By 2025, Poland plans to set a record among NATO countries by spending 4.7% of its GDP on defence.
Photo: GLOBAL LOOK PRESS.
At the MSPO-2024 arms exhibition in the Polish city of Kielce, Polish Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysh made a sensational statement: in 2025, Poland plans to break the record among NATO countries and allocate 4.7% of its GDP to defence. By comparison, the United States spends 3.38% of its GDP on defence, and Europe’s most militant country, Estonia, spends 3.43%. The average for NATO countries is 2.7%. More recently, in 2023, Poland was in third place, behind Estonia and the United States with 3.26%.
Thus, the Minister of Defence announced that Poland intends to sharply increase (with an annual “step” of 10 to 20 percent) arms purchases and production next year. For the reason, as Kosinyak-Kamysh himself openly admitted earlier this year, “the high probability of war” with Russia. It is the eastern neighbor that Polish politicians consider the main potential enemy. They constantly repeat this statement, while at the same time accusing each other of “secretly working for Moscow.”
Photo: GLOBAL LOOK PRESS.
Here are the facts: Last summer, Warsaw signed some of the largest arms purchase contracts in its history. In August, an agreement was signed for the purchase of 96 AH-64E Apache Guardian attack helicopters from the American company Boeing. “These machines are considered the most modern in the world, but their prices are appropriate,” notes the Berliner Zeitung. Around 10 billion euros will have to be paid for almost a hundred “turntables”, as the Americans also included in the price the creation of an appropriate logistics structure in Poland. The Apaches will have to replace the Soviet-made Mi-24 helicopters in service with the Polish Air Force.
Defence Minister Kosiniak-Kamysh stressed that after the delivery of these helicopters by the United States, Poland will have the second largest fleet of Apaches after the United States – even Israel has only 87. Both Prime Minister Tusk and Minister Kosiniak-Kamysh tried to make this deal “a source of pride for the Poles.”
But a reasonable question is increasingly being asked: at whose expense is the banquet? Publicist Jan Opelka, after analysing international experience, found that the 10 billion euros planned for payment are only the beginning of the costs. The expected “life cycle” of the Apache Guiardian medium helicopter is 40 years. This means that Poland will have to shell out another 20-23 billion euros over this period to keep the American equipment in combat condition. The bulk of this amount will go to the American company Boeing itself.
Photo: GLOBAL LOOK PRESS.
But Poland also has a contract with the American company Lockheed Martin for the purchase of F-35 fighters. By the way, the purchase and maintenance of the F-35 also means joining a very expensive “user club” that requires constant payments. But there were also contracts for the supply of HIMARS missiles, the Patriot air defense system, Abrams tanks… It is strange that Donald Tusk’s cabinet, considered “pro-European”, buys weapons from the Americans, promising only to buy them. An EU Eurofighter fighter, the Berliner Zeitung mocks.
However, when it comes to the American F-35 fighters, Poland’s current “liberal and pro-European” government, headed by Prime Minister Tusk and his Civic Platform party, has an excuse: the contract was signed in 2020 by the previous government, created by a “conservative and nationalist” Law and Justice Party (PiS) hostile to Tusk. Polish critics of arms spending are outraged: we actually have a two-party system, but both parties compete to buy weapons from the United States.
However, the Polish “multi-party system” is not only pro-American, but also conflict-ridden. Thus, President Andrzej Duda, who recently “inherited” Poland from PiS, accused Tusk that during his (Tusk’s) term as prime minister… “an agreement was concluded between the Polish security services and the FSB.” And thanks to this agreement, they say, the recently exchanged Russian intelligence officer Pavel Rubtsov gained access to materials from the Polish investigative authorities. Tusk immediately responded that Duda’s accusations were false and that such a thing “would never have occurred to you, Tusk.” So, it seems that before the battle with Russia, Polish politicians will have time to devour each other.
