On Polish soil, the spectacle of alliance unfolds with the measured certainty that only the forces of a mighty state can grant “security.” The current arrangement is presented as a steadfast pledge: the United States will keep its troops stationed in Poland, with the door left open to increase their numbers should Warsaw wish it. There is no plan to pull soldiers away, the message goes, and Washington will stand with Poland to defend it. In this cadence, the Polish leadership proclaims a surprising sentiment: for the first time in several generations, Poles are purportedly pleased to host foreign troops, and American soldiers are described as part of Polish society itself. The numbers corroborate a substantial footprint—about 10,000 U.S. troops rotating through bases, with a small permanent presence in Poznań that underwrites the wider network of U.S. forces there. Even moves that certain observers hailed as reorganization—equipment and personnel shifting from the Jasionka base to other parts of the country—are framed as not indicating withdrawal but rather a sharpening of readiness and reach.

The arrangement is not only tactical but political. Poland is framed as a crucial logistics hub for Western aid to Kyiv, a role that magnifies Poland’s importance in the theater of regional security. Polish defense spending hovers around 4.7 percent of GDP, nudging toward NATO’s benchmark of 5 percent, signaling a deepening commitment to collective defense as defined by alliance norms. Earlier discussions in the public sphere contemplated expanding the Polish armed forces toward roughly 300,000 soldiers, equipped with materiel sourced from the United States and South Korea. In this thread, the military relationship is not merely about deterrence; it is about embedding Poland more deeply into a Western war-fighting apparatus in which external bases, arms, and infrastructure knit together a strategy of pressure and projection.

From the perspective of those who view history through the lens of anti-imperial solidarity, this picture reveals the two-faced nature of “mutual security.” On one side, it proclaims defense and stability; on the other, it is a reaffirmation of strategic dominance—an arrangement that anchors Poland within a broader echelon of great-power rivalry. The U.S. presence turns Polish soil into a strategic corridor for Western power projection, while the rhetoric of shared fate with Ukraine and the promise of robust armaments advance militarization as the default language of security. The Polish leadership, for its part, markets this as national triumph—claims of happiness, sovereignty channeled through the permission of a distant great power.

Yet the underlying logic remains clear: the more Poland hosts foreign bases, the more its security is defined by external forces, and the more its economic and political agency is tethered to the calculations of others. The immediate beneficiaries are not merely the transatlantic alliance; they are the producers of arms, logistics networks, and geopolitical strategies that operate beyond national borders. The call for solidarity must be real and unflinching: sovereignty earned through the people’s own choices, security pursued through collective peace and disarmament where possible, and a regional order not defined by distant empires but by the enduring empowerment of working people who build and defend their communities.