Is Poland Europe's Next Military Superpower?

On February 27, 2022 — days after Russia invaded Ukraine — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz delivered what was hyped as a history-changing speech. Declaring a “Zeitenwende” (or “turning point”), Scholz committed to a massive increase in defense spending, to transforming his nation into a military superpower. At the time, most media lapped it up.

It seemed undeniable that Central Europe was undergoing an epoch-shaking shift, a shift that would see the rise of a new defense player. Flash forward ten months, and this was true — only, not in the way Scholz meant. Because, while Germany’s attempts to become the hardman of Europe have floundered, there is one nearby nation that really has been transformed, that really is on course to become dominant.

The name of that nation is Poland. Since February, Warsaw has pledged to increase its defense spending to five percent of GDP. The government has struck massive arms deals with America and South Korea, including plans to turn Poland into a tank manufacturing powerhouse.

From Cold War Army to NATO Member: Poland’s Military Trajectory

For most people living in Central and Eastern Europe, the modern era can be divided neatly into two blocks, divided by a jagged line — a blood-red crack running right through the morning of February 24, 2022. That day, Russia launched its brutal assault on Ukraine, triggering a war that continues to kill thousands of Europeans. And while Ukraine’s brave defense has halted the threat that Russia would keep rolling West, the aftershocks of that horrific morning are still felt.

From the Baltics to the Balkans, nations are adjusting to a dangerous new reality. One in which Russia is no longer a potential menace on their doorsteps, but an active threat. One in which Estonians, Czech, Slovaks, Romanians, Lithuanians and more could be forced to fight for their freedom.

Yet for all the impact that February day had across Europe’s east, nowhere has it arguably been felt more than in Poland. Bordered to its east by Putin-ally Belarus, and to its north by the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, Warsaw has long been wary of the wannabee-Tsar in Moscow. In recent months, that wariness has translated into action.

From an already-strong 2.2% in 2021, the PiS-led government now wants to spend 3% of GDP on defense. And that is just for starters. The goal is to eventually reach 5%, a move that would — proportionally, at least — make Poland NATO’s biggest spender by far.

This has been matched by equally tough rhetoric. For Poland’s independence day, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki declared: “The Polish army must be so powerful that it does not have to fight due to its strength alone.” Through most of the Cold War, the socialist government had controlled the second-largest army among Warsaw Pact nations, behind only the USSR.

But when Communism collapsed, Poland suddenly found itself incapable of maintaining a large military. Thankfully, this was a time when Russia was also a broke basketcase, barely able to hold itself together. Not that Warsaw was willing to wait around for Moscow to return to its colonial exploits.

In 1999, Poland made a successful joint bid with the Czech Republic and Hungary for NATO membership — seen as the only security guarantee worth a damn. That is because of Article 5, the part of the NATO treaty that says an attack on one is an attack on all. And that “all” includes two European nuclear powers — France and Britain — plus the almighty military juggernaut known as America.

Sadly, some now think NATO membership was too effective, lulling Poland into a false sense of security. Even as Putin’s Russia began launching military adventures in Chechnya and Georgia, Poland’s government was reducing its standing army to just 100,000. The assumption was the country would never have to fight a major land war again — that being a modern military meant having a small, professional force supplied with hi-tech kit for limited overseas engagements.

Two Shocks That Changed Everything: Crimea and the Rise of PiS

Two things happened that turned every assumption on its head. The first was Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, which was effectively ignored in Western Europe but rattled nerves in the east. The second was the 2015 rise to power of Poland’s current hard-right, nationalist government led by PiS.

For PiS, the reduction of Poland’s armed forces in an age of Russian aggression had been a little like stripping naked and smearing yourself in honey while living next door to a hungry bear. They launched a recruitment drive for the military, hiking wages to help attract new soldiers. In 2017, they created the volunteer Territorial Defense Forces.

Yet enlistment numbers stayed stubbornly low. The army only grew by 13 percent, and the Territorial Defense Forces never got close to its goal of 50,000 members. For a while, it seemed like PiS was just chasing a right-wing vanity project — that, even with Trump threatening to pull the US out of NATO and Emmanuel Macron calling the alliance “brain dead,” there was no need to waste so much money on soldiers.

And then came February 24th, and the Russian missiles. The Kremlin’s threats to “de-Nazify” Eastern Europe. The sense that the stable world known as recently as 2019 had collapsed.

PiS is now leading the charge for rearmament in Europe. The goal is to become strong enough to withstand a full Russian invasion, even if NATO refuses to get involved. And it all starts with an unprecedented splurge in defense spending.

Spending Beyond the NATO Benchmark and the East-West Trust Gap

Since 2014, all countries in NATO have agreed to spend a minimum of 2% of GDP on defense — a figure which almost no one ever reaches. While the US spent slightly over 3.5% in 2021, most big European countries did not even come close. Germany spent a measly 1.5%.

