Poland's president, Andrzej Duda, will pay his first official visit to the United States when he meets with President Donald Trump in the White House on Tuesday.  Critics of Poland will argue that the U.S. should hold its ally's feet to the fire over a disturbing pattern of authoritarianism that is at odds with trans-Atlantic values and policies.  Such an approach, while certainly well intentioned, would be a mistake. 

At the top of the list of the Polish government's controversial actions are measures to assert political control over the judiciary, including the forced retirement of one-third of the country's Supreme Court justices. 

Legislation that criminalized statements of Polish complicity in the Holocaust had to be walked back after a concerted international outcry.  Since 2015, the Polish state has acquired control of an estimated 40 percent of the country's banking assets.  Poland, along with Hungary, are leading the way in opposing European Union efforts to accommodate asylum seekers petitioning for refuge on their shores. 

Tempting though it may be, America should not overreact to what some see as an identity-driven nationalist tilt to the far right in Poland.  Just as many American voters have rebelled against the Washington power elites who they perceive as entitled, out of touch and meddlesome, Poles, too, are expressing long-held frustrations with a seemingly self-righteous executive authority in the EU's capital of Brussels. 

Poland is not alone in pushing back against an EU authority seen as seeking to impose its version of sovereignty on an independently minded national electorate.  Significant numbers of citizens in the United Kingdom, Italy, France and Central Europe, while desirous of the economic benefits of integration, resent the strong-armed tactics used by outsiders telling them how to run their countries. 

The leader of Poland's ruling Law and Justice Party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, spoke to this tension ahead of a party conference in early September.  While noting that EU membership was "the shortest way for Poland to achieve parity when it comes to living standards," he went on to say, "But that doesn't mean we should repeat the mistakes of the West and become infected with the social diseases that dominate there….  It's easy to serve the interests of the most powerful.  If you want to serve the society, the nation, it's more difficult." 

America should steer clear of Europe's political disputes and focus instead on the issues that matter to us: security and trade.  Poland is an ally, pure and simple, and it is standing up to Russia as no one else.  Since 2016, Russia has deployed more than 70 military units – including two divisions and three brigades -- on the borders of Norway, Finland, Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.  The ratio of new equipment deployed to these units has risen from 39 percent to 54 percent. 

Poland's former defense minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, clearly laid out the imperative for enhanced cooperation in an essay published in July by The Washington Post: "The security of Europe's northern flank depends on the perception that the United States is prepared to use force here….  I did not sign the agreement for a U.S. missile defense system site on Polish soil because I feared that Iran might attack us.  We do not buy F-16s from Lockheed Martin, airliners from Boeing or missiles from Raytheon because they are necessarily better than European alternatives.  We did all of that because successive Polish leaders are invested in the U.S. security guarantee." 

This logic explains why Poland, unlike most NATO members, meets the alliance's bar of spending 2 percent of its gross domestic product on defense.  It is also why the present government has offered to pay more than $2 billion to cover the costs of deploying a U.S. armored division on its territory, including construction of a permanent base there. 

Poland also looks to the United States to counter the threat of energy dependence on Russia.  By 2022, Poland will be completely free of Russia's energy stranglehold, which currently accounts for two-thirds of its gas imports, by securing alternative supply from Norway, Qatar and the United States. 

Poland and the United States are also cooperating to impede the construction of Nord Stream 2, a Russian project to build an undersea gas pipeline that will double the supply of gas to Germany, which currently depends on Russia for 40 percent of its gas imports.  In the words of Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, Nord Stream 2 represents a "new hybrid weapon" and a "poison pill for European security."  On this subject, Poland and the U.S. see eye to eye: Trump has also accused Germany of "being captive to Russia" over gas imports. 

Poland's economic growth ranks at the top of the EU's 28 member states, expanding at four times the bloc's average.  By 2020, its per capita GDP is projected to be greater than Italy's.  Warsaw is Europe's fastest-growing metropolitan region.