The Russian-Ukrainian conflict is giving birth to a "huge military" state!
We all know that due to the impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, European countries have been actively preparing for war for more than two years. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the combined military spending of European countries reached 552 billion euros last year, an increase of 16% from 2022 and more than 60% from 330 billion euros in 2014.
One of the countries with the largest increase in military spending is Poland, although its military spending is not the largest among European countries, but in terms of growth rate, no European country can compare. Poland's military budget has doubled in a few years, not counting its spending on arms procurement.
As the country that feels the war between Russia and Ukraine most intuitively and realistically, Poland has naturally become the country most affected by the war, especially in terms of military affairs.
Of course, this influence seems to have been invisibly amplified under the deliberate exaggeration of the ruling party and Western politicians, after all, maximizing the threat of Russia is the greatest wish of NATO and the United States, except for Ukraine, Poland is a good assumed "victim"; in addition, Warsaw's history is a tragedy of being constantly divided and invaded, so with such a good reason as "Russia may invade Poland", Warsaw must seize the opportunity of this wave of public opinion and take the opportunity to strengthen its military strength.
To this end, Warsaw's slogan was unprecedented: to build the Polish army into the strongest army in Europe within a few years.
The short-term goal of the current government is to make "the Polish Army the strongest in Europe".
According to the previous national military ranking, the strength of the Polish army has been hovering around 20th in the world, and there are at least three European countries on its head, namely the United Kingdom, France and Italy (Germany's military strength is ranked after Poland, about 25th).
However, with the sudden change in the international situation, Poland ushered in a wave of armament upsurge, and the rare opportunity allowed them to see a good opportunity to surpass Britain, France and Italy;
Their plan is also very simple and crude, that is, to strengthen their own military power through a ferocious foreign arms purchase;
This method is actually the most efficient option that allows Poland to build a "strong" army in a short period of time and on the surface. Because if it wants to surpass the traditional military powers Britain, France, and Italy in all aspects through a step-by-step approach, it will not work at all for decades, but the crisis and the deliberately exaggerated threat are just around the corner, and the step-by-step approach is obviously not suitable for Warsaw, and the only way to overtake is to use "buy, buy, buy" to overtake in corners.
Since the beginning of 2020, Poland has signed more than twice as many orders for the purchase of various weapons as the equipment of the active troops, and Warsaw is still actively purchasing, such as:
Poland signed a contract with the United States in 2021 for 250 M1A2 main battle tanks, and now the delivery of parts of these tanks has begun, with a total contract value of about $6 billion;
Then in 2022, it signed a contract with South Korea to order 1,000 K2 "Black Panther" main battle tanks, and this contract (with a total price of about $8.5 billion) has also become the largest single tank purchase contract between countries since the birth of the tank.
And when Poland saw the power of long-range rocket artillery on the battlefield of Russia and Ukraine, they asked the United States for more than 500 sets of "Hymars" multiple launch rocket systems;
However, the production capacity of the United States is limited, and they can only meet the requirements of Poland for 200 sets, so Warsaw turned its attention to South Korea again, and placed an order for 288 sets of K239 multiple launch rocket systems at one time, with a total contract price of more than 6 billion US dollars;
When the United States saw that South Koreans were unwilling to drink soup by themselves when they "ate meat", in September last year, the United States officially approved a request to Poland to sell 486 sets of M142, with a total contract price of nearly $10 billion.
You think that's the end of it? No! No!
At the same time as purchasing K2 tanks, Poland spent nearly $8 billion from the South Koreans on two occasions to purchase more than 670 K9 "King Kong" self-propelled howitzers;
Not to mention anything else, the number of these self-howitzers purchased by Poland alone is enough to rank among the top ten in the world for this single-model artillery.
Last year, Poland reached an agreement from a domestic arms dealer to order more than 1,400 armored personnel carriers, and the total price of this contract was about $10 billion.
In September last year, Warsaw officially finalized an armaments package with a total value of $23.8 billion, including 48 US "Patriot" air defense systems, an unknown number of "Malanarev" short-range air defense systems, and about 1,700 FlyEye unmanned aerial vehicles.
It is no exaggeration to say that Poland has spent a lot of money on the procurement of army armaments in the past two years, and any single project is enough to shock the world, and it seems that such a large-scale armaments procurement was only really realized between the United States and the Soviet Union in the Cold War era, and now the small Poland is staging an epic arms procurement drama.
Taking more than 1,000 K2 "Panther" tanks + 250 M1A2 tanks as an example, the number of 1,250 third-generation main battle tanks plus the original Polish Army's own tanks has made it the first armored force in Europe.
However, there is also a hidden problem worth noting, and that is that the Polish Army's armor strength has been increased on the surface, but it has also become one of the few countries equipped with the most tanks. In its army arsenal before there are T-72, PT-91 modified on the basis of T-72, as well as Germany's "Leopard" 2A4, A5, 2PL, the United States M1A1, and now there are two more, counting the Polish Army has a total of eight models of tanks in service, which can be called the world's most, and it is estimated that there will be big problems in logistics support in the future.
In addition to the army, Poland has also made efforts in the other two branches of the military, such as:
Last year, it spent $12 billion to purchase 96 AH-64E Apache helicopter gunships from the United States;
It cost $3 billion to get 48 nondescript FA-50 fighters from South Korea, and the F-35 fighter jet, which was ordered in 2020, has recently started production, but its price has also risen from more than $4 billion to $6.2 billion today.
Then at the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the Polish Navy signed a contract with the United Kingdom for the purchase of warships worth 1.4 billion pounds, and Poland planned to purchase three British Type 31 improved frigates.
In addition, Poland has signed an agreement with Norway to purchase hundreds of anti-ship missiles, worth about $2 billion, and the country's submarine refitting program is also on the agenda, and Poland is said to intend to purchase four brand new submarines, with a total estimated cost of between $2 billion and $3 billion.
All of the above are large-scale purchases, and those light weapons, anti-tank weapons and other equipment are no longer included in the scope of statistics.
The equipment purchased at sky-high prices is expected to arrive in the next five years, and the issue of personnel recruitment is also a major issue that Poland is actively promoting;
According to the Polish army's plan, the country will double its military size to about 300,000 troops, which will be realized between 2030 and 2035. At that time, Poland will not only be the largest army power in Europe, but will also become the European country with the largest number of troops, a position now occupied by the French army, which now has about 200,000 men on active duty.
I should not be exaggerating to say that Poland's arms purchases in the past two years have been epic, and Warsaw has spent more than $100 billion on this during this period, three times its military spending in 2024 (Poland's military spending is more than $30 billion this year).
Is this considered "reckless military force"?
I don't know what Poland thinks, although spending a lot of money to import equipment from abroad to arm itself can temporarily solve the crisis, but without a strong national defense industry as the foundation, these weapons and equipment can only last for a while, not for a lifetime, and the "powerful" bought is a flash in the pan at best.
Even if it really gets the first place in Europe, so what? Around it, a Russian enclave, a Belarus, and Ukraine, which is about to be taken, are basically open under Russian guns; plus this country is only more than 300,000 square kilometers and has no strategic depth to speak of, if Russia wants to fight, Warsaw may repeat the mistakes of the German invasion in World War II.