Poland is building Europe’s largest army and a defence industry to match it

Poland is no longer treating military power as a question of how many weapons it can buy abroad. As Warsaw builds one of Europe’s largest armed forces, it is increasingly focused on producing ammunition, drones, missiles and other military equipment at home or within Central Europe.

The shift reflects a broader lesson from the war in Ukraine. Modern militaries can exhaust ammunition and equipment far faster than traditional defence industries can replace them. For Poland, which borders both Ukraine and Russia’s Kaliningrad region, dependence on distant suppliers is becoming a strategic vulnerability.

Polish spending on defence procurement from domestic companies, including joint ventures with Central European firms, has almost quadrupled since 2022. It reached 30.4 billion zlotys ($8.15 billion) in 2025, according to data from Poland’s Armaments Agency analysed by Reuters.

This year, Warsaw is expected to spend around €53 billion on core defence expenditure, equivalent to roughly 4.7% of GDP. That would place Poland among NATO’s biggest defence spenders relative to the size of its economy.

The scale of the military build-up is equally significant. Poland’s armed forces have surpassed 220,000 personnel, putting the country on track to field the largest land army in Europe.

But Warsaw increasingly wants those soldiers to be supported by an industrial base capable of supplying them during a prolonged crisis.

From buying weapons to building capacity

Poland will continue to rely on major foreign weapons systems. American Patriot air-defence batteries, Abrams tanks and F-35 fighter jets remain central to its military modernisation.

The difference is that Warsaw is increasingly concentrating on equipment that has to be replenished continuously.

A war does not consume only tanks and aircraft. It consumes artillery shells, missiles, drones, spare parts and other relatively inexpensive systems in enormous quantities. The experience of Ukraine has demonstrated that production capacity can become as strategically important as the sophistication of an individual weapon.

That is why Poland is expanding domestic production of 155 mm artillery ammunition, drones, missiles and armoured vehicles.

The country is also moving beyond the traditional model in which national defence industries operate largely on their own. Polish companies are increasingly partnering with firms from neighbouring countries, creating production networks that are closer to the potential European battlefield.

Czech defence company CSG has become one of the most visible examples. It is expanding its presence in Poland through agreements covering propellant production, ammunition, drones, missiles and armoured vehicles. Other projects involve companies from Estonia, Slovakia and Hungary.

Germany’s Rheinmetall is also expanding its Polish footprint, citing growing demand and the opportunity to establish production and maintenance capacity for land systems.

The result is a different model of European defence cooperation: not simply buying the same weapons, but increasingly sharing factories, technologies, maintenance facilities and supply chains.

Central Europe becomes an industrial defence zone

Poland’s strategy points towards a potential restructuring of Europe’s defence geography.

For decades, European militaries relied heavily on a combination of American suppliers and a relatively fragmented European defence industry. That model provided access to advanced systems, but it was not designed for a prolonged high-intensity war requiring mass production.

The war in Ukraine exposed the weakness.

European countries discovered that existing ammunition stocks were limited, production lines were too small and rebuilding capacity could take years. The problem was not simply a shortage of money. It was a shortage of factories, skilled workers, specialised components and production capacity.

Poland is attempting to address this by bringing more of the supply chain into the region.

The country has already partnered with Estonia’s Frankenburg Technologies to manufacture short-range air-defence systems. Polish ammunition producer Grupa Niewiadów is establishing 155 mm ammunition production with KNDS Ammo France, with planned output of up to 180,000 rounds annually from 2027.

Warsaw has also been seeking cooperation with Ukraine and the United States on joint production of missiles for the Patriot air-defence system.

This matters because it creates a more resilient regional defence ecosystem. A production line in Poland is not only a Polish asset. It can potentially supply other European militaries while reducing dependence on long-distance supply chains.

The economic calculation behind rearmament

Poland’s defence industrial expansion is also becoming an economic strategy.

Large-scale military spending creates demand for factories, engineering, research and development, logistics and specialised manufacturing. That can generate industrial capacity with applications beyond defence.

But the costs are substantial.

Poland’s rapid military expansion is already putting pressure on public finances. Warsaw expects defence spending to remain above 4.5% of GDP in 2027, while military equipment deliveries are contributing significantly to the country’s large budget deficit.

The challenge will therefore be to turn exceptionally high defence spending into durable industrial capacity rather than simply a long-term procurement bill.

That distinction is becoming increasingly important across Europe.

Buying a weapon provides a capability. Building the ability to manufacture and repair that weapon provides strategic resilience.

Poland’s bet is bigger than the Polish army

Warsaw’s approach suggests that Europe’s next phase of rearmament may be less about competing national procurement programmes and more about building interconnected regional defence industries.

Poland is particularly well positioned for this role because of its geography, its political focus on the eastern flank and the scale of its military spending. It is becoming a major market for European and American defence companies while simultaneously trying to turn itself into a manufacturing hub.

The strategic objective is not autarky. Poland cannot and does not intend to produce everything domestically.

Instead, it is seeking something more practical: enough regional capacity to ensure that a crisis does not leave European armies waiting for weapons manufactured thousands of kilometres away.

That could become one of the most consequential changes in Europe’s defence architecture.

The battlefield lesson from Ukraine is increasingly being translated into industrial policy: deterrence depends not only on what Europe has in its arsenals today, but on how quickly it can replace what is destroyed tomorrow.