The General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Poland announced the details of the 15-year plan for the development of the armed forces, revealing its key details as well as seven main directions.
This plan covers the period until 2039. It is formed taking into account the real experience of Ukraine, acquired during the russia-Ukraine war. The plan came into force on December 22, 2025, but its general details have become public just now.
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The main conclusion that is enshrined in the program for the development of Polish Armed Forces can be considered a requirement for the appropriate number and quality of troops that Poland needs to prevent aggression and successfully resist it in the event of its outbreak. That is why Warsaw has included in the plan the intention to increase the number of armed forces to 500 thousand people, of which 200 thousand are reservists.
The current composition of the Polish armed forces is estimated at about 200 thousand people, of which 164 thousand are regular armed forces, while the rest are territorial defense reservists. That is, we are talking about an increase in the armed forces by 2.5 times. At the same time, it is planned to double the number of regular troops, which means the creation of new formations with a full set of weapons.
As stated in the statment of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Poland, the main principle of the plan is a change in the deterrence paradigm through the development of strike systems that will be able to neutralize key enemy points with high-precision strikes. The statment explicitly states that this is deterrence by punishment method (the English term was used in the original Polish message).
The proposed plan focuses on conducting multi-domain operations, which means simultaneous coordinated actions on land and sea, in the air, space, cyber, information and electromagnetic space. It should be noted, that this is a general trend and is followed in the military doctrines of the United States, and now China, which has also adjusted its military doctrines.
The Development Plan of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Poland includes measures to develop missile defense, air defense as well as Counter Unmanned Aerial System (C-UAS) in parallel with the development and widespread implementation of unmanned technologies, as well as AI in all areas.
It is worth adding that such a 15-year plan for the development of the armed forces should be supported by very significant financial funds. At the same time, even current purchases already cause fears in Polish society that their Ministry of National Defense will go bankrupt due to the large-scale purchase of weapons for more than 66 billion dollars.
It should be noted that a multiple increase in the number of armed forces will require even more financial costs. Creating additional reserves and maintaining them in a state that should make such an increase in the number of armed forces advisable is also not a cheap pleasure, as it requires constant training.
However, the question of where to get the money seems to be easier to solve than looking for a solution to how to knock the russians out of the suburbs of Warsaw, if they nevertheless resort to invade Poland…
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