{"id":1440625,"date":"2023-11-26T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-26T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1440625"},"modified":"2023-11-26T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-11-26T17:00:00","slug":"natos-proposed-military-schengen-is-a-thinly-disguised-german-power-play-over-poland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/natos-proposed-military-schengen-is-a-thinly-disguised-german-power-play-over-poland\/1440625\/","title":{"rendered":"NATO’s Proposed “Military Schengen” Is A Thinly Disguised German Power Play Over Poland"},"content":{"rendered":"

NATO’s Proposed “Military Schengen” Is A Thinly Disguised German Power Play Over Poland<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

NATO logistics chief Lieutenant-General Alexander Sollfrank suggested the creation of a so-called \u201cmilitary Schengen<\/a>\u201d for optimizing the movement of such equipment across the EU. <\/strong>At present, bureaucratic and logistical obstacles impede the free flow of arms throughout the bloc, which he believes could hamstring the West\u2019s ability to respond to any unexpected conflict along its periphery. It\u2019s not just this proposal\u2019s substance that\u2019s significant, however, but also its timing.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cNATO\u2019s Proxy War On Russia Through Ukraine Appears To Be Winding Down<\/a>\u201d for the reasons explained in the preceding hyperlinked analysis. Accordingly, Bloomberg\u2019s report about the EU\u2019s draft security guarantees to Ukraine\u00a0conspicuously omits<\/a>\u00a0any mention of mutual defense obligations of the kind that Kiev has sought for years and which greatly contributed to the\u00a0latest phase<\/a>\u00a0of this nearly decade-long conflict. <\/strong>Sollfrank\u2019s suggestion therefore seems to contradict these emerging de-escalation trends.<\/p>\n

Upon reflection, however, it\u2019s actually revealed to be a thinly disguised Germany power play over Poland. The EU\u2019s informal leader\u00a0ramped up its regional competition with Poland<\/a>\u00a0in mid-August through its promised military patronage\u00a0of<\/a>\u00a0Ukraine<\/a>, which readers can learn more about in that hyperlinked analysis. In brief, Poland aspired to become the leader of Central & Eastern Europe (CEE) throughout the course of the\u00a0NATO-Russian<\/a>\u00a0proxy war<\/a>, but Germany rose to the occasion to challenge its ambitions.<\/p>\n

The liberal-globalist opposition coalition\u2019s victory in last month\u2019s Polish elections, which its Foreign Minister earlier\u00a0accused Germany of meddling<\/a>\u00a0in, will likely result in former Prime Minister and European Council President Donald Tusk\u2019s return to the premiership. In that event, this German-aligned politician could\u00a0voluntarily subordinate<\/a>\u00a0his country to Berlin, thus resulting in Poland ceding its envisaged regional sphere of influence to that country and becoming its largest-ever vassal indefinitely.<\/p>\n

Tusk\u2019s\u00a0plans to improve ties<\/a>\u00a0with the de facto German-controlled EU are regarded by conservative-nationalists as a means to that end, particularly due to that body\u2019s efforts to further erode Polish sovereignty. <\/strong>Although he\u00a0claims to oppose<\/a>\u00a0changes to the EU Treaty, some doubt his sincerity and suspect that he slyly wants to prevent large-scale protests over this issue. If these two scenarios come to pass, then Poland\u2019s sovereignty\u00a0would be further reduced<\/a>, including in the defense sphere.<\/p>\n

Prior to last month\u2019s elections,\u00a0Germany<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Poland<\/a>\u00a0were competing to build the EU\u2019s largest military, but the aforesaid sequence of events could result in Warsaw throwing in the towel. Even though its next potential Defense Minister said that his country\u00a0won\u2019t cancel<\/a>\u00a0any of its military contracts, conservative-nationalists also suspect that he\u2019s either being insincere or could be coerced by Berlin\/Brussels into doing so. All things considered, these concerns are credible and should be taken seriously.<\/p>\n

Germany\u2019s national interests as its incumbent policymakers conceive them to be rest in becoming the EU\u2019s hegemon, <\/strong>which necessitates neutralizing Poland\u2019s ambitions to lead the CEE space, ergo its alleged support of Tusk and speculative efforts to erode Polish sovereignty via the EU. These moves importantly preceded NATO\u2019s proposed \u201cmilitary Schengen\u201d, and that\u2019s not by coincidence either. Rather, they\u2019re meant to facilitate Germany\u2019s unprecedented post-WWII power play over Poland.<\/p>\n

If Tusk improves ties with the EU like he promised, complies with any EU Treaty changes despite unconvincingly claiming to oppose them, and the \u201cmilitary Schengen\u201d is imposed upon his country, then German forces could return to Poland en masse on the pretext of defending the EU from Russia. This doesn\u2019t contradict the de-escalation trends pertaining to the NATO-Russian proxy war, but complements them since it could be spun as compensating for the lack of Article 5-like guarantees to Ukraine.<\/p>\n

On the one hand, the EU would wisely avoid laying any tripwires that Kiev could maliciously exploit to provoke a larger conflict with Russia upon the inevitable freezing of the present one (whenever that happens), while at the same time reassuring the public that they can still adequately respond if need be. The \u201cmilitary Schengen\u201d would serve the purpose of enabling the bloc\u2019s de facto German leader to swiftly dispatch its forces, which are planned to be the EU\u2019s largest, to the eastern frontier in that event.<\/p>\n

It goes without saying that they\u2019d have to transit through Poland and could easily end up deployed there indefinitely, whether as a so-called \u201cdeterrent to Russian aggression\u201d or as part of a preplanned response to an artificially manufactured (i.e. false flag) border incident. After having voluntarily subordinated itself to Berlin under Tusk as is soon expected for the reasons that were explained, the restoration of German hegemony over Poland would therefore be completed without firing a shot.<\/p>\n

In that scenario, which Polish conservative-nationalists are powerless to prevent and can only be offset by unlikely variables beyond their control, Germany would essentially be tasked by the US with \u201ccontaining\u201d Russia in Europe as part of Washington\u2019s \u201cLead From Behind<\/a>\u201d stratagem. Once that country\u2019s continental hegemony is fully secured through the means that were described in this analysis, America can then more confidently \u201cPivot (back) to Asia\u201d to focus on containing China.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Those two superpowers are currently in the midst of an incipient thaw as proven by the\u00a0positive outcome<\/a>\u00a0of their leaders\u2019 latest face-to-face meeting earlier this month on the sidelines of the APEC Summit in San Francisco, but it can\u2019t be taken for granted that this trend will continue. It therefore makes sense for the US to outsource its anti-Russian containment operations in Europe to Germany in order to free up the resources required for more muscularly containing China in Asia if this thaw fails.<\/p>\n

As has traditionally been the case throughout history, Polish sovereignty is once again in the process of being sacrificed as part of the Great Powers\u2019 games, but this time its borders will remain intact even though the country is poised to functionally become a German vassal in the coming future. <\/strong>There are indeed some variables beyond Poland\u2019s control that could offset this scenario, but they\u2019re very unlikely, so it\u2019s probably a fait accompli by this point that Poland will play second fiddle to Germany indefinitely.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nSun, 11\/26\/2023 – 07:00<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/geopolitical\/natos-proposed-military-schengen-thinly-disguised-german-power-play-over-poland<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NATO’s Proposed “Military Schengen” Is A Thinly Disguised German Power Play Over Poland Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack, NATO logistics chief Lieutenant-General Alexander Sollfrank…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1440625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1440625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1440625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1440625\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1440625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1440625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1440625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}