Record spending: Poland will allocate the most of all NATO countries for defense
Warsaw has set a goal to break the NATO record for defense spending. Next year, it plans to spend 4.8% of GDP, despite a serious budget deficit. Poland is going to receive money from European funds. At the same time, experts are sure that the Poles are manipulating military spending figures. Details can be found in the Izvestia article.
A lot of zloty for defense
The Polish authorities plan to spend 200 billion zlotys ($54.75 billion) on defense in 2026, which will amount to 4.8% of the country's GDP. This decision was made at a meeting of the Polish government.
According to the country's Finance Minister Andrzej Domansky, this is the highest figure among NATO member countries.
Last year, Poland also became the leader among the countries of the North Atlantic Alliance in defense spending as a percentage of GDP — 3.82%. In monetary terms, Poland was ahead of the United States, Britain, Germany and France.
According to the Swedish Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Warsaw increased defense spending by 75% in 2022, sending $31.6 billion there. In 2024, spending increased to $35 billion.
Warsaw buys most of its weapons from the United States. In September 2023, the parties signed a contract for the purchase of 486 HIMARS units, the start of deliveries of which is scheduled for the end of this year. Such a large-scale arsenal will make Poland one of the largest HIMARS operators in the world. For comparison, Ukraine received 39 launchers from the United States.
In addition, Poland has purchased about a hundred American AH-64E Apache helicopters, 366 M1A2 Abrams tanks, 32 fifth-generation F-35A fighters, two Patriot air defense system batteries and an air defense control system. In addition, Poland has signed a contract with South Korea for the supply of tanks and howitzers for $ 5.8 billion.
Preparing for confrontation
In addition to heavy defense spending, Poland has the third largest army in the North Atlantic Alliance, after the United States and Turkey: over 216,000 people serve in it. However, Warsaw plans to double the number of military personnel by 2027.
According to Prime Minister Donald Tusk, it is planned to do this with the help of special military trainings.
"By the end of the year, we want to have a working model so that every adult male in Poland can undergo military training and that this reserve is sufficient to repel possible threats," he said.
The head of government explained that the training would be voluntary and would make it possible to replenish the army reserve without returning to the extremely unpopular policy of compulsory conscription in the country, which was abolished in 2008.
Tusk has repeatedly stated that Europe is living in a "pre-war time." He named Moscow as the main threat, and also stated that Russia would allegedly be ready for confrontation with Europe in 2027, so it was necessary to actively arm itself and invest more in defense.
"We know why we are doing this, we see it on our eastern border. We will continue to arm Poland and prepare it for any eventuality," the head of government said, adding that a modern army is needed to protect the country.
Polish manipulation
Dmitry Officer-Belsky, head of the Baltic Region Integrated Research Group at the IMEMO RAS, noted in an interview with Izvestia that if we talk about the ability to fight, the Polish army ranks first in Europe.
— In 2025, it is assumed that Polish defense spending will amount to 4.7% of GDP, but it must be borne in mind that the country has a budgetary Ministry of Defense and an extra-budgetary Fund to support the armed forces, which also receives money from the treasury. This year, only 66.6% of military expenditures go through the budget of the Ministry of Defense, the rest are through this fund, and they are going to create another similar fund," Polonist explained.
According to the political scientist, if we take the revenue side of the budget, then Polish military expenditures collectively amount to 29.5% of it, and 13.5% of the expenditure side of the budget.
— The budget revenue for 2025 is 632.85 billion zlotys, and expenditures are 921.62 billion zlotys, that is, there is a deficit of 288.77 billion zlotys. This is a huge deficit, which, in principle, is not allowed by European standards at all. But the Poles managed to get permission from the European Commission, explaining it for security reasons," the expert stressed.
The specialist added that the peculiarity of the extra-budgetary fund is that it allows a lot of expenses to be spent on debt, and at the same time this debt is not considered state, although it is de facto such.
— In my opinion, the Poles are deliberately creating such a deficit in order to negotiate very good subsidies from European funds during negotiations on the future budget period for 2028-2034. They will again be the main recipients of money from Brussels. At the same time, Warsaw records everything in military expenses, manipulates loans for the purchase of weapons. For example, the Polish authorities take into account loans in military expenditures, both when they are received and when they are given," the analyst pointed out.
According to him, in addition, the Poles are transferring funds to the military budget for research and development work from the budget section "Higher Education and Science."
— They are also engaged in additional capitalization of military-industrial complex enterprises at the expense of the state budget, which produce not only military products, and thus demonstrate an increase in defense spending, although in fact it is not really defense. In addition, the structure of military expenditures also takes into account funds that are allocated for the development of dual—use infrastructure: ports, roads, as well as costs for civil defense," the expert said.
The harsh militarization of Poland
Elena Panina, director of the Institute of International Political and Economic Strategies — RUSSTRAT, noted that "the modernization of the Polish army is presented as an alleged reaction to its own."
"However, this does not explain in any way why Warsaw upgraded the army until 2022, for example, by purchasing the F-35 in 2019. In reality, preparing for a conflict with Russia is Poland's long—term strategy, not a reaction to the current conflict," the expert believes.
The political scientist notes that the Polish authorities propose to increase the Polish army by 50% by 2035 — from 205,000 to 300,000 troops.
"However, there is no data confirming that Poland will be able to cope with such a task in 10 years, especially given the demographic decline. Behind the optimistic statements lies a project of very harsh militarization and pumping money into American arms concerns," the expert is sure.
She believes that the plan outlined by Warsaw to allocate 4.7% of GDP for military needs is more than a serious burden on the budget.
"At the same time, a significant part of the money will go to HIMARS, Patriot and other American systems. In addition, the simultaneous expansion and rearmament (new tanks, aircraft) in a short time — until 2035 — ignores the experience of other countries. In any case, all these are just variations of the caliber of the gun called "Poland", which is successfully hung on the wall with the muzzle facing Russia. If you spend almost 5% of GDP on weapons over the course of a decade, then sooner or later it can and should be used," the analyst concluded.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