Even France — which prides itself on its military prowess — just barely hit the 2% target. Poland, then, was one of those rare countries that regularly exceeded its goal. In 2021, the figure was 2.2% of GDP.

Even before war broke out, Warsaw’s 2022 target was 2.4%. The Homeland Defence Act turbocharged that increase. Adopted by the Sejm in March of 2022, it catapulted spending to 3% — putting Poland behind only America and Greece among NATO countries.

With that extra money, Warsaw intends to more than double its standing army and hit the 50,000 target for the Territorial Defense Forces. PiS’s leader, Jarosław Kaczyński, declared in July: “The Americans will not defend us if we cannot defend ourselves, and for that we need a strong army.” The implicit criticism was that Warsaw does not think anyone else will defend them, either.

Although it often seems like a monolithic bloc to outsiders, the EU contains several fault lines — including a great, big chasm of mistrust that runs between east and west. From Warsaw’s perspective, Western European nations like France and Germany have been not just unreliable partners, but actively blind to the Russian threat for years. There was Angela Merkel’s 2008 veto on Ukraine joining NATO.

Merkel and Scholz’s continued championing of Russian gas pipelines to Europe, despite the security risks. Macron’s endless “diplomatic dialogue” with Putin that failed to save a single Ukrainian life. For many in the east, this has left a leadership vacuum which someone needs to fill — one made worse by the utter failure of Scholz’s Zeitenwende.

Despite all the grand promises, Berlin has yet to make good on its historical turning point. In early December, a spokesman was forced to admit Germany would fail to hit its 2% spending target not only in 2022, but also 2023. If Berlin will not lead, the thinking seems to be that Warsaw will have to do the job itself.

Interestingly, this might not be quite the black eye for Germany that it seems to be. If Russia were to invade Europe, it would have to fight its way through Poland to get to Berlin. If Poland is turning itself into a highly-armed fortress, then there is less need for the Germans to shoulder the heavy load of defense.

Men, Machines, and Firepower: From Helicopters to HIMARS

At the outbreak of war, Poland’s land forces consisted of 113,000 active service men and women spread over four divisions. The number one goal right now is to grow all the way up to six divisions and 300,000 soldiers, while also diverting more effort into civilian defense. Most visibly, this will take the form of increasing membership of the Territorial Defense Force: volunteers who receive sixteen days of training and get together on weekends to rehearse holding off an invasion.

Warsaw watched last spring as Ukrainian volunteer units wreaked havoc on Russian advances — which may be why the civilian component of the new plan goes way beyond the Defense Force. Across 2022, the government pushed a plan for more able-bodied people to get onto shooting ranges and learn some skills. Schools even got involved, with kids as young as 13 now being taught defense basics.

As Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki put it in June: “If Russia should ever think to attack Poland, Russia must know that in Poland, 40 million Poles are ready to stand up, arms in hand, to defend their homeland.” It does not matter if you have 40 or even 400 million soldiers if they have only got simple guns to fight a mechanized invasion force. That is what happened in Syria in 2015, when Russia’s Air Force obliterated entire rebel cities.

Hence Warsaw is sensibly not only focusing on manpower, but also overwhelming firepower. In July, Warsaw struck a deal with an Italian arms manufacturer to buy 32 AW149 Leonardo military helicopters for $1.83 billion. Yet this contract was almost immediately overshadowed by a deal with Boeing, announced in September, for 96 AH-64E Apache attack helicopters — one of the most advanced models in existence.

This complements a separate order for 48 FA-50 light fighter jets already in place with South Korea, itself an improvement on a pre-existing contract for American F-35s. While Ukraine has managed to deny Russia air superiority, its own small air force has meant that it cannot claim to control the skies either. In case of conflict, Poland does not want to just rely on air denial to save its cities.

That is thanks to a huge, $5 billion contract for new Patriot missile systems: perhaps the last word in shooting down everything from long-range rockets to cruise missiles. Russia keeps threatening massive escalation if anyone lends any batteries to Ukraine. Not wanting to be in a similar position, Poland is getting their orders in now.

The same goes for HIMARS — High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems — fast-firing, high-precision, extremely deadly rocket launchers. The arrival of just 16 of them over summer, along with six British M270 systems, was enough to start turning the tide of war in Kyiv’s favor. Poland now wants to buy five hundred of them.

Sixteen were enough to put Russia on the back foot in Ukraine; five hundred would be an overwhelming force. That giant order was placed back in June, and Warsaw has since complained that the US is unable to fulfill the target in a reasonable timeframe. Alongside a continuing HIMARS contract, a deal was announced in October for 288 South Korean Chunmoo launchers, with technology transfers potentially allowing Poland to start building homegrown rocket systems.

