The United States and Poland will be holding further talks soon on the potential stationing of U.S. troops and a Patriot air defense battery in Polish territory, said Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski on Sept. 23. Warsaw can be expected to be rife with such talk in the coming weeks in the wake of Washington's recent reversal of plans for a fixed ballistic missile defense installation on Polish soil. But the United States is still considering its options for reinforcing Poland with Patriot missiles and other defense hardware — especially in the long run. This is no casual or coincidental matter, but has its roots in Poland's location on the map. The territory that Poland occupies on the North European Plain is of pivotal geographic importance. It is in modern day Poland that the Central European Highlands approach the Jutland Peninsula in the west and drift south toward the Carpathian Mountains in the east. This creates a funnel of sorts starting narrowly in northern Germany and broadening as one moves eastward through Poland, opening up completely into Belarus and Ukraine. Because there is little terrain impediment to movement east and west on the North European Plain, it is a critical highway for military conquest in both directions. From Russia's perspective, it is important to hold Poland — as Moscow effectively did via the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War — in order to be able to effectively block any eastward invasion (as happened three times in the last 200 years). Conversely, from a European perspective, control of Poland allows military forces to hold all of Eastern Europe at risk. Put simply, Poland is both the unifier and the divider, and its disposition determines what is and is not possible on the North European Plain. This makes Warsaw of central concern for both Moscow and Washington. Poland is the territory — if allied or controlled by Russia — that allows Moscow to block European influence in what it considers key buffer states. Conversely, keeping Poland out of Russia's hands erodes and holds at risk Ukraine and Belarus' role as buffer states for Russia and offers the geographic connection to allow them to interact with Western Europe. In modern Europe, this notion of invasion may seem anachronistic, but geography and history also mean that Poland is the linchpin for unifying Europe or keeping it divided. Traditional invasion routes are also important routes for commerce. Poland is how Western Europe connects with Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic states. Combined with the Carpathians that clearly divide Ukraine from Central Europe, Poland can insulate these same Eastern European countries from the West. But if Warsaw is allied with neither the western European entity or Moscow, it has the possibility to be the single most pivotal chunk of territory on the European continent that can block a unified Europe. As such, Poland is very contested territory — and its history attests to this. Traditionally, this has meant that Poland has taken one of three main forms:

• As an independent power: Poland must naturally be aggressive and radically offensive. A defensive strategy is not really an option for Poland since it possesses no natural barriers. If it is independent and intends to remain that way, it must have a powerful, alert and offensive-minded military, and be willing to use it. This is the sort of position that Warsaw attempted to achieve and sustain in the centuries of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which reached its height in the 16th century.
• As an occupied state: Because it is so pivotal, Poland has also been occupied by greater powers or divided up between them. Whatever a regional or great power's larger goals are in Europe, there are a host of both offensive and defensive rationales for wanting to control the territory Poland occupies — and that territory becomes essential in order to unite Europe. Though Poland's domination after World War II within the Warsaw Pact is the most recent example, Russia's ambitions in Poland date back at least to Peter the Great.
• As a proxy power: The same reasons that make Poland attractive to occupy make it attractive to prop up as a proxy power. In short, anyone who does not want to see the emergence of a unified Europe will want a Poland that is well-armed and emboldened. Furthermore, it complicates any efforts at unifying Europe so that it can actually serve as the most effective barrier to — or at least the most effective impediment to — any invasion.

Though Washington is maneuvering considerably now, balancing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a resurgent Russia, an intransigent Iran and a global economic crisis, Poland remains a long-term priority. Despite the United States' withdrawal of its initial ballistic missile defense offer, the Polish air force is flying 48 American-built, late-model F-16C/D fighters — equipped with the latest weapons and among the most modern fighter jets in NATO. The United States clearly sees Poland as a proxy power — and consequently sees it as an ally that needs to be well-armed. Patriot talks will ultimately continue despite Moscow's resistance because the United States needs Poland to be an obstacle for anyone who might see an interest in weakening it (read: Russia). Patriots will not be the last major U.S. weapon systems to end up in Warsaw's hands.