When Legacies Meet Policies: NATO and the Refashioning of Polish Military Tradition

Abstract

Polish military tradition has long revolved around the ideal of defending the country’s territorial, political, and cultural integrity. Given Poland’s history of partition, occupation, and foreign domination, however, the institutionalization of democratically accountable civilian control over the armed forces had never been an objective, let alone a reality. Thus, when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization committed to expanding its membership in the mid-1990s, there was a notable clash of Polish military legacies on one hand and NATO’s proposed policies on the other. In analyzing the interaction between domestic traditions and international pressure, the author argues that NATO greatly accelerated the consolidation of democratic civilian control in Poland. By removing key elements of Polish military tradition from both the rhetoric and practice of Polish public policy, the alliance had the practical effect of cultivating a civilian interest in far-reaching oversight while undermining the preexisting societal consensus in Poland that had long brooked high levels of military political authority.