The Tank Gambit: 1,500 Armored Vehicles by 2030

One of the oddest takes to come out of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was that this was the end of the tank — that Ukrainian soldiers with lightweight Stinger and Javelin missiles had shown how easy it is now to take out heavy armor. That conclusion was a bit rushed. While Moscow’s tanks were indeed knocked out of the fight in astonishing numbers, it was more due to an utter failure of the Russians to combine their heavy metal with other ground forces that made them so vulnerable.

At least, that is what Warsaw is hoping. The Polish government has bet big on the continued utility of tracked killing machines. So big that, by 2030, they should have more tanks than France, Britain, Germany, Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands combined.

The total target number is 1,500. That is significantly less than America’s 6,333 modern tanks, or China’s 5,800, but it is still a huge number by European standards. France has fewer than 230.

Germany is supposed to be aiming for 328. These are numbers Poland laughs at. In the last ten months, Warsaw has already transferred over 240 tanks leftover from the Soviet era to Ukraine to support Kyiv.

And while that has created a temporary shortage, the plan is that more will soon arrive — way, way more. August 2022 saw a $1.15 billion contract inked with US company General Dynamics Land Systems for 250 Abrams battle tanks. Specifically, the order was for M1A2 System Enhancement Package version 3 Abrams.

Destined for the 1st Warsaw Armored Brigade, these tanks will form the backbone of a whole new mechanized division, one that should be operational by 2025. Bulking it out will be other kit on order from the US, like 17 Joint Assault Bridge systems and 26 M88A2 Hercules armored recovery vehicles. But the US contract is really just a sideshow.

The real killer order was placed with South Korea. The K2 Black Panther tank is Hyundai’s monster — a 55-ton killing machine equipped with automated anti-tank missile defenses that requires just three men to crew it. Poland wants nearly 1,000 of them.

A contract has been signed for 980, with the first 180 imported and the remaining 800 built in Poland, again with technology transfers to boost Poland’s own industry. It is an eye-watering order, one of the biggest South Korea’s defense industry has ever received. Hidden below, the contract also includes 648 K-9 Krab self-propelled howitzers, plus a whole load of light armored vehicles.

Ultimately, if all deliveries are made, Poland should wind up with the second-biggest tank army in Europe. Only Russia — which began the Ukraine War with 2,800 active service tanks and over 10,000 in storage — would have more.

Can Warsaw Actually Pull It Off? Economic Limits and Demographic Decline

Can Warsaw actually make this happen? In the coming years, a fascinating experiment will play out in Central Europe — one which will determine whether a mid-level military power really can catapult itself into the big leagues in less than a decade. And while the very real threat of Russia means Warsaw might well pull it off, there are also reasons to be cautious.

The biggest may be that it is not even certain Poland can afford to do this. This is not to knock the Polish economy. Since the fall of Communism, Poland has gone from being on a par with Ukraine to one of Europe’s success stories.

It has a young, educated workforce, a manufacturing base, and even managed to ride out the pandemic relatively unscathed. But 5% of GDP on defense is a hell of an ask. Israel manages it.

Some Gulf States, like Saudi Arabia, manage it. Everyone else does not. That is because throwing 5% of GDP at the military has a huge knock-on effect across the economy.

To get away with it, you either need to be hugely rich or facing a huge existential threat. PiS would argue that the existential threat is very much there. Yet it is worth pointing out that opposition parties nearly all oppose the 5% target.

Despite unanimously backing the spending rise to 3%, there is a growing feeling among the opposition that going further is just a reflex action, one not supported by Poland’s actual needs. As the former chief of Poland’s National Security Bureau, Stanisław Koziej, put it: “Okay, we need tanks and howitzers, but do we need so many from the strategic and operational standpoint? There is no clarity as to why the ministry suddenly announced all those deals.”

This might be why the opposition is pledging to review all military contracts if they win power in the 2023 election. And that is a serious threat, because — after eight years in power — PiS looks shakier in the polls than ever before. There is even a theory that these spending plans are just red meat for PiS’s right-wing voters, that the government itself will row back after the election.

Yet even if it does not, there are still possible barriers between Poland’s military dreams and reality. One of the most pertinent is population decline. With the massive influx of Ukrainian refugees — anywhere between 1 and 2 million, depending on which source you use — Poland certainly does not feel empty right now.

But this masks a deep-seated demographic decline. Poland’s population year-on-year has been flat or shrinking since 1998. Lots of young people continue to move abroad for work, while the birth rate is at an all-time low.

