A three-star general visits an exhibit at a military base in Bydgoszcz, Poland on March 9, 2019. The local military base organized a public picnic on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Poland's joining of the NATO alliance.
Poland, on the front lines of the Russia-West buildups in Central and Eastern Europe, has long sought an increased security commitment from the United States. Despite its accession to NATO in 1999, the country still lacks the kind of large, fixed NATO presence as found in Western European states such as Germany and Italy. Thus, Poland still feels vulnerable to Russian influence. But the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president in 2016 has since presented Warsaw with a fresh opportunity to persuade Washington to station a permanent U.S. military presence in the country . During a meeting with Trump in September, Polish President Andrzej Duda offered the United States $2 billion in financing for a division-sized U.S. base by the Vistula River on Poland's eastern border, even suggesting to name it "Fort Trump.
