The United States military established its first permanent garrison in Poland.
The garrison is the U.S.’s eighth overall in Europe and is set to be home to a sizable portion of the 10,000 U.S. troops already stationed in Poland. The milestone marks a period of increased tensions in Europe as Poland urges more action against Russia in the latter’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine.
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“We are proud of the declaration of President Biden regarding the permanent presence of American troops in Poland. We have been striving for this for years, for the word ‘permanent’ – and it has just become a reality,” Polish Deputy Prime Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said in a statement on the website of the Republic of Poland. “As of today, the garrison in Poznan begins its activities. The U.S. Land Forces V Corps Forward Command is already operating, thus it is from Poland that the U.S. land forces that are on NATO’s eastern flank are commanded.”
“Our cooperation is going extremely well, even exemplary. I want to assure you that later this year, together with Ambassador Brzezinski, we will invite you to meetings during which we will present the results of our cooperation,” Blaszczak, who is also the Polish minister of defense, said in the garrison’s opening ceremony. “Our goal is to achieve interoperability with the US military. Our goal is to equip the Polish Armed Forces with equipment that will be as compatible as possible with American ones. The United States has the strongest armed forces in the world, and we intend to use the best models.”
The garrison, located at Camp Kosciuszko, is made up of the Army’s V Corps, stationed in Fort Knox, Kentucky, where they have been a forward presence at the camp since 2020, according to the Military Times. The planned total size of the garrison is currently unknown, but there are currently just around 200 soldiers in rotation, far smaller than a typical garrison.
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Camp Kosciuszko is symbolically named after a national hero shared by both Poland and the U.S.: Tadeusz Kosciuszko, a general and statesman who served in both the army of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Continental Army during the American Revolution.