That means there simply may not be enough able-bodied people to serve in the army Warsaw is building. While millions would certainly sign up in case of an actual invasion, a professional army needs professional young men and women in its ranks at all times. In the gloomy words of General Rajmund Andrzejczak: “There simply may not be that many (Polish) warriors.”

A Powerful Poland: More Than Merely Possible

Poland will have to undergo some serious changes if it really is to become Central Europe’s top military power by 2030. But with the threat on its doorstep, those changes may be both desired and necessary. Polls show way over 90% of Poles consider Russia a threat.

And a sense of threat can lead to enormous changes in what the public wants overnight — just ask Finland and Sweden, whose citizens went from being against NATO to all for it after Russia’s invasion. In other words, a powerful Poland is more than merely possible. It is a real, concrete route that Warsaw may already be walking down — tiptoeing towards a destiny that could make it one of Europe’s major players.

How this would affect the EU and NATO remains to be seen. But one thing is for sure: since February 24, 2022, countries near Russia and Belarus have faced a horrific dilemma, one in which their very survival may be at stake. Some, like Finland and Sweden, have chosen to abandon neutrality and get defense guarantees from NATO.

Some, like Hungary, have chosen to instead kowtow to Putin — trying to remain on Moscow’s good side even in the depths of a savage war. Poland represents another form of reaction: one that believes a depraved adversary like Putin only respects strength, that only by becoming powerful can they defend their society. It is only in the coming years that the world will discover which of these options was right.

But if any country could pull off this near-impossible task, it is probably Poland — a country that knows only too well what it means to fight for your freedom.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why did Russia’s invasion of Ukraine accelerate Poland’s military buildup so dramatically?

Poland borders both Putin-ally Belarus to its east and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad to its north, making it uniquely exposed to the threat that February 24, 2022 made existential. The PiS-led government had long argued that a depraved adversary like Putin only respects strength, and the invasion proved that Russia was not a potential menace but an active one. Warsaw responded by adopting the Homeland Defence Act in March 2022, catapulting defense spending to 3% of GDP and setting a target of 5% — proportionally NATO’s biggest commitment — accompanied by some of the largest arms deals in Europe’s recent history.

What is the scale of Poland’s tank procurement and why does it matter?

Poland has ordered 980 K2 Black Panther tanks from South Korea’s Hyundai — one of the biggest orders in South Korean defense history — with the first 180 imported directly and the remaining 800 to be manufactured in Poland via technology transfers. This is supplemented by 250 M1A2 Abrams tanks from US company General Dynamics. If all deliveries are completed, Poland will have the second-largest tank army in Europe, behind only Russia. For context, France has fewer than 230 tanks and Germany is aiming for 328 — numbers Warsaw regards as inadequate.

What other major weapons systems is Poland acquiring?

Warsaw has ordered 500 HIMARS rocket systems — compared to the 16 that helped turn the tide in Ukraine — alongside 288 South Korean Chunmoo rocket launchers with technology transfers to enable domestic production. The air component includes 96 AH-64E Apache attack helicopters from Boeing and 48 FA-50 light fighter jets from South Korea, complementing a pre-existing F-35 order. A $5 billion Patriot missile contract addresses air defense. In total, the combination of armor, rocket artillery, air power, and missile defense is designed to allow Poland to withstand a Russian invasion even without NATO involvement.

What are the biggest obstacles to Poland achieving its military ambitions?

The most immediate constraint is financial: spending 5% of GDP on defense — a level achieved only by Israel and some Gulf states — has enormous knock-on effects across the economy. Opposition parties unanimously backed the rise to 3% but largely oppose the 5% target, and some analysts, including former National Security Bureau chief Stanisław Koziej, question whether so many acquisitions are strategically justified. The deeper challenge is demographic: Poland’s population has been flat or shrinking since 1998, with high emigration rates and a historically low birth rate, meaning there may simply not be enough young people to fill the 300,000-strong army Warsaw intends to build.

How does Poland’s rearmament reflect a broader east-west divide within NATO?

Warsaw’s push for massive self-reliance reflects deep mistrust of Western European partners accumulated over years: Angela Merkel’s 2008 veto on Ukrainian NATO membership, German and French championing of Russian gas pipelines despite security concerns, and Macron’s continued dialogue with Putin that failed to prevent the invasion. PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński explicitly stated that the Americans will not defend Poland if Poland cannot defend itself. From Warsaw’s perspective, Western Europe’s failure to act as reliable partners has created a leadership vacuum in NATO’s eastern flank that Poland must fill — a view that is driving its transformation into what could become Central Europe’s dominant military power.

Sources

1. https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-military-superpower-poland-army/
2. https://theconversation.com/poland-dreams-of-building-europes-largest-army-against-backdrop-of-russias-war-against-ukraine-192580
3. https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a41020305/poland-becoming-tank-superpower/
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