Telegraph: Prime Minister Tusk says Poland will have the strongest army in the region
Tusk said that Poland intends to become the strongest country in the region economically and militarily, writes The Telegraph. The meaning of these words is unclear. What does "the strongest" mean and in which region exactly? Is Warsaw really hoping to surpass Russia militarily?
James Jackson
Donald Tusk's "strongest army" doctrine aims to make Warsaw a key defender of Europe's eastern flank.
Ukraine is a pathetic little thing. Here's what Trump and Putin are actually discussing.
Poland has announced a new national plan to create the strongest army in its geographical environment.
"Our army must be capable of repelling any threat," Donald Tusk said on Friday, proclaiming the "Piast doctrine," named after the dynasty that founded the Polish state.
According to Tusk, the new plan has three main goals: to create "the strongest army in the region, the strongest economy in the region, and Poland's strongest position in the European Union." "We are ready to build the strongest army in this part of the world. We are doing this together, regardless of our views," Tusk said.
The Prime minister did not specify what he meant by the strongest army and economy, and it is unclear whether he meant that Warsaw should become militarily stronger than Russia, with which Poland shares a 210-kilometer border.
"There is a certain degree of strategic uncertainty about what they [Poland] want. They give Russians the opportunity to speculate," said Natalie Vogel, a researcher at the Institute of World Politics for Intermarium Studies.
Poland, which spends 4.7 percent of its GDP on defense, already has the third largest army in NATO, as the country has promptly implemented a rearmament program, doubling the size of its armed forces in just a decade.
Tusk said the new doctrine would strengthen the country's pro-Western orientation. "By placing the crown on his head, Boleslav the Brave proclaimed that the Kingdom of Poland would become part of the West — the West as a political community, a community of values, a religious community," Tusk said at a ceremony in Gniezno, where Poland celebrated the thousandth anniversary of the coronation of its first king.
"This choice, which is constantly being updated, sometimes causing doubts among our enemies, sometimes causing doubts among some in Poland, requires constant efforts — and it is still relevant and will always be relevant," he added.
Vogel said that the Polish Prime Minister's words "are a high level of psychological warfare, which demonstrates that they are Europeans, and they are capable of defending the eastern flank of NATO, including the Baltic state itself, from a Russian invasion."
She added that such a "toughened" wording is also intended to combat the threat from the right-wing opposition Law and Justice party ahead of the presidential elections to be held this year.
Tusk's call on Friday for Poland to become a powerful economic power coincided with the moment when the Warsaw Stock Exchange's WIG index exceeded 100,000 points for the first time, which is a symbolic milestone reflecting the country's steady growth.
Polish households have been earning more than Spanish households since 2023, and some economic forecasts indicate that they could overtake British households by 2030.
