ANALYSIS: NATO Build Up in Poland Threatens International Stability

Francis A. Boyle is an attorney and a professor  at the University of Illinois College of Law. His books include Foundations of World Order (Duke University Press: 1999) and Tackling America’s Toughest Questions (2009).   His most recent book is United Ireland, Human Rights and International Law.  Boyle offered his take on events in Urkaine to RIA Novosti:

“This is an extremely dangerous and provocative development in the crisis between the United States and Russia over Ukraine,” said Boyle, a Harvard-educated professor at the University of Illinois.

“It’s just another step in the direction, I regret to say, of perhaps a reverse Cuban Missile crisis,” the expert stressed.

In response to Warsaw’s concerns over the Ukrainian crisis last month, the United States deployed 12 F-16 fighter jets and 300 military personnel to Poland and is also planning to continue construction of a missile defense shield in the area.

According to Boyle, Washington’s keen interest in cooperation with Poland and other European countries is just another dig at Russia.

“The United States is using Poland as a cat’s paw here to further encircle and provoke Russia. The real defense Poland has, as well as Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, is non-aggression towards Russia,” the professor said.

“And yet we are seeing NATO building up its forces in all four states, which is extremely dangerous. It seems to me the United States and NATO have decided to play some cosmic type of game of chicken with Russia over Ukraine,” Boyle added.

 

 

francis a. boyle