Poland to introduce “military training for every adult male”

Mar 7, 2025 | Defence, Politics, Society

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, has announced plans to introduce military training for every adult male in the country in preparation for a potential war.

“Work is underway to prepare large-scale military training for every adult male in Poland…[to] allow these people to become full-fledged soldiers in conflict situations,” said Tusk during a major speech on security in parliament.

“We will try to have a ready model by the end of this year so that every adult male in Poland is trained in the event of war,” he continued. “So that this reserve [force] is truly matched to and sufficient to meet potential threats.”

Speaking afterwards to journalists, Tusk emphasised that the plans are still under development and that details on how the system would work will be announced “in the coming weeks”. However, he suggested that what is being proposed is not compulsory military service.

“We have several [potential] models,” he said, quoted by the Polish Press Agency (PAP). “One of the most appreciated is the Swiss model [under which training] is not compulsory but there are incentives that make men undergo annual training.”

In Switzerland, it is in fact compulsory for male citizens to undertake either military service or an alternative civilian service. After basic training, recruits remain members of the armed forces for nine years and are required to take regular refresher courses.

 

“It must become a habit, an obvious tradition that every healthy man in Poland should want to train in case of [the necessity to] defend the homeland,” said Tusk. “[But] we will prepare it in such a way that it will not be a torment for people – so that they want [to do it].”

“Of course, it will be open to both sexes,” added the prime minister. “I do not want to belittle the role of women here in any way, but war – due to physical conditions – is associated more with men.”

During his speech in parliament, Tusk also admitted that “Poland’s situation, objectively, and Ukraine’s situation in particular, is more difficult than a few months ago and we must deal with this fact”.

He noted that it is now less likely that Ukraine will receive “hard security guarantees” from the United States under any peace deal to end the war with Russia, which in turn makes neighbouring Poland’s situation more dangerous.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Poland has moved to rapidly and significantly bolster its military preparedness. It has increased defence spending to 4.7% of GDP this year, the highest figure in NATO.

The former Law and Justice (PiS) government also in 2022 set a target of doubling the size of the armed forces from 150,000 to 300,000 personnel. By last year, Poland had NATO’s third-largest military and its largest in Europe.

In his speech today, Tusk said his government is now “talking about the need to have a half-million strong army in Poland, including reservists”.


Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: NATO/Flickr (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

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