Key Points and Summary – Russia’s latest barrage sent more than 20 drones into Polish airspace, the first hostile act against a NATO member, and it triggered an immediate response in Poland.
-Thousands have volunteered for military training as Warsaw rolls out an Israeli-style ready-reserve plan aimed at 500,000 trained citizens.
-Prime Minister Donald Tusk says every adult male should be war-ready; women are signing up too, often using vacation days to train.
-Poland now fields NATO’s third-largest active force and spends 4.7% of GDP on defense. Officials expect 40,000 trainees in 2025, countering demographic decline and signaling resolve after years of Russian aggression nationwide.
In Response to Russian Drone Incursion, Thousands of Poles Sign Up For Military Training
WARSAW, POLAND – Last Tuesday, Russia fired more than 400 drones at Ukraine in one of its nightly attacks. Some 20 or more of these traveled into Polish airspace, making this incident officially the first hostile act committed by Moscow against a NATO member state in the history of the alliance.
The incident has had a dramatic effect on Poland, a Central European NATO member. Overnight, Russia has convinced thousands of citizens of this nation to sign up for voluntary military training.
What We Are Seeing in Poland Right Now
“There is a definite ‘cause and effect’ dynamic taking place here,” said one of the Polish defense specialists National Security Journal spoke to. “[Russian President Vladimir] Putin makes a move against Ukraine, and NATO then becomes larger and more determined. This is why Sweden and Finland joined the alliance after decades of self-imposed neutrality. Now he has convinced more of us to be prepared to go to war. It is like he has the foreign policy equivalent of the ‘Midas Touch’—only in reverse. Everything he does backfires on him.”
U.S. Marine from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) Special Operations Capable (SOC) Maritime Special Purpose Force (MSPF) wears a camouflaging cobra hood during Baltic Operations 2024 (BALTOPS 24) in Ustka, Poland June 14, 2024. BALTOPS 24 is the premier maritime-focused military exercise in the Baltic Region. The exercise, led by U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa, and executed by Naval Striking and Support Forces NATO, provides a unique training opportunity to strengthen combined response capabilities critical to preserving freedom of navigation and security in the Baltic Sea. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Sisi Lopez Barahona)
Last month, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced that the nation would create a ready reserve system mirroring the Israeli model, where hundreds of thousands of citizens will be required to participate in a comprehensive program of military training and reserve status.
The goal of this universal military preparedness program is to create a Polish military of active-duty personnel supported by a force of 500,000 trained, ready reservists with the requisite training under their belts.
This mandate will make a military large enough to deter the Russian army from attacking Poland and taking chunks of territory, as it already has in Ukraine.
Military Vacations
“By the end of the year, we want to have a model ready so that every adult male in Poland is trained for war, and so that this reserve is adequate for possible threats,” Tusk said to the Polish Parliament, the Sejm. With 200,000 personnel under arms the Polish military is now the third-largest of all the NATO alliance members after the US and Turkey. It is also the largest among the alliance’s EU members.
This fear of “what will Russia do next” has prompted many Poles—both male and female—to sign up for this training program, with some even using their vacation days away from work to complete part of their training. One of the Polish women who spoke to Reuters over the weekend spoke of how she wanted to be able to defend her family, especially her 13-year-old son.
“I’d do anything to keep my child safe. And I would definitely want to fight to protect him,” she said. The voluntary training program she has committed to is designed to attract as many professionals from civilian life as possible and to use their private-sector skills to support the armed forces.
A Hard History Still Stings for Poland
Memories of the decades when Poland was occupied by the Soviet military and its people governed under a communist regime controlled by the Russians are still fresh in the minds of many in this country. Russia’s historical orientation of “everything belongs to us” is a concern to the Polish military in particular and NATO in general.
“If you listened to the ravings of Putin last year when he held forth with his improbable version of Russian history in his interview with the US political commentator Tucker Carlson—well then you can understand why the Poles are just about as nervous and distrustful of Moscow as they can be at this point,” said a former senior NATO commander who spoke with National Security Journal.
Preparing for the Worst
More than 20,000 Poles decided to enter the voluntary military training program during the first seven months of 2025. This is consistent with similar record levels of those volunteering for the training regime last year, explained Colonel Grzegorz Wawrzynkiewicz, the head of Poland’s Central Military Recruitment Centre.
He stated that the Polish military expects about 40,000 volunteers to complete this training program by the end of 2025. This total will be more than double the 16,000 that volunteered in 2022. That surge in participation is a direct consequence of the collective concerns about resurgent Russian aggression since Putin’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Since the beginning of the war in 2022, Poland has also more than doubled its defense outlays from 2.2 percent of its gross economic output to 4.7 percent this year. This is the highest ratio of military spending in the 32-nation NATO alliance, putting Warsaw far above the more established European powers and original members of the NATO alliance, such as Germany, France, and Britain.
Poland’s long-term plans to increase the size of its military show tangible gains in the present day.
In 2014, Poland had only the ninth-largest military in all of NATO, but it is now the third-largest today. And Warsaw plans to further increase those numbers of personnel by nearly a third over the next decade.
The one looming obstacle is that Poland has a shrinking and aging population, which is an issue that efforts to increase voluntary participation in the military are designed to overcome.
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Director of Research at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the US Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two awards in a row for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University and a master’s degree from Miami University in Ohio, specializing in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.
More Military
The Massive B-36J Bomber Has a Message for the U.S. Air Force
Russia’s Su-47 Fighter: Moscow Only Made 1 For Good Reason
B-52J vs. B-21 Raider: The Air Force Might Have a Bomber Problem
Jim
September 15, 2025 at 11:47 am
It’s acknowledged by everybody all the drones were dummy or decoy drones with no warheads mostly landing harmlessly in open fields.
