ANALYSIS OF THE NATO'S SEA DOMAIN SIGNIFICANCE EVOLUTION IN THE CONTEXT OF POLISH SECURITY INTEREST

Abstract

The main goal of the paper is to analyse the significance of the sea domain for NATO operation and to explain what is the importance of that in the context of Polish membership in this organization and the impact on the security interest of the Republic of Poland. In addition, the author will try to present what technological and organizational challenges should be overcome in order to be able to successfully carry out the process of building modern surface combatants in Poland. Therefore, the whole text will be divided into three parts described below.

The purpose of this paper first part is to show the evolution of the significance of the NATO maritime domain in subsequent periods of thereof functioning. The growing importance of NATO's maritime domain, despite all the changes in the security environment, shows that it is very valuable to participate in the Alliance's naval operations. Experience gathered by the Polish Navy and the Ministry of Defence from involvement in NATO naval activities points to a very broad spectrum of benefits from such participation but the scale of this involvement was insufficient due to a number of factors what will by briefly discussed in the second part of this paper together with an analysis of the potential impact of this component on the broadly understood Polish security interest. The third very important part of the paper is to describe and analyse a set of challenges that must be overcome in order for Poland to implement naval shipbuilding undertaking necessary to support Polish maritime security interest and to ensure the ability to participate in NATO maritime activities.