Damn Poland, You Scary

Europe has a new bulwark against Russia

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk says that his government wants to build “one of the largest European militaries.” While most of the contracts awarded last year went to American contractors, with South Korea being the runner-up, the Polish Ministry of Defense was already expected to increase its European partnerships even before the American election results in November.

For that matter, the previous Polish government was already prioritizing military mass. For example, when the Poles observed the effects of the introduction of two dozen HIMARS launchers onto the Ukrainian battlefield, they ordered 486 of the world’s most famous rocket launchers on wheels. The Polish Ministry of National Defense wanted to buy even more HIMARS trucks, but Lockheed Martin did not have the production capacity to meet their demand, so they bought 72 very similar wheeled launch systems from South Korea.

The message received in Moscow was: Don’t fu*k with us. That was in 2022. Much has changed in the world, but not this attitude in Warsaw. Russia, their former colonial master, has been the ever-present, existential threat to their existence as a modern state for a century. They don’t take the threat lightly. Defense spending will reach 4.7 percent of Polish GDP this year, the highest ever. The Poles are buying deterrence, even the unconventional kind, for “this is a race for security, not a race to war,” Tusk says.

With Russia, the only peace guarantee that counts is firepower, even nuclear firepower. “If we, Europeans, fail to spend big on defence now, we will be forced to spend 10 times more if we don’t prevent a wider war,” Tusk argued in a recent tweet. No one in Europe understands the Russian threat better than the Poles.

The Tusk government has reacted to the second Donald Trump presidency by seconding his call for another boost in NATO member defense spending. Defense minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz has expressed hope that Poland can be “the transatlantic link” between the new American policy in Europe and the Europeans themselves, that is, a very helpful partner in implementing Trump’s plans for the distribution of American military power.

Underlining his enthisiasm, Tusk recently asked the Polish parliament to set defense spending at a constitutional minimum of 4 percent of GDP. He also called for universal military training for Polish men on the Swiss model, creating a reserve that is “adequate to potential threats,” namely Russia. Along with Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, Poland renounced the Ottawa Convention on land mines this morning. Tusk wants to withdraw Poland from international conventions against cluster bombs. He would even withdraw Poland from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

“I say this with full responsibility, it is not enough to purchase conventional weapons, the most traditional ones. The battlefield is changing before our eyes from month to month,” he told Polish lawmakers this month. Observing Washington over multiple administrations of both parties, Warsaw has seen the differential treatment of Ukraine, which gave up its nuclear weapons at Minsk, versus Israel, which has never admitted they even have nukes.

According to the New York Times, the prospect of losing America’s nuclear umbrella is now prompting Polish ideas of nuclear proliferation.

The French Institute of International Relations warned in a report last year that “the war in Ukraine has the potential to increase proliferation risks, as it signals that nuclear powers can attack an adversary with conventional capabilities while backing its actions with nuclear threats to deter third-party intervention.”

“The war also sends the message that nuclear weapons are a necessary guarantor of national security,” the report said.

Even a small nuclear arsenal in Poland would have the effect of keeping the United States allied with Warsaw in the event of war, or making American support more likely. This is the calculus in Warsaw. Lord Hastings Lionel Ismay, the first NATO Secretary General, would understand that keeping the Americans in Europe, even eastern Europe, as much as possible is vital to the alliance, even without Article V.

The Polish effort to join NATO’s nuclear sharing program dates back to previous Prime Minister Mateusz Morawieck. Tusk is not diverging from the rest of his government. Last April, Polish President Andrzej Duda said that “we are ready” if NATO allies “decide to deploy nuclear weapons as part of nuclear sharing on our territory” to secure the alliance’s “eastern flank,” by which he meant Russian front.

In particular, Duda cited Russia “relocating its nuclear weapons to Belarus” and “increasingly militarizing the Königsberg” enclave on the Baltic Sea as reasons for NATO to reposition nuclear weapons in Poland and entrust them to the Polish Air Force as part of the US-backed nuclear sharing program.

“If our allies decide to deploy nuclear weapons as part of nuclear sharing also on our territory to strengthen the security of NATO's eastern flank, we are ready for it,” Duda said. “We are an ally in the North Atlantic Alliance and we also have obligations in this respect, that is, we simply implement a common policy.” The new Polish embrace of Europe, particularly France and Germany, may enable this nuclear ambition.

