'The Eastern Shield': How Poland wants to defend its borders from invasion

Poland, NATO's largest contributor in relative terms and beneficiary of the EU's SAFE (Security Action for Europe) program, which is designed to speed up defense readiness in Member States, is a key center for European and NATO defense. Amid ramped-up defense spending, experts in the country are debating how to best use Poland's resources to gear up for a potential armed invasion.

One of the current defense projects, known as "The Eastern Shield" is to consist of 700 km of defense installations near Poland's eastern border with Russia and Belarus. This is also the eastern border of NATO and the European Union.

This project is sometimes referred to as the 'Tusk Line', in reference to the famous French Maginot Line from the Second World War, built by France in the 1930s to deter invasion by Nazi Germany. However, experts argue that the idea of what the Eastern Shield is actually supposed to be is often misunderstood by the public.

You want peace, get ready for war

"The Eastern Shield is often mistakenly equated with a barrier on the border with Belarus itself, but these are in fact two different things. The shield is a complex project to increase the resilience of the state and its citizens," said Jacek Brzozowski, the local government's representative on the ground.

As he explained, the Eastern Shield project envisages investments in technical and digital infrastructure, but also the use of natural dams. At the same time, he stressed that the whole project is defensive in nature and is not geared towards aggression towards Russia and Belarus. However, he pointed out that these countries present a hostile attitude towards Poland and NATO as a whole, meaning that in order to maintain peace it is necessary to develop the potential for intimidation, according to the ancient maxim: "you want peace, get ready for war".

According to Brzozowski, we are currently living in a "pre-war" world and cannot afford to ignore threats. He recalled that in June 2024, a soldier was killed along the Belarusian border, which has been the site of a migration, security, and humanitarian crisis since 2021.

"This is the first such case since the Second World War. The situation is an emergency and the border is constantly patrolled by 11,000 soldiers and Border Guard officers," - he added.

A 'Death zone' 30 km from the border

Retired military officer and former Eurocorps commander General Jaroslaw Gromadzinski was critical of the Eastern Shield and the government's actions surrounding the program.

"The Eastern Shield is a purely political and PR project, it is a bag into which the government throws everything. In theory the aim is to prepare the eastern part of Poland for war, while in practice anti-tank trestles are being erected on the border. This looks nice on TV, but ut is simply a waste of money. The barriers on the border will be destroyed within 2-3 hours by an artillery attack. This, by the way, applies to the entire area within range of the enemy's conventional artillery, i.e. up to 30 km into the country. This will be a death zone where no troops should be stationed," - Gromadzinski said.

In his opinion, the most important objective of the Eastern Shield should instead be to ensure that troops in the zone up to 100 km from the border can manoeuvre, which means providing a logistical base in the whole area up to the Vistula River flowing through the middle of Poland.

Also important in his view is ensuring the safety of civilians through education and creating protective infrastructure. As a former soldier pointed out, "the military will cope, they will move in and out from under enemy fire, but the population stays put".

Fortifications will not stop a modern army

Colonel Slawomir Walenczynkowski from the General Staff of the Polish Army confirmed that Shield East should not be understood as a line of fortifications or fortifications like the French Maginot Line or Finland's Manerheim Line of 80 years ago.

"Today fortifications have no chance of stopping the enemy. It's about scanning his movement so that he moves where we want him to, because we can affect him with fire measures."

He added that the Eastern Shield goes far beyond Poland's border and even includes the modernization of bridges over the Vistula River to be able to support the weight of modern tanks stationed in western Poland. In addition, the program will also include a so-called "anti-shock system', a set of sensors to monitor activities in Belarus and Russia. This will buy time to act before an enemy offensive is launched, similar to what happened before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The colonel also defended the anti-tank barrages on the border itself. "Even if the trestles on the border are destroyed in two hours, they buy us those two hours of extra time to act," he argued.

A stream of money for local authorities

The Eastern Shield also brings in multi-billion dollar investments from the budget of the Ministry of Defense, PLN 10 billion (€2.4 billion) is to go towards it, and Poland may receive up to €20 billion in preferential loans under the European SAFE programme. A significant portion of these funds could go towards dual-use infrastructure, i.e. infrastructure needed by the armed forces in wartime, but performing civilian functions during peacetime.

Michał Litwiniuk, the mayor of Biała Podlaska, a city in Eastern Poland emphasized that the investment in his city's garrison amounts to around one billion zlotys and means a target of 6,000 jobs. "I am grateful to the state budget for the stream of support that flows not only towards Shield East, but also for civil protection," he said.

Professor Aleksandra Skrabacz of the Military University of Technology, however, said that military investment would not necessarily automatically translate into an improvement in the lot of local residents. She pointed out that tourism in Poland's eastern territories had been affected by the unsettled situation on the border, and that the local population might be hostile to having their civil liberties curtailed by military investments and operations in their area.

'We cannot wait for US troops'

Poland's Minister of National Defense, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, has called the Eastern Shield the largest investment in NATO's eastern flank since 1945. Experts agreed that it was a project serving the interests not only of Poland, but of the entire EU and NATO. On the other hand, they argued that the key effort to defend the Polish border falls on the Polish public.

"Building infrastructure is less of a problem than building resilience. We cannot wait 2 weeks for American troops to defend us. The Americans will not defend us, they can help us to defend ourselves. This is our responsibility," argued Skrabacz.

At the same time, she quoted the results of a survey which shows that only 10-15 percent of Poles have declared their readiness to defend the country with arms in hand in the event of war. The majority plan to flee abroad or take care of their own family's safety. In her view, it is necessary to educate the public to take responsibility for the country.

"The resilience of the state and society is a logical fallacy. The state cannot exist without society. It is the people who come first," she argued.

Governor Jacek Brzozowski agreed that the most important thing is to prepare the population and teach the right procedures.

"Throughout our history, Poles have shown that the homeland was the most important thing for them and they were able to fight for it," the government representative argued.