POLAND TELLS THE KREMLIN –AND NATO– IT’S PREPARED TO FIGHT:

In late July, the Trump administration announced that the U.S. Army’s V Corps headquarters would be reactivated and permanently stationed in Poland. The Kremlin, its Twitter bots and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s propaganda twits objected. Chinese Communist Party flacks likely hissed (if so, I missed it).

Reactions throughout still-free Europe were either quiet nods of agreement or reserved acceptance. These reactions reflect strategic reality. (1): Putin’s nuclear-armed Russia is an expansionist threat that requires military deterrence. (2): Russia has demonstrated its military and political threat overtly and covertly from the Scandinavian arctic south through the Baltic States to the Black Sea and Mediterranean Sea.

Check the map — Poland is the lynchpin of NATO’s current eastern flank.

It’s my latest Creators Syndicate column.

FROM 2015, A VERY RELATED COLUMN: Confessions of a NATO Trip Wire: Why Poles and Balts Want U.S. Trip Wire Forces.