The Poles, the Baltic states, etc. know Russia all too well and have an fear of Russian power that is justified. However, NATO is not some simple fix as current events demonstrate. Central Europe is a region between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, Russian imperial propensities are not appeased. On the other, NATO (vel American) incursion and regime change has provided a pretext for grievance and military action.
The only long term stable geopolitical option for the region is the historic option: a powerful regional state and/or bloc that can simultaneously dampen Russian imperialism as well as "Western" ambition, like this one[0] which is a nascent project that I suspect can lead to a high degree of regional solidarity that will stabilize all of Europe and therefore contribute to the stability of the Eurasian landmass.