Unlike the rest of Europe, Poland has been spending 5% of its gross national product on defense, re-arming (largely with state of the art weapons systems obtained from S. Korea), and doubling the size of its army. It takes the threat posed by Russia very seriously.
In a purely conventional war, Poland could handle Russia, at least for a time.
In crucial military technologies, Russia is the world’s leader. For example, on December 23rd, South Front headlined “KINZHAL HYPERSONIC MISSILE PROVED TO BE UNSTOPPABLE IN UKRAINE: RUSSIAN MILITARY CHIEF”, and it’s no mere brag by Russia; it is true. (Such missiles would be unstoppable in any nation.) Furthermore, on November 14th, I headlined “U.S. GAO Finds Failure Is the Norm in U.S. Military Aircrafts”. That’s what happens when the military manufacturers serve their investors instead of the public. On June 17th, U.S. military expert Alex Vershinin headlined at the UK’s Royal United Services Institute, “The Return of Industrial Warfare”, about how inferior America is militarily as compared to Russia, and he argued — without mentioning or even showing any awareness of it — that America’s replacing industrialization (the manufacturing economy) with financialization (the financial-services economy) had done this (hollowed-out America’s military).
I would argue more specifically that the resultant intense corruptness in America’s military has done this. The U.S. ‘Defense’ Department is the ONLY federal Department that can’t be audited. Its opportunities for graft are unlimited (or else are limited only by the value of the dollar, which would mean that the dollar’s international value is bound to crash and collapse some day, as having been the ultimate Ponzi scheme). In fact, trillions of dollars in spending by the Pentagon simply cannot be traced. Nobody knows, or can find out, where it went. However, already on 3 June 2016, America’s National Interest magazine had headlined “Russia vs. America: A Nuclear Bomber Showdown: Who wins?” and answered that Russia was way ahead and would likely remain so: “the situation is not going to change in the foreseeable perspective — each step of the parties is followed by a quick response. Thus, as long as the United States develops its antimissile defense, Russia is going to develop ICBMs and warheads likely to penetrate this antimissile defense. The only beneficiaries in such a situation are weapons manufacturers.”
And, as things have turned out, even Russia’s antimissile defense systems are superior to America’s. However, to America’s rulers — its billionaires — their net worth is more important, and their system is very successful at increasing that.
Another reason why Russia gets far higher bang for each military buck spent is that whereas America’s military is designed to expand the American empire throughout the world, Russia’s is designed to protect the nation’s sovereign independence and to ward-off America’s constant (ever since 1945) aim to turn Russia into yet another U.S. ‘ally’ (vassal-nation). Whereas America’s billionaires drive America’s military for increasing their empire, the Russian population drive Russia’s military for the nation’s protection and very survival.