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Poland Is Ready To Host NATO Nukes

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France, which has the longest history of balancing Russian power in Europe, has a strategic nuclear deterrent. It is smaller than the United States nuclear arsenal, indeed France has about half as many deployable nuclear weapons for Poland and eastern Europe compared to the US. More to the point, both the US and French nuclear arsenals put together do not approach the size of Russia’s nuclear arsenal.

French President Emmanuel Macron indicated this month that he wants a “strategic debate” with European countries about extending the French nuclear deterrent across Europe. “Macron made the offer on Wednesday in response to a call from Germany’s chancellor in waiting Friedrich Merz, and countries such as Lithuania, Latvia and others said they were interested in exploring the options,” the Financial Times reported. This will necessarily require expanding the French nuclear deterrent force.

Macron has an eager volunteer in Poland. Tusk said in his speech that Warsaw was “talking seriously with the French about their idea of ​​a nuclear umbrella over Europe.” Germany and Italy, which have also relied on the American nuclear umbrella, are also reportedly interested in the idea. I would add Sweden as a potential wild card in the Baltic nuclear proliferation game, too. One very good question is how much cooperation the Poles might have with Ukraine.

Germany has also begun to reimagine their nuclear deterrent, a lingering American strategic presence in Germany. "Sharing nuclear weapons is an issue that we need to talk about,” Merz said in a recent radio interview. “We have to become stronger together in nuclear deterrence.” More NATO members will have more nuclear deterrent options in addition to the American strategic nuclear umbrella which they still want.

Call it ‘insurance.’ If Poland has three nuclear security partners, then a pro-Russian government in any two of those allied capitals will not be enough to paralyze any Polish government altogether. Poland will also have their own nuclear reactors starting in 2033, whereupon they may at last consider a domestically-owned deterrent option. Get ready for some sort of ‘Baltic Bomb.’

Polish ambitions to increase their standing conventional armed forces from 300,000 to 500,000 are however the most impressive sign of strategic commitment. Like the rest of Europe, Poland has a fertility rate below replacement level, so the willingness to put a generation of young men in the field is more meaningful than mere spending. War exact costs in blood and treasure. Implementation of such a policy requires a social unity that European states generally lack. Luckily for Europeans, the Poles are united by hatred of Russia.

“For Western Christians, Poland was the historic antemurale christianitatis, ‘the rampart of Christendom’ for its saving Europe from the Russians to the East and the Ottomans to the south,” former NSA analyst and military historian John Schindler writes. “Here history repeats.”

Poland stands ready to resist the Russians, yet again, alone if necessary. Unlike Western Europe, Poland hasn’t flooded itself with Muslim migrants and therefore lacks the internal jihadist threat which currently plagues France, Germany, and many other NATO members. We can keep Russia and radical Islam out of Europe if the rest of NATO decides to get serious about defense and security as Poland has done. This has nothing to do with Donald Trump or J.D. Vance, rather Europe’s willingness to defend its civilization against ancient threats which have returned.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk argues that “500 million Europeans are begging 300 million Americans to protect us from 180 million Russians who have not been able to cope with 40 million Ukrainians for three years.” Europe must “eliminate one important deficit, the lack of will to act, uncertainty and, sometimes, even cowardice.” Poland is leading by example. They understand Russia much better than Americans.

Warsaw has developed technological and military ties to their neighbors, including Ukraine, that already position them as the strongest NATO actor in the east other than Sweden or Finland. Given a nuclear umbrella, the three of them could plausibly stop a Russian invasion of the Baltics together, even crush the Kaliningrad exclave, with minimal American help. If they had their own alliance with Ukraine, it would certainly deter Russian aggression.

As the United States recedes from Europe, Poland is filling in for the Americans with large purchases of material and the standup of enormous manpower reserves. The decreased commitment required from Washington helps keep the US within the alliance during the Trump administration. For now, Warsaw will not be sending Polish soldiers to Ukraine, but they are already shaping the Kremlin calculus about what comes after the war in Ukraine: Don’t fu*k with us.