While the Trump Administration migrates from treating Russia as adversary to viewing it as a partner, Poland makes its choice crystal clear. Central Europe’s heavyweight is building the largest NATO army in Europe. It is investing billions in new arms. Plus it is leading a regional move to build a 1,500-mile long border belt of anti-personnel mines from the Arctic to the Black Sea.

“Poland’s hands cannot be tied,” Deputy Prime Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz told reporters last week of the decision by Poland and the three Baltic nations to withdraw from the 1997 Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel mines. Finland is expected to follow within months. Poland’s $2.5 billion, 500-mile long “East Shield” is to be the keystone of this north-south arch of land against Russia and its satellite Belarus.