How do you (especially Europeans) understand this move from Russia? Can it really sustain a war against us? Does it want to break NATO by proving the US won't move?
Have you heard about accelerationism? This is an ideology of influential far right wing politicians and activists. They want to introduce as much world instability as they can, to break any existing structures where they a the losers. Then they hope when everything goes to hell, they will be the first to pick up the biggest pieces for themselves. This is Putin's real aim and this is why Trump is so baffled this whole year, he is giving Putin a victory and a way to exit the war one time after another and Putin rejects it repeatedly. This is because winning this war is not Putin's aim. His aim is total chaos in Europe, dissolution of the EU and NATO, and then he will pick up eastern scraps to form USSR 2.0. This is why trading thousand men for thousand square meters is acceptable to him. Wellbeing of humans or economy is a secondary thought to him.
I am not sure what European "leaders" expected. Many of them support Ukraine militarily in the war, so yes, EU is in fact in war with Russia, through Ukraine as a proxy.
I oppose the military support to Ukraine. I think it's responsibility of the stronger party, here NATO, to seek deescalation. I also disapprove that the military support for Ukraine was decided undemocratically, without any consideration whether this might escalate into a war. And here we are...
Besides the fact this fear mongering is very useful in this timeline to pass laws violating people's privacy and strengthening state surveillance, the only one winning is whoever is selling the weapons, hmmm who could it be?!
If only they started spending more on defense 10 years ago when they were being called on to do so instead of pretending Brexit and anti-immigrant sentiments were their biggest enemy rather than Russian energy dependence.
That’s some far fetched piece (based on what is above the paywall).
For jets argument you must first understand where Kaliningrad is: something akin to Alaska for US — open the map to see
what European countries are invariably in between.
Even if they crossed momentarily the air border (though there was no objective visual proof from either side, which is why the story died), supersonic jet is not like crusing at 20 mph: if you sway for several seconds you can easily graze some border. It is unprofessional but not impossible.
As for a few drones: the key word is undentified.
Yet the piece is titled: Europe is under Russian Attack. Meh
The drone sightings is a mix of Russian ops, and copycat actors. The jets that violate airspace, are probably a mix of intentional close flying, under the plausible deniability that navigation jamming in the area causes them to cross into neighboring airspace.
In the case of Russian aggression, it is to create more tension. Why on earth would Russia want to escalate this, you might ask? Well, now that pretty much every country west of their border is a NATO member, a Russian attack on NATO would likely trigger article 5.
If Russia can provoke any NATO countries to attack first by, say, downing some airplane of theirs (fighter jets, recon, strategic bombers, etc.), they can use this as casus belli, and use it as propaganda. One thing Russia learned after 2022 was that any larger scale mobilization is incredibly unpopular. They can't mobilize millions of soldiers without any real cause, and march into the west. If they can sell the idea (with "proof") that NATO is actively attacking Russia, that's another thing.
They're probably also banking on the fact that the heightened situation will scare people in the west, which in turn will make them vote for isolationist parties that don't want to commit. One thing is to talk about war, another thing is to actually see the writings on the wall.
I don't think European NATO members can do much other than to just keep reinforcing and fortifying their borders, build up their armed forces as if Russia will invade tomorrow, and dig in. And keep hammering Russia with sanctions.
The imperialist dreams of Russia is the expand into the ex-Soviet countries. They've tried election meddling, which worked to some degree, but I think they know that to achieve their goals, they need some larger conflict to happen - so that they can annex the desired areas when peace talks come up.
Regarding the "why" of Russian drone/air shenanigans: I don't think Russia wants to get their expensive assets shot down or provoke a NATO-wide war. Many people seem to believe this but it presumes far too much. They don't gain from more fronts. They cannot realistically march into the west, they can't even march into west Ukraine.
Realistically, Russia is doing these antics to force as many European countries as possible to feel that they need their air defense inventory (eg MIM-104 Patriot interceptor stock) for themselves, rather than giving or selling that inventory to Ukraine. That has immediate material benefit for the current Russian war effort with almost zero cost (assuming EU countries don't shoot down anything important).
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[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 49.9 ms ] threadhttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Munich_speech_of_Vladim...
It’s not like there was any warning signs…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17
Bullies exploit weaknesses. Time to grow a pair.
https://energyandcleanair.org/financing-putins-war/
The first step when finding yourself in a hole is to stop digging.
Well, this won't end well for Russia. Germany is one of the biggest industrial producers in the world.
I oppose the military support to Ukraine. I think it's responsibility of the stronger party, here NATO, to seek deescalation. I also disapprove that the military support for Ukraine was decided undemocratically, without any consideration whether this might escalate into a war. And here we are...
This sort of rhetorics leads nowhere useful.
Is there some reason European citizens should go to war to satisfy the desires of _political_ scientists - a dubious category at best?
Or to put it another way - why don't the political scientists at these American organizations put on their fighting gear and go fight in Ukraine?
For jets argument you must first understand where Kaliningrad is: something akin to Alaska for US — open the map to see what European countries are invariably in between.
Even if they crossed momentarily the air border (though there was no objective visual proof from either side, which is why the story died), supersonic jet is not like crusing at 20 mph: if you sway for several seconds you can easily graze some border. It is unprofessional but not impossible.
As for a few drones: the key word is undentified.
Yet the piece is titled: Europe is under Russian Attack. Meh
The drone sightings is a mix of Russian ops, and copycat actors. The jets that violate airspace, are probably a mix of intentional close flying, under the plausible deniability that navigation jamming in the area causes them to cross into neighboring airspace.
In the case of Russian aggression, it is to create more tension. Why on earth would Russia want to escalate this, you might ask? Well, now that pretty much every country west of their border is a NATO member, a Russian attack on NATO would likely trigger article 5.
If Russia can provoke any NATO countries to attack first by, say, downing some airplane of theirs (fighter jets, recon, strategic bombers, etc.), they can use this as casus belli, and use it as propaganda. One thing Russia learned after 2022 was that any larger scale mobilization is incredibly unpopular. They can't mobilize millions of soldiers without any real cause, and march into the west. If they can sell the idea (with "proof") that NATO is actively attacking Russia, that's another thing.
They're probably also banking on the fact that the heightened situation will scare people in the west, which in turn will make them vote for isolationist parties that don't want to commit. One thing is to talk about war, another thing is to actually see the writings on the wall.
I don't think European NATO members can do much other than to just keep reinforcing and fortifying their borders, build up their armed forces as if Russia will invade tomorrow, and dig in. And keep hammering Russia with sanctions.
The imperialist dreams of Russia is the expand into the ex-Soviet countries. They've tried election meddling, which worked to some degree, but I think they know that to achieve their goals, they need some larger conflict to happen - so that they can annex the desired areas when peace talks come up.
Realistically, Russia is doing these antics to force as many European countries as possible to feel that they need their air defense inventory (eg MIM-104 Patriot interceptor stock) for themselves, rather than giving or selling that inventory to Ukraine. That has immediate material benefit for the current Russian war effort with almost zero cost (assuming EU countries don't shoot down anything important).
>Europe’s Emerging Plan: Give Ukraine $200 Billion in Russian Money https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/europes-emerging-plan-give-...