Arms aren't Christmas balls. The EU SAFE programme, which allocated more than 30% of the funds to Poland – around EUR 44 billion – is the largest industrial impulse that can scope our economy in decades.
Yet the opposition opposes its usage solely to prevent the success of Donald Tusk's government. It's tribal logic, not state logic. The expansion of the defence manufacture is not a organization task – it is simply a civilization project.
It is worth making this clear: EUR 44 billion in the SAFE programme is not a government success. It's a state maturity test.
Armourment is more than defense
In industrial economics, there is simply a tough rule: 1 occupation in production generates on average 5 more in services and related sectors – from investigation and design, software and logistics, to method education.
The arms manufacture is simply a peculiar multiplier. Forces material, digital, electronic and energy innovation. It's not a cannon factory, it's an incubator for dual-use technology.
At the same time, it is simply a possible that can deter Russia's aggression and prevent return to economical peripherality. If Poland restricts itself to the function of the assembly plant of French or German components, it will stay a subcontractor – a place where engineers are in fact efficient techniques, but not strategy makers.
Brutal Statistics
Patent statistic are ruthless. Warsaw's technological and engineering fields study about 170 patent applications each year, of which about 30 percent are awarded.
For comparison: Bavaria – about 6 thousand, 1 of Chinese technology centers – about 15 thousand, California – about 25 thousand.
After calculating on a scale comparable to Warsaw, we should apply about 2 1000 patents a year – which is eleven times more than today. It's not a question of talent. It's a question of the structure of the economy.
History Lesson
History provides a very informative lesson here. After the 1929 crash, the United States economy remained stagnant for years despite fresh Deal programs.
Only industrial mobilization before planet War II – immense government procurement and improvement of aviation, electronics and materials – created the foundation of America's post-war technological hegemony.
The armaments generated the scale of production, standardisation and investigation capital, which later powered the civilian manufacture – from passenger aviation to electronics and computer science.
It's not about the glorification of war. It is about knowing the mechanism: a strong strategical manufacture creates an innovation ecosystem.
Technologies born from military projects
The net was not created from a romanticist imagination of a global community. It comes from the ARPANET task funded by the American Defence Agency. The goal was to withstand destruction, communication after possible atomic attack. In time, the military experimentation became the backbone of modern digital civilization.
Similarly, GPS – a strategy created by the U.S. Department of defence for precise military navigation – present synchronizes banks, runs planes, trucks and smartphones. Without it, there is no global logistics, precision agriculture or financial system.
The semiconductor revolution was besides mostly driven by military orders and the Apollo program. request for miniaturization and reliability created the foundations of the integrated circuit industry, from which Silicon Valley grew.
Radar developed during planet War II became the foundation of meteorology and air traffic control. Naval sonar gave emergence to modern oceanographic research. Cryptography developed for the needs of countries present enables safe e-commerce.
The drone technology and autonomous systems tested by DARPA created the foundations for civilian unmanned vehicles. The field of combat medicine has transformed civilian rescue, introducing effective procedures for curing haemorrhages and treating severe injuries.
The common denominator is one: scale and pressure. Military projects force speed, reliability, standardisation and close cooperation between discipline and industry.
SAFE as innovation infrastructure
When investing in security, the state is besides building a technological jump platform. SAFE is not just a weapon – it is an innovation infrastructure.
This is simply a chance for the Polish engineer to plan again, not just mount. To make patents, not just instructions to operate another people's systems.
Innovation is born where you combine safety with technological ambition. Either we're gonna be a strategy maker or we're gonna be individual else's service.
State maturity test
Politics has an election horizon. Economy – generational. If Poland uses SAFE funds to build its own design, patent and strategy competences, it can appear as a subcontractor and become a contributor to the European safety architecture.
However, if measures are blocked for organization reasons, we will lose not the success of the government, but the full improvement decade. There should be no opposition to the state in industrial and defence matters. There should be opposition to executive errors – not to the direction itself.
Because 44 billion euros is not a grant. It's a lever. And the lever only works if individual wants to push it.
Prof. Dr. Andrzej Stanisław Targowski
Western Michigan University (Professor Emeritus)
The text was published in the diary PAUza Academica
