more than 10,000 US soldiers are in Poland now.
more to come I'm pretty sure.
This is something I have a hard time wrapping my mind around. Please understand - I can appreciate the direct reasons. That is, I understand there is a threat from a much larger country, and there is at the same time a conflict ongoing where a smaller and weaker country is being invaded - in other words an example of what can be. As any person loving literature and film, I understand that the narrative of an underdog that has a sudden "savior" is a popular one, because it pulls at our heart strings in some naturally preprogrammed way. I explain this, to try to preempt any accusations of trolling. Basically - I'm not a complete idiot but genuinely curious.
Here is my own thinking, which I think shouldn't be too strange to other Russians or even Americans. Under no circumstances, regardless of context, would I cheer large deployments of foreign soldiers in my country unless we are massing for some kind of coalition attack. In the history of my own country, even when we were allied - we did not work alongside Americans until after the meeting at the Elba and the joint occupation. So, for a pretty large amount of human persons, in cultural anthropological terms this is strange.
But then of course immediately I wonder - perhaps the only reason I think this way is that I'm from a large country where this is unthinkable through national pride and other reasons, but at the same time not material enough a concern from a personal security point of view to give it enough thought. Perhaps in Poland's case, or Romania's case there is a different calculus? Even wider, perhaps it is different for all European countries with the exception of Russia (and maybe France)?
Finally, to confuse things - I start to think of a myriad counterpoints - none of them very sexy, granted. These are, the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Houthis in Yemen, the Viet Cong- who seemed to derive a special pride in carrying the burden of national liberation solely on their shoulders without outside help. The rationale being that victory belongs entirely to you, and you are left in no one's debt.
So then is it through the very high stakes involved in europe (presence of nukes all around), that smaller countries have become mentally accustomed to hosting large foreign forces and treating it as a cause of joy? Is it some deeper history of coalition wars in europe going back to the Hundred Years War or the Napoleonic Wars where there is a greater, learned, fraternity of nations at war?
Just curious - it's surprising to see an Irish woman and a Pole getting very excited over Americans arriving en masse in Poland, in a context where the threat is still extremely remote.
