Not really. Not yet. I live here and its not yet ready. Perhaps a central european alliance of countries from Finland and estonia down through Latvia, Lithuania, poland, Hungary, czechia, Slovakia through to Romania and Bulgaria as a third entity between western europe and rossiyai
I did say potential.
The reason Poland-Ukraine is significant is that together they would cut the European peninsula off from Russia.
As to whether the handful of lesser countries amount to anything: As it is, these small nations - realizing that they couldn’t defend themselves anyway - have almost no militaries at all. No tanks. No modern warplanes. Excuse me, the Slovak Rep. has 17 T-72s and 6 MIG-29s.
NATO requires member nations to spend 1 percent of GDP on defense, which most of them cheat. This leaves a weak alliance, unable to defend itself. Even if the member nations spent something like the U.S. percent of GDP on defense, only the frontline members would care much about a Russian attack.
We could theorize about reforming NATO so it becomes as asset rather than a liability to the free world. But, in the meantime, helping Poland and Ukraine develop their potential and also developing the infrastructure to move oil and gas from North America to Europe, would give us leverage in bargaining with Putin.