Poland

Poland: High Military Spending Share Amid Moderate Debt

Poland's GDP was $917.8 billion in 2024, per the World Bank's WDI series, with GDP per capita of $25,104 and a population of 36.6 million. The IMF's World Economic Outlook projects government debt at 65.7 percent of GDP in 2026. Reserves stood at $194.6 billion as of 2025, according to the IMF's International Financial Statistics.

Military Posture

SIPRI's 2025 figures put Polish military expenditure at $46.8 billion, or 4.497 percent of GDP under SIPRI's own GDP series — the highest military-spending share, by a wide margin, among the countries in this batch, and a figure that must not be recomputed against the World Bank's separately sourced 2024 GDP number above. Active personnel totaled 114,000 as of 2022, per COW NMC, with a CINC score of 0.00518 for the same year. The gap between the 2022 personnel count and the 2025 spending figure means the data cannot show whether force size has moved in step with the spending increase.

Governance

V-Dem's 2025 data (v15) scores Poland at 0.768 on electoral democracy and 0.645 on liberal democracy, with a state capacity score of 0.879. The gap between the electoral and liberal democracy scores — wider than in several other countries in this set — is consistent with V-Dem's methodology, which treats liberal democracy as a stricter, rights-inclusive measure, but the dataset gives no narrative explanation for the specific gap.

Energy

Primary energy consumption was 4.05 exajoules in 2024, per Our World in Data. Electricity generation reached 173.26 terawatt-hours in 2025. Gas production was 35.82 terawatt-hours in 2024. The oil production figure of 12.56 terawatt-hours is dated 2016 in the supplied data — nine years old relative to the other 2024-2025 energy figures — and says nothing about Poland's current oil output; it is included here only because no more recent figure was supplied.

Data Gaps

No trade, inflation, or GDP growth figures are present for Poland. The debt figure is a 2026 projection, not a recorded outturn. The oil production figure is materially stale, as noted above, and the personnel and CINC data are three years older than the military-spending and GDP figures they might otherwise be compared against. The combination of high military spending share and moderate debt is notable, but the dataset supplies no deficit or budget-allocation figures that would show how the spending increase has been financed.

Sources: World Bank WDI, IMF WEO, IMF IFS, SIPRI Milex, COW NMC, V-Dem v15, Our World in Data (Energy)