{"id":16262,"date":"2023-07-03T08:18:41","date_gmt":"2023-07-03T05:18:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/?p=16262"},"modified":"2023-07-03T17:26:04","modified_gmt":"2023-07-03T14:26:04","slug":"poland-expresses-interest-to-host-natos-nuclear-weapons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/poland-expresses-interest-to-host-natos-nuclear-weapons\/","title":{"rendered":"Poland expresses interest to host NATO\u2019s nuclear weapons"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Poland\u2019s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said that his country wants to join NATO\u2019s nuclear weapons sharing program. Poland\u2019s bid to host nuclear weapons came after Russia deployed its tactical nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Morawiecki\u2019s remarks came during a press conference in Brussels, Belgium, at a European Union event. He was commenting on his country\u2019s direct response to Russia\u2019s deployment of nuclear weapons in Belarus. Poland shares a large border with Belarus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The final decision will depend on our American and NATO partners. We declare our will to act quickly in this matter,” Morawiecki told reporters. “We do not want to sit idly by while [Russian President Vladimir] Putin escalates all sorts of threats.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the first of such moves since the 1990s, Moscow has started to deploy nuclear weapons in another country amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. Last month, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko announced that his country has started taking deliveries of\u00a0Russian tactical nuclear weapons<\/span><\/a>. Moscow\u2019s nuclear weapons deployment in Belarus is being perceived as another nuclear threat by the NATO allies and a breach in the nuclear nonproliferation treaty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Putin, however, compares Russia\u2019s deployment of nuclear weapons in Belarus to the U.S.\u2019s deployment of similar weapons in Europe, stating that the move does not violate Russia\u2019s nuclear obligations. Russia has helped Belarus upgrade 10 aircraft capable of carrying tactical nuclear warheads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
The 72nd Test and Evaluation Squadron test loads an unarmed B61-12 bomb, which can be outfitted with a nuclear warhead, on a B-2 Spirit bomber on June 13, 2022, at Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri. (Image Credit: U.S. Air Force\/Airman 1st Class Devan Halstead)<\/sup><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Three of the 31 NATO member countries are nuclear-armed states. This includes the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. Only the U.S. has deployed its nuclear weapons in different European countries under the nuclear sharing program. Germany, Belgium, Turkey, Italy, and the Netherlands are currently hosting the U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not the first time that Poland has expressed interest in hosting nuclear weapons. Due to the increasing threats from Russia and Belarus, Poland showed interest in joining NATO\u2019s nuclear sharing program on multiple occasions last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe problem, first of all, is that we don\u2019t have nuclear weapons. There is no indication that we will have it in our possession in the near future. But there is always the potential possibility of participating in nuclear sharing,” Poland\u2019s President Andrej Duda said during an interview in 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So far, none of NATO\u2019s nuclear-armed member states has responded to Poland\u2019s bid to host nuclear weapons. However, the Polish army has been a regular participant in NATO\u2019s annual two-week training exercise, Steadfast Noon, which is designed to prepare members for handling nuclear weapons and to practice putting the nuclear sharing program into effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Polish air and SBAD units testing their readiness and interoperability with NATO allies during exercise Anakonda 2023. (Image Credit: NATO AIRCOM\/Twitter)<\/sup><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In response to the Polish prime minister\u2019s statement, the former President of Russia and Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev\u00a0said that \u201cThe only danger arising from the request to deploy nuclear weapons to Poland is that such weapons will be used.”\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Poland is currently bolstering its arsenal with active procurement of conventional weapons. Following\u00a0Russia<\/span><\/a>\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, Warsaw has ramped up its military acquisitions while supplying crucial weapons to Ukraine for its defense. Poland has also signed multi-billion dollars deals with\u00a0the U.S., South Korea, and other countries\u00a0to acquire new tanks, missiles, and fighter jets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Poland\u2019s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said that his country wants to join NATO\u2019s nuclear weapons sharing program. Poland\u2019s bid to host nuclear weapons came after Russia deployed its tactical nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16263,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[62,1],"tags":[147,6,24,357,5,59,108,54,20,7,63],"class_list":["post-16262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","category-news","tag-belarus","tag-defense","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-military","tag-nato","tag-nuclear","tag-poland","tag-russia","tag-u-s","tag-weapons"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Poland-Prime-Minister-Mateusz-Morawiecki.jpg?fit=690%2C370&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7jJWb-4ei","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16262"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16269,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16262\/revisions\/16269"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}