Frag Out! Magazine
Issue link: https://fragout.uberflip.com/i/1193118
in the region, and to the potential sce- narios of evolution of those factors. This task is quite difficult when the vague and ever-changing description of mission as- signed to the Polish Navy is taken into account, or when consideration is also given to the broader issue of naval secu- rity in a myriad of strategic documents. Suffice it to say, the 2014 National Se- curity Strategy document adopted by the Polish MOD does not even mention the Navy. "Poland Defense Concept" document released in 2017 states that "The Navy would play a relevant role; its primary mission would be to prepare the defensive activities on the Polish coast and make it impossible for the adversary to gain superiority in the southern part of the Baltic Sea." However, the mission description is only one of the elements of this complicated puzzle. Further com- ponents include strategic interest that Poland may have, directly and indirect- ly related to the sea, and to the ability of using the sea freely for the sake of achieving the relevant goals in the mari- time domain. This pertains, in particular, to possible threats usually associated with hybrid conflicts. The maritime dimension of hybrid threats (and conventional ones likewise) has been frequently underestimated by the Polish authorities. One of the issues that is a subject to frequent omissions is the fact that the Polish harbors handled 87,000,000 tons of cargo just in 2017 (half of which was classified as general cargo). Long term trend has also been visible – the aforesaid quantity is in- creasing. This is not surprising, consider- ing the profile of the Polish economy that is a part of global cooperative networks. For the end user this often goes by unno- ticed. Average consumer usually acquires the end product (such as a smartphone or car), not really thinking about the fact that the individual components of that product are made at different facilities, often located on different continents. These chains of cooperation would re- main impossible to be established with- out maritime logistics. The above is a result of several factors. First, this type of transport is cost-effective. Many troublesome obstacles related to land transport (between Europe and Asia) are simply non-existent in the maritime domain. This seems to be obvious but needs to be stated: any disturbance of those supply chains would translate into a serious eco- nomic crisis. Should the Polish harbors stop handling the cargo, for any reasons, shelves at the shopping malls would be- come empty. Acquisition of goods on the local market would also be impossible, due to the lack of assets that could be al- located to that purpose. These funds are obtained, mostly, through export. This does not refer solely to the state econo- my and state budget. Losing the capacity to participate in global trade, considering the structure of the Polish economy, may translate into return of two-digit unem- ployment rate. To yield control over the Baltic Sea and to make use of the benefits it brings, and to make it impossible for the adversary, warships are a necessity. And here, an argument is often brought up, suggest- ing that Poland does not need or is not able to maintain a fleet consisting of such warships, for instance suggesting that they are too large to operate at the Bal- tic Sea. Numerous hypotheses refer to September 1939, the Cold War period or to examples that remain far more exotic, including the Falklands War. However, all of the aforesaid illustrations are vitiated by a fundamental logical fallacy. Experi- ences associated with a completely dif- ferent period, state of naval technology, and conflicts embedded in a different po- litical context are directly transferred to the recent times. Persons referring to those arguments also assume that de- cades after those events, such as sinking of HMS Sheffield back in 1982, nobody came to conclusions and nobody was try- ing to find solutions. There is also a common myth circulat- ed, in parallel, suggesting that small and fast vessels, such as missile boats, would allegedly be very useful during a modern conflict. People tend to forget the fact that missile boats were built www.fragoutmag.com