Documents / FOIA release
This JPRS translation, dated 1 May 1993 and released by the Central Intelligence Agency, reproduces an article by Col. Marian Kopczewski of Poland's Higher Officers School of Antiaircraft Defense. The article appeared in a Polish air force and air defense journal. Kopczewski assesses the military threats Poland faces from its neighbors after the Warsaw Pact dissolved. He argues for restructuring Polish air defense into separate peacetime and wartime systems. He notes that during the Cold War any unidentified flying object was once taken as the start of World War III.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
# Concatenated JPRS Reports, 1993 Document 2 of 19 Page 3 exploring in peacetime ever better means, methods, and forms of military monitoring of the airspace in the context of its demilitarization. What, then, is the threat from the air nowadays? 11. Polish airspace (by the will of the government) is being utilized by quite a few users for a variety of purposes, on employing aircraft of varying design and possibilities. In general, both civilian and military objects, Polish and foreign, may be present in that airspace. Their number varies greatly, depending on the time of day and the season of the year. At present, some 200 aircraft overfly Polish territory daily (and about 2,000 overfly German territory). All airspace users are obliged to strictly heed the air traffic rules, and their compliance is monitored by an appropriate control system. It is a fact that, in Poland, that system displays certain defects so that users of our airspace may cause accidental or purposeful (terrorist) threats. 12. Those airspace characteristics are the basis for evaluating possible dangers from the air over Polish territory in peacetime and, hence, also serve to reach conclusions concerning the nature of our air defense: 13. -It must be continually ready to monitor the entire Polish airspace. 14. -It should act as a deterrent to any potential airspace violator. 15. -It should operate with weapons of considerable firepower and well-trained crews capable of responding to the danger of terrorist attacks. 16. A requirement for the solidity of the country's defense system is its ability to deter threats in times of eventual conflict. Until such time that we gain new allies linked to us by treaties of mutual military assistance, threats to Poland from the air should be viewed as a combination of factors, any of which may be likely. 17. The Eastern Direction. The air forces of the former USSR may be a major danger to us in view of their considerable numerical superiority and the availability to them of thorough information about the infrastructure and basing of our units. The aircraft units based in the western military districts adjoining our eastern boundaries and the Baltic Fleet together total about 1,500 aircraft. They may be flown in from various directions, and the principal air strike targets in our country would be: elements of the Polish air-defense system, the main groupings of troops, administrative and economic centers, and the transportation infrastructure east of the
Not linked to a story yet.
FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 9 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.