Neutrality written into the Constitution. Disputes end where the security of the Republic begins

On Saturday, an eight-kilometre column of more than twenty warships passed along Gdańsk Bay under a flypast of naval aviation, and Kościuszko Square and the Tricity beaches filled with spectators as rarely before. In parallel, Warsaw's Wisłostrada hosted the largest parade in the history of the Polish Armed Forces, with the President handing acts of promotion to general and admiral ranks to 21 officers. The Grand Naval Parade meanwhile crowned a week in which the Polish fleet made itself heard as it had not in decades: from Wicher's roll-out, through the christening and launch of the first Miecznik-class frigate, to the celebrations of Polish Armed Forces Day on the 106th anniversary of the Battle of Warsaw. It is a good moment to write down something seemingly obvious and in practice priceless: the Polish Armed Forces carry no political label, and they should never carry one. This is not a matter of anyone's goodwill, but of the foundations on which the state was built.

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15 august 2026   |   17:03   |   Source: Gazeta Morska   |   Prepared by: Kamil Kusier   |   Print

fot. Kamil Kusier / Gazeta Morska

To serve the Republic of Poland faithfully

The soldier's oath opens with words about faithful service to the Republic of Poland - not to a government, a grouping or a camp. The Constitution settles the rest in a single sentence: the Armed Forces shall observe neutrality in political matters and shall be subject to civil and democratic control. The Homeland Defence Act goes a step further and forbids professional soldiers from membership of political parties.

It is worth remembering that the Polish Navy itself is older than Poland's access to the sea: it was established by a decree of the head of state on 28 November 1918, when the Republic did not yet possess a single mile of its own coastline. The fleet was thus born not as any faction's project, but as an act of faith by the entire reborn state that it would return to the Baltic. The uniform carries no party colours so that any citizen can wear it with pride - and so that every citizen can see their own soldier in it.

From Versailles to the wedding at Puck

Poland's road to the sea is itself the best proof that fundamental matters are settled above divisions. At the table of the Paris Peace Conference, Pomerania and access to the Baltic were fought for by Roman Dmowski - a man who differed from Józef Piłsudski in almost everything, and yet on the question of borders and the sea the two pulled in the same direction, and both went down in history as fathers of the same independence. When on 10 February 1920 General Józef Haller cast a platinum ring into the waters of the bay at Puck, he performed Poland's wedding to the sea - not the wedding of any camp. And when a few years later Tadeusz Wenda laid out a port in the fishing village of Gdynia and Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski secured the money to build it, they created a work of which everyone today is equally proud.

For a century, the sea has been the place in Polish history where disputes fall silent. The military that guards that sea deserves exactly the same status.

Karol Nawrocki: We are one nation

The commander-in-chief spoke of the same principle on Warsaw's Wisłostrada on Saturday. President Karol Nawrocki recalled that the victory of 1920 was decided by a strong and united nation which at the time held very different visions of the future, but knew one thing for certain: political disputes end where the security of the Republic begins, and where the Polish soldier begins. He also observed that a falling missile will not ask whether someone votes for one party or another, and that whoever attacks a soldier on the border does not ask about his political preferences.

- Let us not forget that we are one nation, and its security matters more than political disputes - President Karol Nawrocki appealed.

From the perspective of this text, however, the most important part was another declaration: the President assured that as commander-in-chief he sees to it that the current government delivers all the armament contracts undertaken by the previous one, and that he will see to it that the good projects of the current government do not perish in political rivalry after the next elections. It is hard to imagine a more concise definition of what military neutrality means in practice: naval, missile and armour programmes must flow above terms of office, because none of them fits within a single one.

The sea, our sea - we shall guard you faithfully

The words of the old sailors' song capture the nature of this service well: it is quiet, daily and does not wait for applause. The Polish Armed Forces have for years topped the rankings of public trust, and that trust did not come from posters. It came from sandbags stacked during floods. From bomb-disposal teams turning out to unexploded ordnance at any hour, and their naval colleagues neutralising, year after year, the wartime mines still lying on the Baltic seabed. From quick-reaction pilots scrambling to intercepts. From sailors keeping a daily, quiet watch on the Baltic against hybrid threats, the shadow fleet and incidents around critical infrastructure - unnoticed by most of us, because that is precisely what a well-kept watch looks like.

For each of these things, the military is owed a plain, human thank you. For what it has done over the decades, for what it is doing at this very moment - somewhere on a roadstead, at a post, in a duty room, on a gangway - and for what it will keep doing for decades to come.

An ensign, an order and the sea

No one understood this better than the defenders of the Polish coast in September 1939. Rear Admiral Józef Unrug, commander of the defence of the Hel Peninsula, a pre-war officer of three fleets who in captivity demonstratively "forgot" the German language, did not ask his sailors about their views. Nor did the crew of the first Wicher, the destroyer that defended Hel to the end. They had an ensign, an order and the sea - and that stood in for all politics.

Eighty-seven years later, their successors keep watch in incomparably better conditions, but on exactly the same terms. The frigate that floated free on the waters of Gdańsk Bay on Thursday will serve the Republic for at least three decades - outlasting a dozen or more election campaigns and governments whose make-up no one today can guess. The uniform's horizon is simply longer than the horizon of any term of office, and it is that horizon that should set the tone for how we speak about the military.

A salute to the sailors

Now that the parade columns have returned to their anchorages and bases, what remains is what matters most: gratitude. After this week, the soldiers, sailors, pilots and rescuers - and their families, who serve alongside them without wearing the uniform - are owed a simple thank you. No footnotes, no asterisks, no contexts.

Because a military that serves the Republic serves everyone the Republic is made of. And that is exactly how it should stay.

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