Poland in NATO

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (the North Atlantic Alliance - NATO) was founded in 1949 by 12 signatory states of the North Atlantic Treaty in Washington. Central to NATO is the mutual defence clause, enshrined in Article 5 of the Treaty. It provides that an attack on one or more Allies will mean an attack on all members of the Alliance. Currently 32 countries belong to NATO.

The North Atlantic Alliance was established to defend the Allies against possible aggression by the USSR and later by the Warsaw Pact countries. After the end of the Cold War and the break-up of the USSR in 1991, NATO engaged in military missions and operations out-of-area, including in Afghanistan, Kosovo, and Libya. The turning point in the recent history of the Alliance has been Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014. Since then, deterrence and collective defence against possible aggression have again become critical to NATO’s activities. This was expressed in the decisions taken at the NATO Summit in Warsaw in 2016, foremost the deployment of the multinational NATO battalion battlegroups in Poland and the Baltic States. Primacy of collective defence has also been confirmed in the Strategic Concept adpoted at the Madrid Summit in 2022.

NATO website

Poland’s admission to the North Atlantic Alliance on 12 March 1999 marked a culmination of many years of diplomatic efforts and reforms carried out particularly in the sphere of national defence.

Over the past years, Poland’s position in NATO has been steadily growing. We are a steadfast ally, actively steering discussions and shaping decisions at NATO Headquarters in Brussels. Polish soldiers participate in the Alliance’s missions and military operations. We also contribute to the so-called NATO's enhanced presence on the eastern flank – in Latvia and Romania. There are components of NATO’s military infrastructure on Polish territory, including in Szczecin, Elbląg, Bydgoszcz, and Kraków.

Thanks to regular exercises with Allied countries, the Polish Armed Forces are fully interoperable and meet all NATO standards. Poland is also among the leaders in the Alliance in terms of defence spending in relation to GDP.

To mark the 25th anniversary of Poland's accession to NATO, Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs shared a poster designed in the spirit of Polish School of Posters, by professor Lech Majewski.