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There are ‘no calm days across the world, only those who have slept for the last 30 years’, according to Polish Deputy Prime Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, who spoke at a recent Polish/American summit.
The Polish politician made the comment during recent meetings with US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on February 14 this year.
The country has embarked on a spectacular increase to military investment and is expected to bring the defence spend of 4.7 percent of GDP this year, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In addition, the Polish Ministry of National Defence has already signed a deal with the United States government to purchase 96 Boeing AH-64E Apache attack helicopters last year, in a bid to make the country largest Apache operator outside of the United States.
“We'll never have a calm day. There are no calm days across the world. There are only those who have slept the last 30 years, because they thought that they lived in the calm world. The world will never be calm,” according to Deputy PM Kosiniak-Kamysz.
“We have to remember that Putin or other dictator may come, which can threaten our security. It never ends. This is what history teaches us.
“I think it was a bit too good for us. For some, it was too good. Maybe they (NATO/Allies) didn't have the experiences that we've had in Poland, that they just slept over this time… It's time to wake them up.
“Poland is a country that understands threats, that it can see it, and we can sense it. We have our own history and we know how it happened, that in our country, in our beloved homeland, the war was waged. We were deprived of our own independence for years.
“For years, we didn't also have the self-determination capacity when we restored it. We know how important security is, how important freedom is and peace. The values that bring us together need strength. Freedom needs strength. The peace also needs strength. Security takes a lot of strength, and that strength is not possible without spending, without the money that we have to spend on security, without increasing our capabilities and investment in our armed forces, the alliance and the society.”
Deputy PM Kosiniak-Kamysz also confirmed that the defence spend increase has the support of taxpayers and government officials alike. The country has recently pledged to develop cooperation and investment between the Polish and American defence industries – including to improve capacity to produce munitions and the capacity for armament production.
“Poland can and should be a hub of infrastructure for maintenance, for economy and businesses of the United States. Our strategy is to be like a transatlantic bond, bringing the United States and Europe together because Poland is best prepared to do that and Poland understands best all the actions that are undertaken by the United States,” he said.
“We want to be a service hub that will be used for the American equipment used by our allies along the eastern border of NATO.
“We are friends for better and for worse, for good times and worse times. We are together with each other, Poland and the United States. The United States and Poland are true and loyal friends and our cooperation will be even at a higher level.”
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, speaking to a press conference after taking part in a NATO Defense Ministerial meetings in Brussels on February 13, confirmed that NATO partners must do more for Europe's defence.
“We must make NATO great again. It begins with defence spending, but must also include reviving the transatlantic defence industrial base, rapidly fielding emerging technologies, prioritizing readiness and lethality, and establishing real deterrence,” he said.
“Our expectation of our friends, and we say this in solidarity, is you have to spend more on your defence, for your country, on that continent, understanding that the American military and the American people stand beside you as we have in NATO, but can't have the expectation of expectation of being the permanent guarantor.
“That shift has to happen. The peace dividend has to end. There are autocrats with ambitions around the globe from Russia to the communist Chinese. Either the West awakens to that reality and creates combat multipliers with their allies and partners to include NATO, or we will abdicate that responsibility to somebody else with all the wrong values.
“One of the self-evident conclusions of the war in Ukraine was the underinvestment that both the European continent and America has had, unfortunately, in the defence industrial base, the ability to produce munitions, emerging technologies rapidly and field them was a blind spot exposed through the aggression against Ukraine.”
