Poland plans to establish a major force of reservists in its efforts to build an army of 500,000 potentially combat ready personnel.
Polish defence minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said the new reserve force will be voluntary, receive regular training, open to men and women and be designed for rapid mobilisation.
Under a long-term defence programme, Poland aims to build peacetime forces totalling 500,000 by 2039, including more than 200,000 reservists.
Kosiniak-Kamysz, who is also the Deputy Prime Minister in the centre-left Polish government led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, said the “high-readiness reserve” would join professional soldiers and the existing Territorial Army set up by the previous Conservative (PiS) government a decade ago.
The move comes as Poland faces “demographic challenges that are expected to reduce the pool of potential recruits in coming years”, Kosiniak-Kamysz told a press conference yesterday.
Demography poses a significant constraint. Poland’s population of 38 million is ageing, and sustaining a half-million-strong force over the long term will place pressure on labour markets, public finances and social cohesion.
According to the Chief of General Staff General Wiesław Kukuła, reservists will have flexibility in choosing when to train and which unit to serve with but will need to undergo at least eight days of training per year.
The announcement coincided with the launch of this year’s civilian “Readiness” training programme, which begins on March 7. A pilot scheme last autumn drew more than 16,000 participants.
Planning a huge expansion of its armed forces by 2039 with 300,000 troops and 200,000 reservists, Poland is building a national capacity for sustained war. It is treating large-scale conflict no longer as hypothetical but as a baseline assumption guiding the structure, training and investment in its military.
This shift draws directly on lessons from Ukraine and signals a recalibration of NATO’s eastern defence, where national mobilisation and endurance are increasingly emphasised over alliance reassurance alone. The belief that war would be short, contained and fought primarily by professionals has been undermined by events in Ukraine.
Poland’s efforts combine three elements: Numerical expansion; universal or near-universal military training; and the rapid integration of advanced strike, drone and AI-enabled systems.
Previously, most European states prioritised professionalisation, expeditionary capability and small but technologically advanced forces designed for crisis management rather than territorial defence.
The shift is reinforced by rapid technological modernisation involving drones, autonomous systems and AI-supported command and control across land, air, sea, cyber and the electromagnetic spectrum in order to multiply the effectiveness rather than replace manpower.
Poland is already spending 4.8 per cent of GDP on defence, the highest proportion in NATO.
The sustainability of these spending levels poses a challenge at a time when the budget deficit is rising faster than in other European Union states and the country is covered by the EU excess deficit procedure.
