Poland rushes to spend billions on military to deter Russia from a direct confrontation with NATO

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“With both countries (Canada and Poland) now participating in SAFE and deepening their strategic bilateral cooperation, this stops being a purely national spending story, and has the potential to become a shared industrial base. For defence manufacturers on both sides of the Atlantic, that is the opportunity of the decade,” Roszak said.

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A Polish soldier launches an interception drone of the American MEROPS counter-drone system during tests at the Nowa Deba military training ground, south-eastern Poland, on November 18, 2025. Photo by WOJTEK RADWANSKI /AFP via Getty Images

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There are a few potential downsides to Warsaw’s new plan – none of which are, in Roszak’s view, qualitatively or quantitatively much to worry about.

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“The risk I would actually put at the top of the list is procurement delay. Poland’s planning anticipates the possibility of a confrontation with Russia within even the next five years, and there are still capability gaps to fill. Poland is determined to close them quickly, and has supercharged its procurement efforts, creating a dedicated role to drive the effort.” By the end of May, he added, Poland’s defence minister had already confirmed the signing of 50 contracts under SAFE, with a value close to 120 billion zloty, or over half of Poland’s total allocation.

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There is a risk, he conceded, of Russia pre-emptively moving towards escalation, ahead of Poland’s military readiness. But he also said: “NATO’s resolve is the single biggest deterrent to a westward expansion of the current conflict. Poland led the way at the start of the full-scale (Russian) invasion of Ukraine by supplying weaponry to the Ukrainians, that some said would lead to ‘escalation.’”

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A key indicator of the program’s success “will be a strong and sovereign Ukraine, because stability to Poland’s east is inseparable from Poland’s own.”

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Katarzyna Lesperance, a native-born Pole and owner of the Starka distillery in Szczecin, Poland, comes from a family of military — first her father, and then her brother, a former senior-level official in the ministry of defence.
“People are afraid,” she said, of a potential conflagration.

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Katarzyna, who studied naval academics at the Heroes of Westerplatte Polish Naval Academy in Gdynia, said that “most people are for the military” build-up. Russia, she added, “would be so crazy to invade right now,” but continues “a lot of provocation.”

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Katarzyna lives with her husband David Lesperance, of Lesperance & Associates, and 12-year-old twins, in Gdynia, a port city on the Baltic, where intense early fighting of the Second World War began. Their apartment overlooks the port where naval vessels come out, and container ships bring in military hardware. There’s a military airfield in the city, with frequent flybys.

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Their apartment’s about two-and-a-half hours from the Belarusian border, and Kaliningrad, Russian territory, Lesperance said.

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Poles today “are conscious of bad things happening. It’s a part of Polish history…. So they are attuned to kind of, better be prepared, and prepare for the worst, hope for the best, and work for the best,” he said. His sense is that “reliance on America for monies and/or sophisticated systems, which need constant replacement and upgrading” is believed to be precarious and unpredictable, “with (U.S. President) Donald Trump being Donald Trump.”

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A former diplomat echoed that Poland’s military surge is meant to avoid a far costlier, bloodier war.

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“For us, safety — or I would say lack of safety — is a very present topic. It started long before the full state invasion of Russia to Ukraine,” said Natalia Walsh Iwaszko, formerly vice consul economic affairs, at the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Toronto. “Russia has been always a threat for centuries…. And we know that there is not much needed for Russia to be encouraged to attack again, either us or Baltic states.”