Ukraine will be able to use Danish and Dutch F-16s to strike into Russia, while Belgium is saying only for use in 1991-border Ukraine.
Archived version: https://archive.ph/Iv4Fu
Ukraine will be able to use Danish and Dutch F-16s to strike into Russia, while Belgium is saying only for use in 1991-border Ukraine.
Archived version: https://archive.ph/Iv4Fu
The problem with the Danes is that they have been so sheltered for so long that the concept of their actions having consequences simply don’t register any more. Everything is going to be welfare, roast pork and padding ourselves on the back for all eternity, war and disaster and calamity is something they have in “the warm countries”, it will never affect us.
patting*
So what happens if some Danish military bases get bombed or a frigate gets sunk with dozens of dead? Does Denmark pull back or call for WWIII?
Lots of commotion internally in Denmark while the reaction would be decided upon in Washington.
I don’t think Russia wants to retaliate so directly though. As I see it they have very little to gain from taking that bait. More likely acts of retaliation would be plausibly deniable cyber attacks or supporting some proxy in attacking Danish interests abroad. If I was a Danish troop in Iraq, I would be watching my back after this.
I doubt Russia would escalate in that way. If it happens, I’d imagine a “tit for tat” thing happening, where the Nordic countries sink the Russian Baltic Fleet and say that they consider the matter resolved.
When you say nordic countries, you mean sweden, norway, and finland would do a massive escalation, and open themselves up to retaliation? Surely they’d do the calculus and see there’s nothing to gain and a lot to lose? I’ve heard the political situation in the EU was not great, but I expect that kind of hawkishness here on the other side of the planet, not from the countries that actually stand to lose anything.
Well considering both the EU and NATO have articles of mutual defence, they’ve already agreed to it twice (or once, for Norway and Iceland). I’m not sure sinking a ships qualifies as an escalatory response to bombing bases and sinking ships though. At that point the escalation has already happened.
But you don’t understand, if a Russian soldier shoots a NATO soldier, that’s realpolitik, if a NATO soldier shoots back it’s
ESCALATION
It’s not hawkish, it’s the opposite. If there is no retaliation, then that signals that NATO is a joke, and bombing member states is fair game. If we don’t shoot back, we lose our own protection, and we are much, much closer to war.
Nobody wants a precedent where NATO is called into question. Remember when there was a stray Russian missile that went into Poland, and immediately half of NATO leadership was there, and it was quickly swept under a rug? If Poland pulled the trigger there, NATO would have went to war.
The point is, Article 5 is not escalation, it’s the status quo. If someone gets attacked, we all retaliate. Fucking that up would actually be a massive escalation against peace in Europe.
If Article 5 applies to responses from NATO countries bombing foreign soil, then any NATO country could bomb anyone they wanted, and if they fight back, expect the entirety of NATO to attack that country.
Which is how the US operates, but I doubt the rest of NATO wants to back Victor Orban if he decides to relive the heady days of 1940 and bomb Serbia or Erdowan feels like recreating the Ottoman Empire.
Denmark isn’t bombing foreign soil, Ukraine is bombing the country that invaded them. If giving equipment to Ukraine would be equal to joining the war, we’d be at war with China and Iran. We are not.
If Russia bombs Danish military targets, that is an unilateral attack from Russia towards Denmark, and if Denmark decides it wants to call NATO to war, either NATO goes to war, or they effectively dissolve. Which means that at the very least all countries that rely on NATO for their security - the Nordics and the Baltics for sure, Poland and most of Eastern Europe as well - have to go to war as if their own security is threatened, because it effectively is.
Wait Russia invaded Ukraine? Why would they do that? And Ukrainian bombing came second, right, and the invasion first?
Revolution of Dignity
Russo-Ukrainian War
Retaliation is the opposite of hawkish? Are you listening to yourself?
The only reason there is no war between NATO member states and Russia is NATO itself. If a NATO member gets attacked and NATO does not retaliate, NATO ceases to exist. If there is no NATO, there is no defence for the Baltics, no defence for Moldova, no defence for Poland, and no defence against the stated goal of Russia, the finlandization of the whole of Europe.
A policy of retaliation against warmongers is a policy of promoting peace.
Don’t bother arguing with @hexbear, their history books skip the 30s
Nah, Marxist-Leninist analysis of the 30’s is deep and paints an accurate picture of what was actually going down at that time based on material reality instead of… you know, vibes that help prop up the idealist liberal’s flawed worldview. But to the contrary, the NATO sycophants’ history books that just straight make shit up throughout the 20th century have an almost complete amnesia regarding many 21st century and especially recent events leading up to the current situation now. That way, they can just assign motivations willy nilly to the current actors involved, no matter how arbitrary or nonsensical so long as, again, it supports their worldview, as Marvel movie-like it may be, and even as untenable as it is in the face of any actual historical context. Kinda sad.
Not even just the 30s, they argue the same, and use the same tactics as the far right parties. I’m from a country where that shit was everywhere, the weirdest thing that only sticks out is that they repeat certain words in their arguments that have no clear definition, they won’t define either, and their objective is both to hollow that word out by diluting its meaning, and also weaponize it because you can’t easily argue against something with shifting definition.
Just look at how the US right wing uses “woke” and how these people use for example “escalation”. Russia shoots you, it’s explained away as “realpolitik”, and just how things are, but if you dare shoot back, or if you give money to their victims, or if you call out their genocide, that’s
ESCALATION
If you press them on the double standards, you get some genius answer back like “NATO is inherently escalatory”, with no further explanation on why banding together against an aggressor to preserve everyone’s peace is somehow “escalation” while publicly plotting attacks against all your European neighbours, or for example blowing up military bases as shown here is not done, if it’s done by Russia.
I’m not talking to them, I’m talking to you and people like you, because if this shit is pervasive without being challenged, people stop thinking critically and start mainlining the panels.
If I didn’t believe in the pervasiveness of human stupidity (and the GRU), I’d guess tankies are a right wing psyop from the CIA to discredit leftists by putting shit that fascists say in their mouth.
Would love a source for whatever you think this means
The U.S., by far, is the most aggressive country on the planet. You certainly don’t apply this logic to it, and there has not been a single time retaliation against the U.S. has deterred it from future aggression.
Finlandization comes from Dugin, and his book which has so far defined Russian foreign policy objectives. We can argue back and forth whether Putin and his government agrees with those goals, but support for right wing parties across Europe, dividing the US along racist lines, and supporting Brexit speaks to it being true.
The US is not an immediate military threat for Europe. Economic, ideological, maybe, but not military. Russia is. So US bad, yes, but Russia bad too, and Russia is here.