A new vision of a heavily armed Eastern Europe is being born in Poland. Since Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February, Warsaw has played a leading role in opposing the Kremlin and pushing Europe toward a new attitude on defense spending.
The leader of Poland’s ruling Law and Justice Party, Jarosław Kaczyński, has said his country needs to become more militarily self-sufficient to counter Russian revanchism. “The Americans will not defend us if we cannot defend ourselves, and for that we need a strong army,” he argued in a July speech in Kielce. Despite the forbidding economic outlook, similar ambition is needed from other Eastern European countries.
