Former Polish official: military reform is slow.

• Author: Book, Elizabeth G.
• Position: Washington Pulse

Although Poland was admitted to NATO in 1997, it has been slow to modernize its armed forces, said a former Polish defense official. Radoslaw Sikorski, director of the New Atlantic Initiative at the American Enterprise Institute, in Washington, D.C., was previously deputy defense minister in Poland's first democratically elected government in Poland. At a recent press briefing in Washington, he discussed the need for the countries of the former eastern bloc to invest in weapons systems.

"Ten years ago, we spoke about a fundamental slimming down of the armies, so as to spend more money on equipment, buying modern aircraft for our air force, various other things," he said.

"I'm sorry to say that 10 years on -- in other...