Only Poland can save Nato Warsaw must keep the Russians back

In July 2028, Europe holds its breath. Russian troops, reinvigorated since the dismemberment of Ukraine three years earlier, have gathered by their hundreds of thousands on the frontiers of the EU. There are three groupings in all, stretching hundreds of miles from Narva in Estonia to Hrodna in Belarus. Most impressive, though, is the storied 1st Guards Tank Army. Packed to the brim with armour, and featuring Russia’s 4th generation T-14 model, it’s waiting at the so-called Brest Gate: barely 120 miles from Warsaw. For while the Baltics are clearly in Putin’s crosshair, Poland is too. He knows that only by destroying Poland’s military can he cast a new Iron Curtain over Eastern Europe. Like Stalin, he doesn’t hope to control Poland directly — but he does understand that once Warsaw falls, and the Poles agree to a new European order, the dominoes will fall from Vilnius to Tallinn.

This, then, is the Europe that Putin has worked for over a quarter century to realise. And with Donald Trump soon due to leave the White House, he knows time is short to return Russia to the geopolitical position Putin thinks it deserves. Yet just across the border, the Europeans are ready too. With the American geopolitical order dead and buried, even countries that once treated the security blanket as a safety blanket have become shell-shocked realists. And so it proves: as the Russian attack finally starts, Poland’s Aegis Ballistic Missile Defence System springs into action. It’s joined by hundreds of Himars, which together rain Polish hellfire down on advancing Russian troops.

Polish fighters are now in the air too. Supported by Sweden, Finland and their Baltic allies, they deny Russia air superiority above the battlefield. There are drones, too, thousands of them, autonomous bringers of death over five countries. At sea, the Swedish and Polish navies engage the Russian Baltic Fleet as it pours across the Baltic into the Gulf of Gdańsk, with Poland’s port cities in its sights. And all the while, Russian troops advance, swarming to attack weak points in their enemy’s border defences while using artillery to cut off the highways linking the Baltics to the rest of the continent. War, in short, engulfs Europe’s east once more, even as Paris and London threaten nuclear strikes if the Russian assault persists.

This scenario isn’t a prediction. But nor is it a fantasy, for it’s exactly what security experts across Nato have long urged Europe to prepare for. It’s easy to imagine such warnings flashing before the eyes of European leaders as they watched, uninvited, from the sidelines as the US pledged to normalise bilateral relations with Moscow. Over the course of the past two weeks, certainly, the prospect of a war on Nato soil has gone from nightmarish hypothetical to an entirely conceivable possibility — if certainly not an inevitability. Admitting that is mere realism, especially from here in Warsaw.

For while Europeans have scrambled to plan for an impending post-American future, the unspoken truth remains that there exists no viable defence model that doesn’t have Poland squarely at its heart. For years, after all, Warsaw has been planning for exactly the sort of chaos precipitated by Trump, growing its army and bolstering its industrial strength. More to the point, the country’s geography means it will have little choice but to act as the continent’s shield against whatever comes next — even though it clearly has some way to go, both logistically and strategically, if it hopes to fend off the looming Russian threat.

In the first place, Poland’s importance can be understood by its rising military prowess. With over 200,000 men under arms, it boasts the largest army of any Nato state in Europe, even as it will also soon become the continent’s premier tank power. It’s clear, moreover, that this technology is effective in the field. Back in 2023, at Nato’s Amber Lynx exercises in Orzysz, less than 100 kilometres from Poland’s border with the Russian enclave at Kaliningrad, I witnessed a simulated attack on Polish territory. On a grey April morning, troops from six Nato states used tanks, artillery, fighter jets and anti-aircraft guns — alongside PT-91 tanks and W-3 Sokół helicopters from Poland — to repel the imaginary invaders.

As that local machinery implies, Poland has the added advantage of being a relatively robust industrial power. As the fifth largest economy in the EU, and one of the fastest growing economies in the continent, Poland has invested heavily in its already sizeable industrial manufacturing sector — especially since the start of the war in Ukraine. The Huta Stalowa Wola steel mill, one of the largest machinery manufacturers in the region, has already doubled its production of military hardware since 2022, while Poland’s shipbuilding sector has also worked to modernise the country’s fleet.

