The escalating situation at the Polish border, where the country has closed its airspace along the border with Ukraine and scrambled fighter jets after detecting Russian drones flying close to its territory, is “a lot like 1983 and the Cold War,” and could risk a wider war, retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer told Newsmax on Saturday.
And, Shaffer said on “Saturday Report,” “things got a lot worse” before the Berlin Wall came down in 1989.
“I think that’s what we’re seeing here, some level of essentially brinksmanship,” he added. “Both sides were attempting to kind of get the other to overreact. So miscalculation remains, in my judgment, the biggest potential path to an expanded war.”
Shaffer noted the U.S. already has a significant footprint in Poland, with “at least 10,000 men, essentially two armored brigades in Poland plus the Fifth Corps headquarters forward.”
Washington, he said, “must continue to maintain a strong presence in Poland and stand side-by-side with our NATO allies, along with President Donald Trump’s push to tighten sanctions and drive oil prices lower to weaken Moscow.
Retired U.S. Navy Capt. Brent Sadler, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, who was also on Saturday’s show, said that Russia’s pressure campaign is aimed at undermining NATO unity as the war in Ukraine drags on.
“I think the main thing here is that Putin is facing a lot of pressure,” he said. “He has been trying to sustain this war in Ukraine, and he’s trying to get the best deal possible. This is absolutely not the right time to back down or to show any weakness. Resolve is what is necessary to ensure that this war comes to a conclusion, preferably through a negotiated one,” he said.
He added that Russia’s actions, including its joint military exercises with Belarus, are an “effort to try to sow discord and division in NATO.”
The discussion also turned to the Middle East, where Israeli operations against Hamas are intensifying.
Shaffer argued that diplomatic calls for a two-state solution are unrealistic and that “the military solution is the only one that’s available.”
He added that Israel, with Arab partners, could follow military action with governance support in Gaza, stressing the need to “end the war as quickly as possible.”
Sadler said the recent strike on Hamas leaders in Qatar, while not achieving its stated goals, was part of an effort to weaken Hamas leadership.
“I think the attack in Qatar is clearly part of the hope to decapitate whatever leadership remains in Hamas, hopefully to try to get to an accelerated release of the hostages and an end to the fighting in Gaza,” he said. “But I think you’re going to see the tempo of conflict and combat operations in Gaza accelerate, as they should, to bring a very quick end to Hamas’s last stand in Gaza City.”
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