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Poland Military Doctrine
Throughout the existence of the Warsaw Pact, Poland was
a key
element in the security system of the Soviet Union. The
Polish
armed forces were the largest non-Soviet national
component of
the alliance. Located in the "northern tier" between NATO
countries and the Soviet Union, Poland was expected to
play a
major role in any major conventional conflict with West
European
forces. Polish force structure gave priority to armor in
expectation of a blitzkrieg-style theater offensive across
Europe. In joint offensive warfare training exercises in
the
early 1980s, Poland had the mission of attacking northern
West
Germany and Denmark. Poland was also the major corridor
for
supply and communications between the Soviet Union and the
large
Soviet force in place in the German Democratic Republic
(East
Germany). These factors were the rationale for the
assignment of
approximately 30,000 Soviet ground and air troops on
Polish soil
from the late 1940s until 1992.
After essentially following Soviet military doctrine
for
forty-five years, in 1990 Poland began formulating
independent
doctrine taking into account a vastly different European
strategic situation. The first public declaration of a new
approach came in February 1990, when Poland was still a
member of
the Warsaw Pact. The guidelines issued by Jaruzelski's
national
security agency, the National Defense Committee (which at
that
point still included some communists), were clearly
labeled as
transitional, and the statement included a one-sentence
reiteration of loyalty to Warsaw Pact obligations.
Nevertheless,
some independent positions were taken. Poland now
categorically
rejected initiation of military action against another
state and
participation in a war unless its allies were attacked.
Maintenance of Polish troops beyond national borders was
described as contradictory to national interests. In case
of an
attack on a Warsaw Pact member, only Polish authorities
would
determine the appropriate response of Poland, Polish
commanders
would retain full control of Polish troops, and Polish
forces
would remain discrete units rather than being integrated
with
Soviet troops. As an extension of the Warsaw Pact
doctrinal
revision that began in 1987, the guidelines assigned the
highest
priority to defending against attack by air, armored, and
amphibious forces.
In 1990 the Commission on National Defense of the Sejm,
the
lower house of Parliament, strongly criticized the initial
KOK
reform program as insufficient for full military reform
and as
retaining too much of Poland's past subservience to the
Warsaw
Pact. The total collapse of the pact in the following year
required more complete revision of military doctrine. A
new
program called Armed Forces '90 represented a second,
truly
postcommunist, phase of military reform. It was a
long-term plan
of steps to be completed by the year 2000. Already in
mid-1990,
the military began implementing plans to apportion
defensive
forces more evenly between Poland's eastern and western
borders.
From mid-1990 to mid-1992, the topic of appropriate
doctrine
for Poland received extensive treatment in general and
specialized forums, but doctrinal reform was stymied by
internal
political conflicts. All agreed that henceforth the basic
mission
of the Polish defense system should be protecting the
sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity of
the
Polish nation. The means to that end were more
problematic,
however. In mid-1991 a deputy to the chief of the General
Staff
proposed that the new Polish Army (the word
people's
having been dropped from the title in 1990) be built
around
assault-landing brigades, helicopter regiments, armored
and
motorized units, and special forces such as mountain
infantry, to
achieve optimal flexibility and mobility in the defensive
posture. Poland would also begin manufacturing
sophisticated
modern weapons and purchase medium-class warships. The
chief
obstacle to this plan, however, was a military budget that
in
1991 barely sustained routine maintenance.
A comprehensive doctrinal reform first proposed in
mid-1991
was never approved because of disagreement between
President Lech
Walesa, on one side, and Prime Minister Jan Olszewski and
Minister of National Defense Jan Parys, on the other, over
the
question of which office should control military policy.
In mid1992 , after the Olszewski government fell, a new draft
doctrine
was prepared by the president's National Security Bureau
(Biuro
Bezpieczenstwa Narodowego--BBN) and officials of the
ministries
of foreign affairs and national defense.
The basic assumption of the new doctrine was that
Poland was
not threatened with any form of attack from outside,
excepting
possible spillover from ethnic or border conflicts in the
former
Soviet republics. Instead, the chief threats to Polish
national
security would be serious civil unrest or strikes, a
massive
influx of refugees from the east, or the failure of other
countries to fulfill economic obligations. In early 1992,
Russia
provided a prime example of the third type of risk by
unexpectedly demanding a revision of the terms of a
crucial
barter agreement to supply natural gas to Poland. Within
Poland
conversion from a centrally planned economy to free
enterprise
would cause social strains, leading to mass emigration,
crime,
and relaxation of social rules. The new doctrine therefore
recommended completing social reconstruction as quickly as
possible to minimize disruptions that might threaten
national
security. Given budgetary constraints, planners estimated
that
national security requirements could be met with a total
force of
about 200,000, or 60 percent of the force level in the
1980s,
together with a National Guard force of unspecified size.
In the spirit of cooperation with all neighbors, the
doctrine
refused membership in any military alliance directed
against any
neighbor. It also rejected deployment of Polish forces
abroad
except in accordance with international agreements; a
United
Nations (UN) peacekeeping mission, for example, would be
permitted. Specifically mentioned were close and friendly
relations with Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Lithuania.
Regional
cooperation was described as the foundation of a general
international security system that included North America.
An
important element of this general concept was membership
in NATO
and close cooperation with the Conference on Security and
Cooperation in Europe
(CSCE--see Glossary)
(see Military Cooperation and Exchanges
, this ch.).
Data as of October 1992
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