If Russia had been gathering their troops at the Polish border for months (in the Kaliningrad Oblast and Belarus) and instead of attacking Ukraine, they would have invaded Poland on February 24, not 10,000 but 100,000 US Army soldiers would have been stationed on the territory of the Republic of Poland for a long time. In addition, scores of NATO fighters, helicopters and probably additional Patriot missile systems. Perhaps even American destroyers with Tomahawk missiles would sail on the Baltic Sea. Additional tanks would arrive a bit later, if it turned out that they were needed.
If, however, an attack on Poland was carried out suddenly, the Polish army, which today numbers just over 140,000 soldiers, would have to defend itself for some time on its own - before the allies come to our aid. Do we have an army that will be able to effectively repel enemy attacks for two or three weeks, identify threats and neutralize them outside the country? "I'm afraid not," General Mirosław Różański, former General Commander of the Polish Armed Forces, recently expressed his concern.
1939 vs. 2022
“Today we know that the migration crisis triggered last year and the war in Ukraine are closely related. Actions on the Polish-Belarusian border were the initial phase of the conflict in the east, and it was not Lukashenko who was behind them, but the Russian authorities,” says the current Operational Commander of the Armed Forces, General Tomasz Piotrowski as he emphasizes that Poland is and will be the target of attacks.
We hear about the threat of war every day: “We must arm ourselves; the enemy is at the gates. It is even worth getting into debt to increase Polish deterrence capabilities,” argued Deputy Prime Minister for Security Jarosław Kaczyński during the parliamentary vote on the Law on Defense of the Motherland. The act came into force at the end of April and is to drastically change the Polish Army. First, it is going to be much bigger and equipped with more modern devices, which means a drastic increase in the budget for the army.
Last year, Poland spent 2.2% of its GDP on defense, i.e. over PLN 52 billion (nearly EUR 11,5 billion). As emphasized by analysts, 40% of this sum was for personnel costs, i.e. the salaries for 111.5 thousand professional soldiers and 32 thousand soldiers of the territorial defense (established in 2017), earnings of civilian army employees as well as pensions. According to the new guidelines, next year, 3% of the domestic product is to be allocated to defense, which - taking into account the growth of the Polish economy - will result in an increase in the budget of the Ministry of National Defense by about PLN 40 billion. However, it is not difficult to calculate that to build a 300,000-strong army (which is one of the main assumptions of the Law on Defense of the Motherland), all additional funds would have to be spent om personnel (the more so as the MoD has also promised pay rises for privates). This would mean abandoning the purchase of modern equipment and training of soldiers.
Military experts emphasize that it would be much wiser to have a smaller army, but with ultra-modern equipment, an army well trained for the tasks it is supposed to perform, than the army of 250,000 professional soldiers (plus 50,000 territorial soldiers), which has archaic weapons and visits training grounds once a year. “In 1939, we were close to the size of the German army. Has it allowed us to win? Soldiers without modern equipment are cannon fodder. Is this what we want?" - says general Różański. He believes that a 150,000-strong army with modern equipment may turn out to be large enough to ensure Poland's security.
“Poland is not Ukraine. We have twice less land to defend and only one eastern direction from which a hostile attack may come,” emphasizes the former General Commander of the Armed Forces. Military experts point out that talking about the personnel of the Polish army without taking into account defense plans does not make sense. The point is that the size of the army should go hand in hand with the armaments and should be adequate to the planned tasks, which are too much influenced by politicians who make decisions based on the particular interests of their party, but not necessarily the entire state. The modernization of the army should not consist of a drastic increase in the number of troops and the purchase of ultra-modern and very expensive planes and tanks that can be shown to voters at parades or bragged about on television. Russia's attack on Ukraine is certainly conducive to building a long-term strategy for the development of the army, but are all purchases by the Polish government carefully considered?
Politicians are not always tuned to the army’s real needs
The Polish Ministry of Defense, based on the experience in Iraq or Afghanistan and knowing that air control is of key importance in the modern battlefield (military analysts believe that Moscow's defeats in Ukraine occurred precisely because the Russians were unable to establish full air control), decided to expand aviation resources. Poland currently has 46 F-16 aircraft and 32 MiG-29 fighters. Military experts say that the country needs at least 160 aircraft for its defense.
