For a while now, I’ve been advocating that the U.S. military open its ranks to those who are not citizens or permanent residents. Offer a trade, I’ve suggested, of citizenship in return for military service. We would get a lot of high-quality soldiers who would later become high-quality Americans.

I just came back from one country that would seem to be a prime recruiting ground: Poland. Its people are resoundingly pro-American yet aggravated because of the difficulties of getting visas to travel to the United States. Poland is becoming increasingly wealthy but job opportunities are not plentiful, so many young Poles move to Britain and other countries for work. English is a common second language, so linguistic barriers would seem minimal. It’s safe to say that lots of well-educated, well-motivated Poles would jump at the chance to serve in the U.S. armed forces and emigrate to the United States.

In fact, one Polish journalist with whom I spoke said that many young Polish men dream of serving in the U.S. military because it is widely (and correctly) seen as the best in the world. Shouldn’t we give them a chance to make their dreams come true?