The Armed Forces’ Development at the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century from the Polish Perspective

Abstract

The turn of the twenty-first century is a period of very important and decisive changes in international politics, particularly in the security arena, both in relation to the global system and to individual countries and societies. This dynamic process of change is above all connected with the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the expansion of security and economic development, especially in Europe. Many countries’ achievement of independence on democratic principles, combined with the significant enlargement of NATO and the European Union, has increased the sense of integration and safety as perceived by many nations in the region. The division of the world into two opposing blocs disappeared, and the notion of the Cold War is now primarily considered only in historical perspective. However, these changes do not necessarily mean that we live in the world without threats. Although the probability of the outbreak of an armed conflict on the global scale is very low, new security threats have emerged. The unsettling quality of these threats lies in their asymmetric character, which means that it is very often difficult to identify a particular enemy, rendering them hard to combat. However, it should be stressed that, although these threats may originate in remote areas of the globe, they may also have a local impact through the increasingly omnipresent character of the worldwide communication networks that lie at the root of globalization. Such a situation has required a revision of many nations’ approach to security problems, both on the global and national scales. Poland is a member state of both the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU). Because of Poland’s participation in these regional organizations, its security level has increased. Despite this enhanced security (especially in the Euro-Atlantic area), however, it is still necessary for individual countries to have their own armed forces, which represent an important tool to pursue politics. Within the arrangement of NATO and the EU, these forces must be capable of both defending their own territory in case of an act of aggression on any NATO state (as is called for within the framework of collective defense) and of participating in a wide range of crisis response operations outside the borders of the EU or NATO. So what should these armed forces be like in the first decades of the new century? What kind of threats should they be ready to confront? What requirements should they fulfill? This article will attempt to provide answers to these questions. These considerations have a universal character, but here they will be addressed mainly to the issue of the development of the Polish military as seen through the lens of NATO, while also