‘Indispensable new pole’: Poland reshapes Europe’s security map

By Necva Tastan Sevinc

ISTANBUL (AA) - As Poland rearms on a scale unseen since the Cold War, aiming for an army of up to 500,000 troops and defense spending of around 5% of GDP, the country is not only expanding its military but quietly recasting its place in Europe’s security order.

That shift, analysts say, began with a shock.

According to Jacek Tarocinski, chief military analyst at the Centre for Eastern Studies, a Warsaw-based think tank, Poland’s threat perception was fundamentally reshaped by Russia’s war on Ukraine in February 2022.

“At that point, a clear strategic conclusion was reached: Poland must possess independent military capabilities – particularly in the land domain – to conduct a defensive war against Russia alone and, with allied support, be able to win,” Tarocinski told Anadolu.

In 2022, Warsaw spent roughly 2.2% of its GDP on defense, a figure that more than doubled in the following years.

By 2024, military outlays climbed to about 4.1% of GDP, with total defense expenditure near $38 billion, the highest level since the end of the Cold War and one of the largest shares of national income among NATO allies.

This made the country NATO’s third-largest military power by personnel, with more than 216,000 active troops after the US and Türkiye.

After decades of what Tarocinski called Europe’s “peace dividend,” Western armed forces had been reduced to levels “that made sustained high-intensity conflict with a peer adversary impossible,” calling this “a strategic error.”

He explained Poland now spends between 4% and 5% of its GDP on defense, and plans to maintain the figure until at least the end of the decade.

Its armed forces, which numbered around 130,000 before 2022, currently stand at about 215,000 and are expected to reach 300,000 by 2030, with wartime mobilization pushing the figure “well over half a million troops,” he added.

The shift also comes amid US calls on Europe to take a much greater responsibility for its own defense. To that end, in March 2025 the European Commission announced the €800 billion “ReArm Europe” plan, an ambitious strategy to enhance the continent's defense capabilities.

Poland is also widely regarded as a strategic frontline partner on NATO’s eastern flank and the Trump administration has characterized it as a model ally.

- 'Central hub for US forces in Europe'

The scale of Poland’s weapons purchases is unprecedented in modern European history.

On land, Poland is replacing nearly all of its Soviet-era tanks, infantry vehicles, and artillery with Western systems.

According to the report by RAND Corporation, a US-based research organization, this transformation includes the acquisition of 366 US-made Abrams main battle tanks, 980 South Korean K2 Black Panther tanks, and 648 K9 self-propelled howitzers, alongside hundreds of HIMARS multiple rocket launchers and newly developed Borsuk infantry fighting vehicles.

“The new hardware significantly boosts Poland’s ability to blunt any conventional assault, complicating any adversary’s hopes of a quick breakthrough,” said Malgorzata Zachara-Szymanska, an associate professor at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, the second-largest city of Poland.

“Modern armor, long-range artillery and advanced air-defense systems now form a layered shield along NATO’s eastern frontier,” Zachara-Szymanska told Anadolu.

She said Poland has become “an increasingly central hub for US forces in Europe,” with expanded training facilities and infrastructure embedding American land, air, and logistics units more deeply into the region’s defensive architecture.

Warsaw is also expanding its attack helicopter fleet from 16 to 96 aircraft with the purchase of AH-64E Apache Guardians, while establishing a dedicated drone command to integrate unmanned systems across its armed forces.

In the air domain, Soviet-era aircraft are being phased out, many of them transferred to Ukraine, and replaced with modern platforms, including 32 F-35A stealth fighters, 48 upgraded F-16s and 48 South Korean FA-50 light combat aircraft.

Polish military leaders have said they ultimately aim to operate a fleet of around 160 combat aircraft.

At sea, two ageing US-built frigates dating from the 1970s are set to be replaced by three new Miecznik-class warships, while plans are also advancing for the procurement of a new Orka-class submarine.

Meanwhile, South Korean defense firms have increasingly turned to the US and Europe for new export markets, as Washington presses allies to curb economic ties with Beijing, Zachara-Szymanska said.

Poland finalized a deal last year to buy a second batch of 180 K2 tanks from South Korea under a 2022 framework agreement that will eventually expand its fleet to nearly 1,000 armored vehicles.

The $6.7 billion contract includes support vehicles, ammunition and training, with 60 tanks to be produced in Poland as a localized K2PL version.

The original deal covered 980 K2 tanks, 648 K9 howitzers and 48 FA-50 fighter jets, in what was South Korea’s largest-ever overseas defense contract. South Korea has since emerged as a major arms exporter, with Poland accounting for 46% of its weapons exports over the past five years, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

"Warsaw has sought technology transfers and local assembly, particularly in its partnerships with South Korean firms, with the aim of turning Poland into a manufacturing and maintenance hub for parts of this new arsenal,” Zachara-Szymanska said. “If these arrangements mature, they could begin to feed into Europe’s wider defense ecosystem rather than compete with it.”

- Society’s hesitation

Despite broad political support for rearmament, however, Polish society remains cautious.

A June 2025 survey suggested only about 23% of Poles would volunteer to fight if their country were attacked.

Analysts point to the presence of more than 1 million Ukrainian refugees as a key factor.

“Poles answer more cautiously, because more than a million Ukrainian war refugees here offer daily testimony to what war truly means and to the individual and social cost it entails,” Zachara-Szymanska said. “The choice to place responsibility on the government to prevent such a situation from arising is a rational one.”

On the other hand, Tarocinski of the Centre for Eastern Studies described the gap between fear and willingness to fight as a complex sociological issue that remains poorly understood.

That caution is reflected in Poland’s refusal to send troops to Ukraine, even to police any future peace agreement.

“Poland’s task is to guard its eastern border, which is also the border of NATO and the European Union,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said last year under the wider effort to create a stronger army.

- A new center of gravity

According to Zachara-Szymanska, in Brussels, Poland’s rise is watched with a “mixture of relief and unease.”

After years of Franco-German hesitation on Russia, Warsaw is increasingly seen as filling a leadership vacuum on security, she said.

She stressed that strengthening the military is not only about defense, but also about shaping Poland’s standing among its allies.

“It is a platform for projecting an image of Poland as a leader in Europe’s transformation towards greater defense autonomy,” she said, cautioning that a larger army does not automatically mean a stronger one.

That influence is also visible among neighboring states.

Following Poland’s acquisition of South Korea’s Chunmoo multiple rocket launcher system, Tarocinski said, Baltic allies have shown “a clear inclination to pursue this capability,” aligning their own procurement choices with Warsaw’s.

Such parallel purchases, he argued, would generate operational synergies and deepen regional interoperability, while reinforcing Poland’s role as a “regional security hub.”

Still, Zachara-Szymanska added, “Poland is not yet viewed as a replacement for Europe’s old power centers, but as an indispensable new pole in a more plural, security-driven Union.”