Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Friday that his government is working on a plan to prepare large-scale military training for every adult male in response to the changing security situation in Europe.
Tusk told the country’s Sejm, the lower house of parliament, that the military training would create a reserve force that is “adequate to possible threats.”
The speech was focused on the international security situation. Poland is located along NATO’s eastern flank and is deeply concerned by the war in Ukraine. There are fears that if Ukraine is defeated, Russia will turn its imperial ambitions next to countries like Poland, which it controlled during the 19th century and during the Cold War.
Jaroslaw Kaczyński, the head of Poland’s largest opposition party, the conservative Law and Justice, said a mental shift in society would also be needed in addition to the military training of men. “We will have a return to the chivalric ethos and to the fact that men should also be soldiers, that is, be able to expose themselves, even to death,” Kaczyński said.
Concern has grown in Poland and across most of Europe as President Donald Trump has shifted the US position from being a defender of Ukraine to withholding military aid and intelligence and signalling a support for Russia’s position.
“If Ukraine loses the war or if it accepts the terms of peace, armistice, or capitulation in such a way that weakens its sovereignty and makes it easier for (Russian President Vladimir) Putin to gain control over Ukraine, then, without a doubt — and we can all agree on that — Poland will find itself in a much more difficult geopolitical situation,” Tusk said.
President Andrzej Duda on Friday said he submitting an amendment to the Polish constitution for consideration which would oblige the country to spend at least 4% of its GDP each year on defense.
Poland is already NATO’s top spender on defense as a percentage of its overall economy, spending above 4% of its GDP this year. But Duda said he wanted to take advantage of the consensus on the political scene in Poland today on the matter to enshrine it in the highest law.
Trump has suggested that the US might abandon its commitments to the alliance if member countries don’t meet defense spending targets.