I recently spent three days in Poland with a group of congressional staffers, meeting diplomats, journalists, think-tank researchers, and political leaders from across the country’s political spectrum. We spoke with representatives of the coalition elected in October and the populist Law and Justice Party that controlled the government for most of the previous decade. The trip was sponsored by the Progressive Policy Institute, where I direct the New Ukraine Project, and the Hudson Institute, and we agreed in advance not to quote anyone we met. But our hosts weren’t shy, and no matter where they fell on the political spectrum, they were eager for the world to know how frightened they are of what many called the “existential threat” of a Russian invasion of their nation.
The West has been speculating about the size of Vladimir Putin’s appetite since Russian troops began massing on the Ukrainian border in early 2022, with many predicting even then that the war would spill over into Central Europe. But the situation on the ground has changed in recent months. “It’s one thing to speculate and make plans in theory,” a Polish government official told our group. “It’s very different when you’re actually facing a threat.” Now, more than two years into the war, with Russia poised to break through in Ukraine and international support for Kyiv flagging, many in Poland are actively preparing for war.
Poland’s predicament starts with its all-too-familiar geography. An overwhelmingly Catholic nation of 41 million people, it sits at a bloody crossroads—what a member of parliament called “our cursed position on the map of Europe between Russia and Germany.” Much of Poland, he reminded us, including Warsaw, was part of Russia from 1795 until 1918, and the Soviet Union dominated it for most of the second half of the 20th century. Poles and Ukrainians have often found themselves on the same side of history. But the relationship fragmented during and after World War II, when ethnic tensions erupted in the massacre of some 100,000 Poles and communist authorities moved more than a million Poles and Ukrainians from one side of the border to the other.
After Putin invaded Ukraine, Poland emerged as one of Kyiv’s best friends in Europe. In the first months of the war, it welcomed over 3.5 million refugees, and hundreds of thousands of Polish families took Ukrainians into their homes. Polish President Andrzej Duda was among the first foreign leaders to visit wartime Kyiv. Warsaw began sending materiel to Ukraine—first tanks, then helicopters and fighter jets taken directly from its own active-duty units.
Still, even then, talk of war spilling beyond Ukraine was largely hypothetical. That began to change last fall when the war bogged down on an all but immovable, entrenched front line, and President Joe Biden’s $61 billion Ukraine aid package stalled as House Republicans used their leverage in a closely divided chamber to prevent a vote. (That may change as soon as Saturday if House Speaker Mike Johnson succeeds as planned in holding votes on aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.) The debate in Washington has been headline news in Poland ever since—not just politicians but ordinary citizens can talk about things like a potential discharge petition and a move to “vacate the chair.”
“We hope the outcome will be good,” one Polish defense analyst told our group. “But the House hesitation has been a huge wake-up call. A handful of congressmen can stall the entire process and put our lives at risk.”
Newly elected Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has spoken of being “in a prewar era.” But many Poles go further. “We are already at war,” a general close to the president’s office told us. “False information from Russia is flooding our social media,” he explained. “There are cyber-attacks, psyops, weaponized migration, Middle Easterners and Africans being sent across the border from Belarus.” Most alarming, he says, every few months, “a Russian missile enters our airspace.”
All our meetings traced what Poles saw as the growing threat, but what we heard between meetings was often even more chilling. A medivac hub near the Ukrainian border was readying for what an emergency worker called a “second wave of refugees.” One prominent Polish journalist told me his wife wanted to buy an apartment in Paris, a safe place to resettle should war come. A young think-tank staffer reported keeping a “panic bag” by her front door. “People are preparing shelters in their basements,” a member of parliament lamented. “Young couples are having second thoughts about having babies.”
No one we met predicted precisely how the threat might play out, but many were clearly worried about recent developments in Ukraine. One military man asked rhetorically about what would happen “if Ukraine fell and we find ourselves facing 100,000 Russians on our border.” Several Poles, including a diplomat and a think-tank scholar, wondered if NATO would indeed invoke Article 5, coming to Poland’s defense with missiles or troops. “We remember what happened after World War II,” a member of parliament explained, “The Allies abandoned us. Stalin and Roosevelt divided Europe in half, and we fell in the wrong half.”
But Poles aren’t just waiting fearfully. They are aggressively arming for war. Many European countries are struggling to reach NATO’s 2014 goal of spending 2 percent of GDP on defense. In 2023, Poland spent 3.9 percent. A recent poll suggests that 80 percent of the public supports maintaining or augmenting current spending. Some in defense circles hint that it should rise to 5 percent in the next decade. “What choice do we have?” a defense analyst asked our group. “If the war comes here, it will be 30 percent.”
Meanwhile, the Russian invasion has spurred Warsaw to accelerate what open-source research group Oryx calls a “military shopping spree unprecedented in modern European history.” Some government contracts are still under discussion, but the numbers are staggering. Warsaw is looking to purchase 48 Patriot air defense batteries, 18 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) (on top of the 20 Poland already has), 45 long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS), 32 F-35 fighter jets, and 96 Apache attack helicopters.
For comparison, even after two years of war, Ukraine has just three Patriot batteries, 20 HIMARS, about 20 ATACMS, and not yet a single F-16—an older plane the Pentagon is phasing out—let alone F-35s. And these are just Warsaw’s U.S. purchases. It’s also waiting for deliveries from South Korea and several European countries.
Shortly before our group visited, a cruise missile launched from a Russian warplane flew through Polish airspace for 39 seconds before turning back to strike a target inside Ukraine. It was the fifth such incursion since the start of the war, and Poles were openly debating what to do the next time. “Should we shoot it down?” an adviser to a member of parliament asked. “Should we aim to hit it while it’s still over Ukraine before it gets to us? The presidential palace and ministry of defense are arguing about what to do, and we’ve discussed it with the Ukrainians.”
Poles will breathe a sigh of relief this week or next if the House finally passes a package of Ukraine aid. But this is unlikely to assuage their long-term fears or pause their preparation for a wider European war.
“It’s easy to exaggerate the credibility issue,” one military man told the congressional group. “You exaggerated it in Vietnam,” when many Americans believed that a single Cold War defeat would have a “domino effect,” causing other Asian allies to fall and leading to communist gains around the world. “But no one is exaggerating this time around. What happens in Ukraine will have a direct bearing on what happens in Europe and, likely, Asia and the Middle East.”
