Poland has the industrial and technological potential to build a nuclear weapon on its own, but the main barriers are political, analyst Albert Świdziński said in an interview with Studio PAP, the video platform of the Polish state news agency.
Świdziński, who heads analysis at the Strategy & Future think tank, said the technology itself is no longer the biggest obstacle.
He argued that building a bomb would still require a huge and expensive industrial effort, including delivery systems, command and control, and the industrial base needed to support a nuclear program.
He called it “a gigantic industrial project,” but said it would not be beyond the reach of a mid-sized state such as Poland.
He said the bigger problem would be the international environment. Russia would oppose such a move, he said, but so would Poland’s allies in NATO.
Poland is also a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, a global agreement designed to limit the spread of nuclear arms.
Świdziński said the treaty does not formally ban uranium enrichment, but countries outside the recognized nuclear powers face strong political limits on developing the full industrial chain needed for such a program.
In his view, the United States would be the single most important obstacle to any Polish move toward nuclear weapons.
He said Washington has historically resisted such ambitions among allies because it wants to keep control over escalation in a crisis and avoid being drawn into conflicts on terms set by others.
As long as Poland remains in a formal alliance with the United States, he said, it would have no real room to begin a full-scale nuclear weapons program.
Instead, Świdziński said Poland should pursue what he described as "nuclear hedging."
In simple terms, that means publicly saying Poland does not want nuclear weapons now, while leaving open the option of changing course if the security situation worsens.
In practice, he said, that would mean investing in dual-use capabilities such as long-range missiles, satellite reconnaissance, and parts of the nuclear fuel cycle, technologies that serve civilian or conventional military purposes today but could support a nuclear program in the future.
The comments come as nuclear deterrence has moved closer to the center of Poland’s security debate.
Earlier this month, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Poland was in talks with France and a group of close European allies about an advanced nuclear deterrence program.
In February, President Karol Nawrocki said Poland should begin work toward developing a nuclear deterrent, citing what he described as a growing threat from Russia.
Poland has also discussed the possibility of joining NATO’s nuclear-sharing arrangement, under which US nuclear warheads are stationed in several European allied countries.
(rt/gs)
Source: PAP