belarus. Poland has opened its borders to more than 2 million of the nearly 3.7 million Ukrainians who fled Putin’s attack, and the war approached its borders with a Russian attack on a base in western Ukraine earlier this month.

Like Ukraine, Poland lived for decades under Moscow’s communist iron fist. Like the Ukrainians, the Poles are often harsh, deeply suspicious of the Russians, and have fought for their freedom and sovereignty rooted in their own DNA. Unlike Ukraine, one of the founding republics of the Soviet Union, Poland reached the West after decades under the Warsaw Pact umbrella. And in addition to being in NATO, he is a member of the European Union, although there have been tensions recently with Brussels over his flirtations with populist nationalism.

As Putin’s threat has grown in recent years, Poland has seen the rotation of American troops and aircraft. In February, before Putin invaded Ukraine, Poland was one of the countries where Biden ordered 3,000 troops to strengthen the alliance’s eastern flank. If the war in Ukraine turns into a wider conflict between Russia and the West, a frightening prospect, there is a good chance it could happen in Poland.

Source: CNN

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