The battery includes missiles and launch stations, a radar set that detects and tracks targets, and a combat control station, according to the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance.
The US, trying to avoid direct involvement with Ukraine – which is not a member of NATO and therefore not subject to the pact’s collective defense agreement, which sees an attack on one aligned nation as an attack on all – , have repeatedly stressed that the deployment is for defensive purposes only.
“This defensive deployment is being proactively conducted to counter any potential threat to US and allied forces and NATO territory,” US European Command spokesman Captain Adam Miller said in a statement on Tuesday. “This is a cautious military defense measure that underpins our commitment to Article 5 and will in no way support offensive operations.”
The Pentagon’s deployment of the Patriot missiles to Poland “was not accelerated by a single moment or a single problem or a single act by the Russians,” US Department of Defense press secretary John Kirby said Wednesday.
The Patriot missiles had been withdrawn from Germany for what Kirby described as a “temporary deployment.”
Retired US Army General Wesley Clark, a former NATO commander, called the deployment of the two batteries “cautious” and said the Patriot system could intercept many of the missiles Russian President Vladimir Putin has deployed to Russia. and Belarus, which borders Poland.
“So if there was a launch in some provocative way by Mr. Putin to try and intimidate us, these missiles have a very good chance of intercepting a Russian missile,” Clark, now a military analyst, said. from DailyExpertNews, to Brianna Keilar from DailyExpertNews.
He added that deploying the equipment “gives reassurance to Poles. It also tells Putin that he will not necessarily be as successful at trying to blackmail us with nuclear weapons.”
An old mainstay of US military operations