It has been an American maxim for many years now: Stop the bad guys over there so we don't have to fight them over here. Poland's leadership has taken that old saw to heart. And to fist.
The news made the front pages all over the world last week, because Poland was doing something the Americans--and the Brits, Germans, French, and all of NATO--would not. Poland is sending fighter jets to Ukraine. The better to help the Ukrainians fend off Vlad the Impaler and his half-regular, half-irregular garage band of soldiers and mercenaries.
Get this: Poland is sending MiGs. Young people in this country will recognize that name from the movies. They are Soviet-era fighter jets that are often featured as the bad guys in theaters. For good reason.
So old Soviet fighter jets are going up against old Soviet fighter jets. That would seem to make sense since an old Soviet country has attacked another old Soviet country. As an Extra Added Bonus, the Ukrainians know how to fly MiGs and probably don't need as much training as they would if they'd received a bunch of F-16s.
Within the next few days, four jets will be shipped from Warsaw to Kyiv, said Polish President Andrzej Duda. Maybe up to a dozen will follow shortly. Which should please Ukraine's president, who has been begging the West for some real fire power in the sky. Only to be told no by western leaders.
According to the papers, the White House "called Poland's move a sovereign decision and lauded the Poles for continuing to 'punch above their weight'" in international matters. Which sounds a little condescending, but we hope the Poles take it as it was intended. The White House might want to lead from behind on such things, but the Poles can't afford to.
The Americans affirmed again last week that our jets aren't going there. The president of the United States doesn't want to provoke Vladimir Putin any more than necessary.
In Putin's War, the newly arriving MiGs probably won't be considered a "game changer," in the unfortunate terminology used by the generals. Because Ukraine already had/has a fleet. Before the war started, the country had several dozen MiGs, which it got from the 1991 divorce from Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. The new MiGs will just provide more fire power and give the Ukrainians more time to defend themselves.
Some divorces are messier than others.
Poland leads in that part of the world. It was the first NATO nation to give Ukraine much-needed Leopard 2 tanks.
There may be a reason that Poland feels the need to arm the Ukrainians. Maybe the Polish feel like they could be next. And why not feel that way, since the Russians have made their own thoughts known?
A man named Ramzan Kadyrov was in the news last month. He's been described as a "key ally" of Comrade Putin and the "Kremlin-appointed leader of Chechnya." He's not a nobody.
And Mr. Kadyrov did indeed tell the world last month that Poland is next.
"What if, after the successful completion [in Ukraine], Russia begins to denazify and demilitarize the next country?" he said. "After all, after Ukraine, Poland is on the map! I will not hide that I personally have such an intention.
"I have repeatedly stated that the fight against Satanism should continue throughout Europe and, first of all, on the territory of Poland."
They've already started with the denazification stuff. About Poland, of all places. And they've upped the ante with some Satanism talk.
The Polish understand: Fight them there, or fight them here. We can't blame them, having used that logic before.