US Inaugurates NATO Air Defense Base Operations In Poland Today

JAKARTA - The United States will officially open a new air defense base in northern Poland on Wednesday, as Warsaw seeks to reassure citizens NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) guarantees their safety amid concerns after Donald Trump's victory in last week's general election.

Located in Redzikowo City near the Baltic coast, the base has been built since the 2000s. Warsaw said the base symbolizes the fact that its military alliance with Washington remains solid, no matter who is in the White House.

"It does take time, but this development proves the determination of the United States geostrategic," Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said in a video posted to X on Tuesday.

"The Polish-American alliance is strong, regardless of who rules Warsaw and Washington," he said.

Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who has stressed his warm relationship with Trump, will attend the opening ceremony of the base.

On Monday, he told reporters Donald Trump had called him to wish him congratulations on Polish Independence Day.

It is known that Trump's past criticism has made some NATO members nervous, as Republican politicians vowed, under his leadership, the United States would not defend countries that did not spend enough money on defense.

However, Poland says the country's fact is that the alliance's biggest defense spender compared to its economic size, means the country has nothing to fear.

Dubbed 'Aegis Ashore', the US base in Redzikowo is part of a broader NATO missile shield that the alliance says is capable of intercepting short to medium-range ballistic missiles.

Another key element of the shield includes the second Aegis Ashore website in Romania, along with a US naval destroyer based in Spain's port of Rota and an early warning radar in Kurecik City, Turkey.

Separately, Russian and Belarusian officials said they were watching the NATO base carefully and would include it in their military planning.

Moscow has labeled it a threat to Russia since 2007, when the base was still in the planning stage. NATO says the shield is purely defensive.

Redzikowo's base is basically an "previous era of death", however,wakit Swierczynski, an analyst from think tank Polityka Insight, told state news agency PAP, as the base was designed to consider threats from Iran, not from Russia.

Meanwhile, Polish Defense Minister Wldyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said on Monday the shielding coverage needed to be expanded and Warsaw would discuss this with NATO and the United States.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte himself plans to meet with Duda President and Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Warsaw on Wednesday.