US ambassador praises Kosiniak-Kamysz as Poland and Lithuania push for permanent US troops

Ambassador praises the defence minister

US ambassador Tom Rose used a social media post to praise Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, Poland's deputy prime minister and defence minister, saying the defence partnership between the two countries had reached a new level. Rose named the minister as the person who played the most crucial role in developing that cooperation.

Historic progress in the defence partnership between the United States and Poland has many architects, but no one has played a more crucial role than Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Defence Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz.

Rose wrote that the minister's surname is hard for Americans to pronounce, so US officials use a much shorter nickname for him. In the same post he said Kosiniak-Kamysz serves his government loyally while working closely with President Karol Nawrocki, and that political differences between the government and the president never stood in the way of the shared mission of strengthening Poland. The ambassador said that for the minister the country comes before politics, duty before divisions and results before rhetoric.

The only problem we have with this wonderful man is pronouncing his surname! That is why for us he is simply 'K2'.

A permanent base remains unsettled

On 17 September, President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social that significant progress had been made toward establishing a US Army base in Poland, thanks to the leadership of Karol Nawrocki, and that the location would be announced soon if the base went ahead. Business Insider reports that Trump is now considering a permanent base, without saying when a decision might come or what conditions would have to be met. Marcin Przydacz, head of the President's International Policy Bureau, said last week that the White House had already given a green light for a permanent US base in Poland.

Marcin Ociepa, a PiS MP and former deputy defence minister, told DoRzeczy.pl that the matter was handed to technical arrangements between the US Secretary of War and Poland's defence minister a year ago. He argued that the president cannot build the base because the Ministry of National Defence must do it.

We know that Presidents Nawrocki and Trump have agreed that there will be a US army base in Poland.

Ociepa linked the stalled process to a cancelled meeting between Kosiniak-Kamysz and Pete Hegseth, and to Donald Tusk's statement that the minister's March meeting with Trump did not concern the base. He described Tusk's criticism of that meeting, and of Adam Bielan who arranged it, as sabotage of the base's construction.

Lithuania seeks the same

Business Insider links Trump's remarks to a conversation between Lithuanian Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevičius and John Coale, Trump's special envoy for neighbouring Belarus. On Tuesday, 6 October, Sinkevičius wrote on Facebook that he was very glad Trump is not rejecting the idea of permanent US troops in Lithuania. He said Vilnius is ready to offer the United States the best possible conditions, citing the war in Ukraine, drone incursions into airspace and Belarus's instrumental use of migration.

I am very glad that President Trump is not rejecting this idea.

About 1000 American soldiers are to be sent to Lithuania at the end of October as a rotational contingent for nine months, with regular rotation of forces planned. Germany is due to bring a brigade of about 5000 soldiers to Lithuania by the end of 2027, although Berlin has difficulty finding enough personnel willing to serve there. During a visit to Berlin on Wednesday, Sinkevičius met German defence minister Boris Pistorius and said that the German brigade is a clear signal of the allies' will to defend NATO's eastern flank.