Of course, having a strong army in theory still leaves the question of how to use it — and here there seems to be some disagreement. That 2023 drill imagined Nato taking on Russia inside Polish territory. But speaking after the event, a Polish general dismissed the idea that a hostile force would ever be allowed “one metre” inside the country’s borders. To that end, Poland, together with Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, have started building an interconnected network of fortifications along their borders with Russia and Belarus, together meant to compensate for the region’s lack of geographic obstacles. In Poland, these fortifications are known as “The East Shield” and will encompass everything from simple earthworks and concrete anti-tank barriers to satellite-augmented surveillance technology. In the event of an imminent Russian attack, controversial anti-personnel mines would likely be deployed too.

All of this sounds good in theory, and has a good chance of holding Russia back for a while. In the 2028 invasion scenario I sketched out above, the first part of the conflict would involve an air war, with aircraft, missiles, rockets, and drones flying in all directions. The East Shield would be a major impediment to the advance of Russian ground forces, not least given the local environment. Though Poland lies on a flat plain that has historically acted as a highway for invaders — another reason why it’ll be obliged to fight come what may, especially given it’s the only Nato member to border Ukraine, Belarus and Russia — the frontier regions to the northeast are thick with hills, swamps and forests.

But just as in Ukraine, time ultimately would not be on Warsaw’s side. After months of grinding battles, and wave after wave of the high-casualty assaults that have become Russia’s trademark, Moscow’s armies would eventually break through the fortifications. Yet Polish forces on the other side would not be able to hold them off forever. Sooner or later, then, Nato’s “not one metre” strategy would collapse. In its place, like the Zelensky government has grimly discovered, Poland would be forced to tactically retreat from battlefield to battlefield, praying that the Russians don’t find a way to break through their lines.

It would certainly help if Poland could degrade the enemy before they broke the East Shield: not just close to the border but deep within Russia itself. Yet according to Bartłomiej Kucharski, a Polish military analyst, Warsaw isn’t doing enough here. “I have an impression that in Poland limited-scale tactical thinking has won,” he explains, noting that most of its artillery investments still only have a maximum range of 300 kilometres. “However,” Kucharski adds, “direct attacks on the territory of the enemy have the largest deterrence value.”

In the past, Poland would have relied on US support to get the kit it needs — but that doesn’t seem a sure bet these days. After the chaos of recent weeks, Polish officials have done everything in their power to play it cool, touting the Trump administration’s supposed pledges not to withdraw US forces stationed in the country. But read between the lines and things start to look much less certain. Despite calling Poland a “model ally” during his visit to Warsaw earlier this month, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth warned his country wouldn’t be around forever. And when Polish President Andrzej Duda met his US counterpart on the sidelines of the CPAC on Saturday, Trump arrived late and left early.

No wonder Warsaw is looking for new backers. In practice, that unsurprisingly means its fellow EU members — who obviously have far more skin in the game than Trump. A case in point came last July, when Poland embarked on the so-called European Long-Range Strike Approach (ELSA) with Germany, France and Italy. Meant to stimulate the production of long-range missiles across the continent, the ultimate plan is to designed to hamper Russian forces before they ever menace the East Shield.

That’s clearly a step in the right direction, but challenges remain. As Kucharski puts it: “As a country we have the potential to create armed forces that would be able to at least temporarily stop Russia, but currently several years of work remain ahead of us.” Quite aside from the lack of long-range missiles, there’s domestic politics to contend with too. With an eye on upcoming presidential elections in May, Polish leaders have lately refused to deploy troops to Ukraine as peacekeepers, or to commit forces to a broader pan-European army. Despite Poland’s strong industrial base, meanwhile, shifting political agendas have often made it difficult for the country to take full advantage of its manufacturing potential, with MPs struggling to think holistically political, military and industrial priorities. That’s frustrating: as analysts have long noted, the capacity to further expand the military certainly exists in Poland — the only question is whether politicians can cough up the necessary cash.

Yet if immediate political concerns may hamper flexibility in the short term, no one in Polish politics can seriously imagine their country won’t be forced to play a decisive role in regional defence, both domestically and in post-war Ukraine. Regardless of the diplomatic squabbles Poland has recently had with France and the UK over the nature of Europe’s new security architecture, moreover, everyone understands that Warsaw is a partner they must count on.

All the while, Polish officials are doing everything they can to project calm, confidence and strength. And why not? Especially given its long tradition resisting Russian imperialism, this is not a nation that’ll go down without a fight. But behind the scenes, the politicians and generals are surely alarmed. What’s most horrifying for Poland about the fantastical 2028 scenario is that, even if it were to reach the peak of military preparedness, expand its manufacturing sector, and build a European coalition — in the end Russia could still triumph. As history has often proved, both in Poland and elsewhere, there are some things even the fiercest fighting spirit cannot easily overcome.

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