So is the purchase of 32 most modern multi-purpose F-35s (the first machines will be delivered to Poland in 2024) a move in the right direction? “I would be the first one to applaud if we had other needs met in Poland” says General Mirosław Różański, founder of the Stratpoints Foundation for Security and Development. In his opinion, we should first take care of anti-missile and anti-aircraft defense systems. The first two Patriot missiles batteries, contracted in 2018, will not be delivered to Poland until the end of this year, and their initial operational capability will be achieved at the turn of 2023 and 2024.
The war in Ukraine made the rulers aware that these two Patriot systems would only protect a part of the Polish sky (and they will not be able to defend the billion-dollar F-35 aircraft) and on May 24, Defense Minister Mariusz Błaszczak informed on Twitter that he had signed a letter of request to obtain an additional six Patriot systems with radars, launchers and missiles. He ended his tweet with "Let's protect the Polish sky!" A few days earlier, during the opening of the NATO Resilience Symposium 2022, he had said: “The ongoing invasion of Ukraine reminded us that the threat of a full-scale war in Europe is no longer in the past (…) It should be assumed that these threats will persist and will last. It is very unlikely that even if Russia fails in Ukraine, it will change its paradigm towards the West and its attitude towards the international order. Russia will continue to see us as opponents and make increasingly complex attempts to undermine our capabilities."
According to many experts, the Polish government is taking the right steps, but making the wrong decisions. "Cosmically expensive planes, incomplete missile defense system and the lack of modern reconnaissance and communication systems give the impression that maybe we bought a Ferrari, but when you look under the hood, it turns out that it does not have an engine" - explains Różański. It is similar with the HIMARS mobile rocket artillery. The Ministry of Defense boasted about the purchase of 20 world-class launchers, which can be used to fire at targets up to 300 kilometers away. In the same time, military experts shake their heads in disbelief, because anyone who deals with even a bit of defense knows that 20 launchers will not be enough to reasonably incorporate this weapon into the Polish defense system. Romania has ordered 54 HIMARS batteries to defend a smaller area.
The former General Commander of the Polish Armed Forces emphasizes that he is most concerned by the fact that the government is starting to strengthen the Polish army without a proper plan, and changes in the plans that already exists are made at the ministerial level. The fact that plans for the modernization of the Polish army are made hastily and mainly in the offices of politicians can be seen, for example, in the method of ordering military equipment. Poland has recently been buying weapons from a single source - in the US. The military say that in this way we lose the chance to complete the optimal equipment for us. Some suggest that we should buy coastal missile systems from Norway, and multi-role helicopters from France. Poland, however, talks almost exclusively with the USA (in April the head of the Ministry of National Defense additionally signed a contract for the purchase of 250 Abrams tanks).
Us vs. them
After three months of war, Warsaw's international position improved significantly. The Polish military also benefited from the conflict in Ukraine – it was given money to buy new weapons, and an increase in spending on the army was agreed. Since it is already known that even the allocation of 3% of the annual GDP will not cover the needs of a larger army, the government, looking for extra-budgetary sources to finance the army, created the Armed Forces Support Fund. The Ministry wants to take advantage of the moment of enormous public support for defense and for the army in general.
The North Atlantic Alliance Organization leaders' summit will be held in Madrid at the end of June. How will Poland use its growing international position in recent months in terms of increasing it's security? "We should want a new strategy of the Alliance to be adopted to deter and adapt the defense to the threat posed by Russia, which will persist for years," says Wojciech Lorenz from the Polish Institute of International Affairs. „It should contain provisions on collective defense and strengthening the allies on the eastern flank. This strategy should open the way to a permanent allied presence in the region,” explains the defense expert.
How will this affect Poland's defense doctrine, which for years boiled down to the belief that we are in NATO and that the Alliance will protect us? General Mirosław Różański points out that, in addition to the famous fifth article, the North Atlantic Treaty also includes the third article, which states that each member state is to strive to maximize its own defense capabilities. The number of US troops currently deployed in Poland is 12,000 – far larger than any time before, but a lot smaller than the country would need. The Polish government should certainly take the third article of the Treaty to heart.
