GRAPHICS

Why Poland Will Look North for Its Security

Feb 14, 2017 | 21:20 GMT

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Why Poland Will Look North for Its Security

Polish officials are making preparations for an increasingly uncertain global order. At home, Warsaw's strategy centers around an ambitious plan to modernize its defense capacities and increase military spending to strengthen its domestic defense industrial base. At the regional level, Warsaw is interested in stronger political and military cooperation with its neighbors. A natural area for Poland to seek allies is the Baltic Sea, where countries have similar concerns about Russia's recent moves. Poland already has strong ties with Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, all of which have recently increased their own military spending. In fact, Poland and Estonia are among the only five NATO members that currently meet the organization's defense spending target of 2 percent of gross domestic product. (The others are the United States, the United Kingdom and Greece.) Each of these countries generally wants a stronger and, if possible, permanent NATO presence in the region.

Poland and the Baltic countries are also interested in coordinating defense strategies. In mid-2016, for example, they began discussions with defense contractors to create a regional anti-aircraft missile shield. Such cooperation has a political element as well; Warsaw and its Baltic peers often join forces to preserve EU sanctions against Russia and to increase European economic and political cooperation with Ukraine. They are also boosting efforts to strengthen ties with Ukraine outside of the EU context.

Poland's Baltic strategy involves cooperation with Sweden, too. Stockholm has been one of the main supporters of developing closer ties between the European Union and countries in the former Soviet sphere, particularly Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova, to bring them closer to the West. And over the past three years, Swedish officials have repeatedly warned about the worsening security situation in the Baltic area. Though Sweden is not a NATO member, since the start of the war in Ukraine the country has deepened its cooperation with the military alliance. In May 2016, for example, Sweden signed an agreement with NATO that allows the alliance to operate more easily on Swedish territory during training or in the event of a conflict.

In late 2015, Sweden and Poland signed their own military cooperation agreement, highlighting their shared interest in deterring potential Russian aggression. Closer Swedish-Polish links open the door for tighter cooperation between Nordic and Baltic countries, as Finland (another neutral, non-NATO country) often coordinates its foreign policy with Sweden. But despite its concerns regarding Russia, Sweden has remained neutral since the early 19th century, and there are no guarantees that Stockholm is ready to change its position and take a more confrontational military position toward Russia. Opinion polls in Sweden show that people are becoming increasingly supportive of NATO membership, but the issue remains controversial.