Kaliningrad Oblast - formerly North East Prussia - has many tranquil villages which appear little changed for centuries.

This is picturesque Gvardeysk. But the picture changes somewhat on closer inspection. Gvardeysk has a strong Russian military presence. And once Poland acquires its new missile batteries pointing at Russia, Gvardeysk is a strong candidate for a battery of short range Russian missiles pointing at Poland, just a few fields away.

America’s missile deployment in Poland will probably terminate any hope of resolving Kaliningrad’s local disputes - either with its immediate neighbours or the EU. It is a mystery to me why the EU decided to take on a set of US vassal states. The conflict and the tensions are the last thing this area needs. Many of the scars of the previous war have still to heal.

One problem is that America sincerely believes its borders are in other people’s countries. Its long range paranoia is voiced by Senators of both parties. Richard Holbrooke, Democratic would-be Secretary of State, declares that far-away Ukraine is “our core zone of security.” The less-eloquent redneck Bushies parrot the ‘fight ‘em there instead of here’ mantra that was used as carte blanche to invade Iraq and Afghanistan. Either way, it has led to the military encirclement of Russia with America effectively using Poles, Ukrainians et al as human shields.

There is a very real prospect of the Polish and Lithuanian borders closing forever around Kaliningrad following the US military build-up, just as Russia has responded to the current encirclement with trade barriers.

Since Poland joined the EU, its achievements include acquiring an airforce pointing at Russia, (no less than 48 F-16s ) a missile base pointing at Russia and several CIA torture camps. These have earned it a ban on agricultural exports to Russia. Meanwhile it has the highest unemployment of any EU country, it has lost over 650,000 workers while one fifth of Poles live under the poverty line. Good job, EU.

The EU’s subservience to NATO is clearly failing to serve the interests of the majority of its member states and ordinary citizens least of all. For there to be short or medium range missiles in Kaliningrad, it would mean Russia tearing up the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) signed by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987. This would be the final act in a series of broken agreements that once assured Europeans of peace and security.

It started with Clinton breaking Bush Senior’s promise to Soviet Russia in 1990-91 not to expand NATO “one inch to the east” in return for the withdrawal of all Soviet forces from occupied territories. Clinton’s profound act of bad faith was sadly supported by the EU.

Another major deterioration in East-West relations was signalled by the Bush Junior’s Administration in 2002 - the Administration’s unilateral withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Again, not a word of censure from the EU.

As you wander around this beautiful but now anxious part of the EU-Russia border, you realise that the EU’s supine stance - or crass ignorance of history - has negated all the hard-won peace initiatives of the last 30 years and returned Prussia to front line status, just as it was in 1945. The EU should be deeply ashamed.