The world is in a state of rapid, not gradual, change. The United States is abandoning longstanding commitments and alliances. In a post yesterday, I quoted Viktor Orbán, who, greeting Vladimir Putin in Budapest, said, “We all sense — it’s in the air — that the world is in the process of a substantial realignment.” That was in 2017. Eight years later, the realignment of which Orbán spoke is vivid.

Yesterday, I cited news from Portugal: “Portugal wobbles on buying F-35s because of Trump.” (The headline is from Politico Europe, over this article.) Said the Portuguese defense minister, “We cannot ignore the geopolitical environment in our choices.”

I will now cite a report in the Wall Street Journal, which begins,

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said changes in the geopolitical landscape and a need to secure more defense production in Canada have sparked a review of the country’s planned acquisition of 88 F-35 combat jets from Lockheed Martin.

I should say.

A few hours ago, Reuters published this headline: “Poland and Baltic nations plan to withdraw from landmine convention.” The article tells us,

NATO members Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia plan to withdraw from the Ottawa convention banning anti-personnel landmines due to the military threat from their neighbour Russia, the four countries said on Tuesday.

Quitting the 1997 treaty, which has been ratified or acceded to by more than 160 nations, will allow Poland and the three Baltic countries to start stockpiling and using landmines again.

“Military threats to NATO member states bordering Russia and Belarus have significantly increased,” the countries’ defence ministers said in a joint statement.

“With this decision we are sending a clear message: our countries are prepared and can use every necessary measure to defend our security needs.”

Will there be a NATO, before long? Can the alliance continue without American membership, if the new administration decides to take that step?

Back to the landmine treaty. Some readers will be interested in a little background. In a history of the Nobel Peace Prize, I wrote the following:

In 1997, the committee honored a notable and unusual achievement: the preparation and signing of the Mine Ban Treaty. The signing took place exactly a week before the prize ceremony. It was, and is, a treaty banning “anti-personnel” mines: mines designed to kill or maim people, as distinguished from “anti-tank” mines, which take much more pressure to explode.

Another excerpt:

The Mine Ban Treaty was the handiwork of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and its leader, Jody Williams. They shared the 1997 Nobel prize: the organization and the woman, half the money going to each. Williams was an American, a Vermonter, born in 1950.

A longtime political activist, on the left.

The treaty was signed in Ottawa, which is why it is sometimes called the “Ottawa Treaty” or, as we saw from Reuters, the “Ottawa convention.”

Again, from my book, Peace, They Say:

Who could be against a treaty banning landmines? The United States, for one nation. One of the issues was the demilitarized zone between the two Koreas. As President Clinton explained, about a million mines were planted in that zone, protecting American and South Korean soldiers alike. (I suppose you could argue that a zone with a million mines is not truly demilitarized.) Also, the Pentagon was saying that, without the mines, North Korean forces could overrun Seoul quickly. The DMZ minefields were an indispensable buffer. The United States wanted to join the Mine Ban Treaty and asked for exceptions. The movers behind the treaty said, “No exceptions.”

One more excerpt:

When the 1997 Nobel was announced, the heat was on Clinton to give up his objections and climb aboard. But his spokesman immediately said, “The president is absolutely rock-solid confident” in his position. For her part, Jody Williams said Clinton was “outside the tide of history” and “on the wrong side of humanity” — and, for good measure, a “weenie.”

In my view, the “weenie” got it right. But back to the present: The Baltic states, Poland, and other nations are alert to the danger from Putin’s Russia. They can afford no illusions. For years, the Ukrainians have been engulfed in the violence visited upon them by Russia. And the United States is dramatically changed.

Are we in for a better world? Or a worse one? It seems to me worse — much worse — but we will not have to guess, as the years, even the months or weeks, roll on.