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Originally Posted by Adm.Lee
Very important, the Soviets will have had 40+ years of peacetime and 3+ years of war to sink their message in. My vision of the 1997 NATO invasion of Poland has lots of Poles, individually, welcoming the Americans and British (tolerating the Germans at best) forces, hundreds if not thousands joining the Polish forces in exile or volunteering as translators and the like.
BUT when the Soviets push NATO back to the Oder in the autumn, and the nukes are used by both sides, nearly all of whatever goodwill the NATO/anti-Soviet forces had built up would have disappeared. When NATO doesn't come back in '98 or '99, there's darn few opportunities to stoke it up again. I still hold to a failed Polish attempt to organize mass defections as a keystone to planning the summer '00 offensive, and this is a piece of that.
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Originally Posted by Raellus
With most of the nation reduced to rubble, I think that Polish attitudes towards foreign troops would include a lot of local variation. If the nearby Soviet garrison was well-behaved and helpful, the local Poles would likely be very pro-Soviet. If the Polish [coummunist] government garrison one town over was callous and predatory, the locals may lean more towards NATO. If NATO troops looted and raped on their last trip through... and so on and so forth. The list goes on.
I'm sure that by 2000 a lot of Poles would just be sick and tired of every foreigner trespassing on Polish soil.
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I agree with Adm Lee and Raellus' takes on this. I think by 2000 most Poles would have pretty negative attitudes to all foreign troops on their soil. The attitudes of individual Poles would vary, obviously, but as whole I suspect they would "hate everyone else equally".
GDW Fan and Keg, I don't think this thread is at the point where it requires mod intervention. We're having a spirited discussion, yes, but at this stage that appears to be stimulating further discussion, not discouraging it. That said, let's try to keep things cordial, eh?