Chief of Poland’s National Security Bureau Dariusz Lukowski recently revealed that Poland only has 1-2 weeks’ worth of stockpiled ammo, which came a little more than a month after he candidly admitted that his country “doesn’t have independence” in the military-industrial sphere. This dangerous state of affairs is in spite of Poland now boasting NATO’s third-largest military, thus suggesting that it’s really a paper tiger, at least for the time being. Here are five takeaways from this shocking revelation:
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1. The Ruling Polish Duopoly Is Responsible
Just like the US was ruled by the Democrat-Republican duopoly before Trump, so too is Poland presently ruled by the liberal “Civic Platform” (PO) and conservative “Law & Justice” (PiS) duopoly known as POPiS. They’re responsible for this since neither did anything to develop their country’s military-industrial sphere in the two decades of their back-and-forth rule till recently. This adds context to why the “Polish Trump”, Confederation’s Slawomir Mentzen, is rising in the polls ahead of May’s presidential election.
2. Poland Perpetuated The Ukrainian Conflict…
“Poland Was Just As Much To Blame As Britain For Sabotaging Spring 2022’s Peace Talks” by allowing the UK and others to pump Ukraine full of arms via its territory in exchange for Zelensky continuing the West’s proxy war on Russia. The calculation was to have Ukraine bring about the West’s hoped-for strategic defeat of Russia, hence why Poland perpetuated the conflict at that time together with the UK, but this policy backfired after it ended up inflicting major strategic damage to its own interests.
3. …At Huge Financial-Military Cost To Itself
Poland has spent 4.91% of its GDP thus far in support of Ukraine, most which was for helping its refugees, according to the official presidential website. The preceding report also shows that Poland donated 100 million rounds of ammo and more tanks, IFVs, and aircraft than anyone else, thus depleting its stockpiles. Had Poland not helped perpetuate the conflict, then it could have developed its military-industrial sphere with what it spent on refugees and had more than just two weeks’ worth of ammo left.
4. It’s Now Frenziedly Prioritizing Border Defense…
With no way to defeat Russia on its own in the political fantasy of an invasion, Poland is now frenziedly building its “East Shield” along the border with Kaliningrad and Belarus to slow down any hypothetical invasion force long enough for others like the US or Western Europe to join the fight. This includes the planned large-scale planting of anti-personnel mines. Nevertheless, if Russia still broke through in that scenario, then Poland would have to withdraw to the Vistula like its 2011 contingency plans called for.
5. …And Multilateralizing Its Physical Security
In connection with the abovementioned plan of relying on others to rescue it from Russia in the far-fetched event of an invasion, Poland is courting more American troops, is open to hosting German ones, and wants to optimize the “military Schengen” for facilitating the dispatch of their and others’ forces. The purpose is to multilateralize its physical security by creating tripwires that would compel its partners to fulfill their Article 5 commitments, yet this could come at the further expense of Polish sovereignty.
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The dangerous state of affairs where Poland only has less than two weeks’ worth of ammo is entirely the fault of its ruling POPiS duopoly, whose halves only differ on some social issues and whether Poland should subordinate itself to Germany like PO wants or to the US like PiS wants. Unless Mentzen wins the presidency and then Confederation wins fall 2027’s next parliamentary election, likely forms a government with PiS as its junior partner, nothing will change, but it might be too late to fix it by then.
