Trump’s Oct. 6 decision to withdraw troops from parts of Northern Syria was made in a phone call with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that caught other NATO allies, as well as the Pentagon, by surprise.

That was hard to watch for some in the three small Baltic states and Poland, North Atlantic Treaty Organization members that rely heavily on the U.S. for their security. Trump effectively sidelined his own military to make way for Turkey to attack Kurdish allies of the U.S., who have borne the brunt of the fight against Islamic State in Syria…

“It’s not just Syria, it’s Russia’s return to the G-7, which shows that Trump is ready to make agreements with Putin’s Russia and such agreements will come at the expense of central and eastern Europe,” said Tomasz Siemoniak, Poland’s Defense Minister from 2011 to 2015, and now deputy of the main opposition party, Civic Platform.