Presidential Discourse on the Armed Forces of the Republic of Poland in the Context of Poland’s NATO Membership: Reconstructing the Problematization of Security and the Role of the Military in the Statements of Aleksander Kwaśniewski, Lech Kaczyński,
Presidential Discourse on the Armed Forces of the Republic of Poland in the Context of Poland’s NATO Membership: Reconstructing the Problematization of Security and the Role of the Military in the Statements of Aleksander Kwaśniewski, Lech Kaczyński,

Summary/Abstract: The article presents the results of a qualitative analysis of presidential statements concerning the Armed Forces of the Republic of Poland in the context of the country’s membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The study focuses on the public statements of three presidents: Aleksander Kwaśniewski, Lech Kaczyński, and Bronisław Komorowski. Adopting an interpretive perspective, the authors reconstruct the ways in which national security, the role of the military, and allied commitments are problematized. The analysis of the source material identified four main axes of meaning: the assessment of Poland’s own military potential through the lens of Alliance standards; the relationship between Euro-Atlantic integration and national defense autonomy; the conditionality of security guarantees; and the rationale for expeditionary military engagement. The study reveals an evolution in presidential statements – from uncritical enthusiasm and the normative imperative of post-accession military adaptation toward pragmatic realism, budgetary rationalization, and a revision of defense priorities. The argument concludes with a diagnosis of the “paradox of credibility,” according to which treaty-based guarantees of collective defense do not release the state from the need to invest in its own armed forces. On the contrary, they structurally compel the state to continuously and costly demonstrate its military agency and operational credibility in order not to become merely a passive consumer of security within the Alliance.

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