From Jan Cienski, Financial Times:  Poland is gearing up for its biggest-ever increase in military equipment spending, splashing out $43bn over the next decade in a procurement programme that promises to be a severe test of the EU’s push to reduce national favouritism in military contracts.

From Judy Dempsey, Strategic Europe:  The Russian exclave of Kaliningrad plays a special role between Moscow, Warsaw, and Berlin.

From Radek Sikorski, Foreign Affairs:  We Poles, like you Americans, are a revolutionary people.

From Radek Sikorski, Foreign Affairs:  Our relations with Russia, like yours, are pragmatic but brittle.

From Postimees:  In addition to Estonian troops, around 350 land force personnel from Belgium, Britain, Latvia and Lithuania, as well as about 100 Polish airmen will take part in this year's edition of Spring Storm, the largest annual exercise of the Estonian defense forces.

From Philip Hammond, E-Ring:  The further east you go, the more of the concern remains that we should be prepared for a -- maybe not full-blown state-on-state conflict -- but we need to be prepared to protect the borders of NATO

From Hillary Rodham Clinton, Atlantic Council:  [T]he Obama administration continues to update America’s ballistic missile defense systems to protect both Europe and the United States against threats from outside the continent.

From NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence:  International Cyber Defence Exercise Locked Shields ended yesterday evening with NATO’s Blue Team receiving the first place among the ten teams participating.