Opinion: Polish desire to rattle weapons is partially offset by low level of military training
As Belarus’ Defence Ministry stated earlier, Poland violates the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe with respect to Belarus. In his talk with Alfa Radio, Vadim Gigin, the Director General of the National Library of Belarus, explained why such actions of Warsaw are very dangerous for the region as a whole.
As noted by Mr. Gigin, the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, which was signed in 1990, is virtually dead by now. “The document envisaged a number of restrictions: in short, a norm was stipulated for each country regarding the number of tanks, armoured combat vehicles and attack helicopters – everything which we call offensive weapons. The figures were cut, but there was one point that has always been a threat to Belarus. Actually, we have never openly talked about it. Pay attention to how peaceful our policy is. The Baltic States did not sign that treaty, stating that the document had been signed by the Soviet Union, and they did not recognise any papers signed by the USSR. What happened as a result? At any moment, any number of armed forces could have been deployed on our northern borders. This threat has been in place all the time," Mr. Gigin explained.
The expert recalled that Russia had offered to revise that treaty several times over the past years. “No concessions were made, however. The West blocked any negotiations on the updating of the document. As a result, Russia said that it would withdraw it, as the agreement was not beneficial to the country,” he noted.
At the same time, there are no threats for Poland – no matter what Poles are saying. Mr. Gigin commented, “Let's correlate the potential. Until recently, Poland's Armed Forces numbered 163 thousand people. Belarus had 45-47 thousand – without taking into account its civilian personnel. We can add Kaliningrad, where a base of the Baltic Fleet is located; there are about 30 thousand more people. Correlate these potentials with the Polish Armed Forces that are backed by NATO.”
The expert added that Poles’ statement about the termination of this agreement against Belarus indicates the preparation for aggressive offensive actions.
"That's what the treaty held back. We say that this is unacceptable for us, but the latest incident at the border, as our Defence Minister well said, indicates – to put it mildly – not a very high level of the Polish Armed Forces. Of course, a potential opponent should not be underestimated, but there should also be no overestimation: a healthy rational assessment of what is happening in Poland is needed. There is plenty of desire to rattle weapons, the Polish army has Nazi-oriented mood, and revanchism is virtually above all. However, all this is partially offset by a low level of training of technical and military personnel. Moreover, tactical nuclear weapons reset everything to zero,” Mr. Gigin summed up.