Why did the author of this article omit this salient fact from his article? It’s relevant and to leave it out is important to note.
The range of these drones (700 Kilometers) can’t reach Poland from Russian territory.
Why would Russia send a bunch of dummy drones into Polish airspace? Provocation? Why? Russia is winning the war and tightening the noose at the front… they aren’t looking to widen the war… with a hapless escalation.
Russia wants to end the war by winning on the battlefield… which they are systematically doing.
… on the other hand, the Polish government is playing it up for all it’s worth: more money, more tension, more support for the war and, as reported in this article, is ramping up its War Machine in response.
It’s also clear, war supporters are also playing it up for all its worth… in reckless disregard of the evidence presented so far. Don’t let facts get in the way of a good narrative… that’s the stage directions along with the talking points dialogue sent to their in boxes for later repetition at the school play.
Of course, Kiev has every reason to try and cause an escalation because they are losing and there’s little evidence Kiev can reverse their losses on the battlefield.
Kiev needs a “game changer” and the best way to do that is draw NATO directly into the war and with all their loyal “water carriers” bleating like good little sheep from their handed-out scripts for more intervention.
Why? Because they know Kiev is losing the war badly.
And Europe won’t impose the kind of sanctions against India and China Trump is calling for because to do so would be to commit economic suicide. Ditto that for hydrocarbons with Russian origins via third parties.
Everybody knows that, too.
Kiev wants everybody to put out an endless stream of money & weapons for them… Kiev uses people like people with a cold use tissue paper.
If you don’t think the desperate, Kiev regime wouldn’t use a false flag operation to draw others into the war, I gotta bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
Swamplaw Yankee
September 16, 2025 at 12:29 am
Are the Polish people all aware of the fate of their neighbour, the state of Ingria? The crazed Ruusskie Genocider leader must be pleased that this ethnic group of Vod + Izhora were militarily eliminated and the Veche Republic Genocided off in the Muscovy Gulags.
The Kremlin Imperialism pouring out of Muscovy took over the ethnic land of these Veche Republic people, land all around the recently created Saint Petersburg, territory touching Finland, Estonia.
The Yankee can not be expected in the remotest sense to comprehend how their fellow Yankee out of NYC, Bronstein, gathered all that huge value of Gold from his Ashkenazi ethnics! The Yankee is not interested and, it seems, will not be interested during the MAGA POTUS empire days.
Bronstein, left the USA with tons of Gold in a rented ship filled with NKVD volunteers for Saint Petersburg. There, in Lenin land Bronstein changed his Halloween costume from Yankee to Halloween Bolshevik. Bronstein also changed his Public Relations stage name once in Lenin land to Trotsky. Ring a Bell?
Somehow, Tucker Carlson, just refused to ask any questions about these Genocide realities, when cavorting about with tsarling Puti. The latest view of the Terrorist Empire of the Ruusskie Federation about these nearly vanished ethnic groups would have been informative to the average Doodle Dandy ( I speculate here). One assumes that the main streets of Moscow are not named after any of these vanished ethnic groups.
These independent countries with their own postage stamps, infrastructure, army all vanished into the physics of the Bolshevik Black Hole (BBH). The BBH physics still apply 100% in the Kremlin Imperialism of Muscovy. Very close to the topic that Tucker beat on, the Katyn Genocide of Polish by the Muscovy orc ethnics. What? Really. That part was edited out by Tucker: wow?
The op-ed usefully indicates cognitive alterations to the policies of Poland. That the GNP% for defense is mentioned is useful. What can the Yankee compare this data to?
How about neighbours Mexico and Canada? When exactly will Mexico get to the Polish percentage of GNP for defense spending? How about that? Never. The Mexican Government officially plan to eternally be protected by FREE no-cost tax dollars always donated from the Yankee “Gringo” tax payers. Even fellow peer readers have remarked that the Xi/Putin Missile/drone attack on the mainland USA will come over the Mexican Border. What a top secret concept! What terrorist revealed that top secret Mexican military strategy?
This op-ed re-adjusts the 2025 graphics of a puny NATO versus Goliath size Xi/Putin. It is useful to understand that Mexico and Canada willfully blatantly avoid assuming Adult defence responsibilities. They want to wear their kiddie shorts. It is a pathetic tragedy that the Putin spy network reduced Canada from 1945 , a Country that was in todays Poland Position, to a musem operator. Putin’s grasp of Canada keeps Canadian NATO spending in a powder puff situation, with the much CBC promoted 3T promise to a future double up spending exactly 3 days after MAGA POTUS vanishes.
Poland needs to graphically image a country where low income senior Canadian- born citizens who fought WW2 are targeted by the Federal CRA for penalties to rip off for every penny, while enemies of NATO get free invasion papers and free federal services galore.
That Poland is depicted above makes this a useful 2025 op-ed for the general Yankee. The snoring EU partners seem to demand that people of Ukraine, Poland, Baltics, lay down life and limb while they snore undisturbed in affluent comfort. -30-
Pingback: Instapundit » Blog Archive » I’LL TAKE HEADLINES FROM 1939, ALEX: Poland Is Slowly Preparing For The Unthinkable: War With Russ
PABR
September 17, 2025 at 6:31 pm
Poland is one of the only countries in Europe along with Finland it would seem that is worse American blood and treasure to defend.
Richard
September 17, 2025 at 7:27 pm
Poland is trying to drag the US and the NATO midgets into a war with Russia. Their recent crazy proposal for a No Fly Zone over Ukraine is but one example. Probably the US could win an air war but there is no way that Russia accepts defeat so the air bases in Poland get nuked. Game on. Fortunately, the US doesn’t seem to be buying. If I were Polish, I would be worrying about their other traditional who has done more damage though less recently. Germany has the stated policy of building the most powerful army in Europe.