A guest analysis from MM Magazyn Przemysłowy The True Cost of Our Security: Poland’s Military Spending Surge Amid Russian Aggression

As Russia escalates its aggression—first in Ukraine and then through hybrid tactics targeting NATO's eastern flank—Western nations have reached the end of a post–Cold War peace dividend. In response, Poland and its allies in Central Europe are dramatically increasing military expenditures. Poland plans to allocate a staggering 4.7% of its GDP in 2025 to defence, triggering long-term structural and fiscal shifts aimed at deterrence, industrial modernisation, and NATO integration.

The intensification of Russia’s aggressive policy – manifested in the invasion of Ukraine, as well as attempts to exert pressure on Poland and other countries on NATO’s eastern flank – marked the definitive end of the "peace dividend" from which Western nations had benefited since the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It enabled a slowdown in rearmament and a shift of focus to economic development and raising living standards. But those good times are gone.