The LWP's reputation suffered due to its role in political suppression both domestically and abroad, such as during the Prague Spring.

Following the fall of communism, Poland shifted towards Western military standards, joining NATO in 1999, participating in missions in Iraq and Afghanistan and undertaking substantial modernization of its forces.

According to SIPRI, Poland spent $31.6 billion on its defense budget in 2023, ranking 14th in the world in terms of military expenditures.

[7] Pursuant to the national security strategy of Poland, the supreme strategic goal of Poland's military forces is to ensure favourable and secure conditions for the realization of national interests by eliminating external and internal threats, reducing risks, rightly assessing undertaken challenges, and ably using existing opportunities.

The Congress Poland, being part of the Russian Empire with a certain degree of autonomy, had a separate Polish army in the years 1815–1830, which was disbanded after the unsuccessful November Uprising.

During World War I, the Polish Legions were set up in Galicia, the southern part of Poland under Austrian occupation.

General Józef Haller, the commander of the Second Brigade of the Polish Legion, switched sides in late 1917, and via Murmansk took part of his troops to France, where he created the Blue Army.

Until the fall of communism, the army's prestige under communist rule continued to fall, as it was used by the government to resettle ethnic minorities immediately after the war (Operation Vistula), and to violently suppress opposition several times, during the 1956 Poznań protests, the 1970 Polish protests, and during martial law in Poland in 1981–1983.

Following the subsequent disbandment of the Warsaw Pact, Poland was admitted into NATO on 12 March 1999 and the Polish armed forces began a major reorganization effort in order to conform to the new western standards.

From 2003 to 2008, Polish military forces commanded the Multinational Division (MND-CS) located in the South-Central Occupation Zone of Iraq.

As of 2008, Poland had deployed 985 personnel in eight separarate UN peacekeeping operations (the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force, MINURSO, MONUC, UNOCI, UNIFIL, UNMEE, UNMIK, UNMIL, and UNOMIG).

On 10 April 2010, a Polish Air Force Tu-154M crashed near Smolensk, Russia while in transit to a ceremony commemorating the Katyn massacre.

Prompted in part by the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Homeland Defence Act was unanimously passed by the Polish parliament on March 17, 2022 and signed into law by President Duda the following day.

In accordance with the act, Poland intends to roughly double the size of the armed forces to 300,000 personnel, and to spend at least 3% of GDP on defence budget in 2023.

[16] Significant military equipment acquisitions are also planned for through the 2022 period, with the Ministry of Defense outlying 61 billion złoty to be spent on further modernization.