Summary
Germany warns that Russia is rearming faster than expected, replacing war losses and stockpiling tanks, missiles, and drones.
Putin has redirected Russia’s economy to fuel its military, aided by supplies from Iran and North Korea.
While there’s no clear evidence of plans to attack NATO, Russia is creating the conditions for it.
On the Ukraine front, Russian forces are advancing in south Donetsk, nearing strategic town Pokrovsk, a key supply hub and coal mining center.
Analysts suggest Putin aims to seize land before potential peace talks.
NATO is required to come to the defence of any member nation if it is attacked.
On paper, yes. Will they, though?
I don’t think it would matter because if Lithuania is invaded, Estonia, Latvia, Poland and Finland are joining the fight and that’s already a huge war in Europe. Sweden seems ready to defend and if Sweden goes it’s pretty safe to assume Denmark and Norway are going as well.
Then, if Denmark is fighting, the Netherlands are probably going to help and if the Netherlands are at war so it’s Belgium, you see the pattern. So while I don’t think Spain would want to defend Lithuania, they would defend France.
NATO was specifically created to counter a Russian invasion, so it would be kinda weird if it didn’t do the exact thing it was built for.
No they won’t. They’ll yell and saber rattle. Won’t do anything till it reflects them as history has shown.
Yes.
I’m not sure if people know the history of trilateral defense agreements.
Iirc it was the French and English who put their war on hold to fight the Spanish specifically because of a weird defense pact.
Do you mind if I borrow your crystal ball? You seem unusually certain of things most leading experts would call “very likely.”
It would be weird if experts called it very unlikely, very likely is itself a claim of near certainty.
Good to see you back down from your assertion of certainty.
That’s specifically not what I said, try again.
“Will they?”
“Yes.”
Those are words, yes. They do mean what they say, I’m not sure exactly how that’s confusing to you.
This is actually not true.
Article Five states that an attack on one becomes an attack on all. This wording is very specific, and they wrote it with this wording intentionally, to get people to be willing to agree to join.
It does not require counterattacks or declarations of war, merely that you consider an attack on a member an attack on you.
How do people respond to different sorts of attacks? How can they theoretically respond if they so choose? These are the kinds of games being played in Putin’s head.
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_110496.htm
As far as mutual defence treaties go Article 5 is worded very strongly and any nation failing to provide assistance to a member nation would find itself a pariah.
The chances that an article 5 event involving Russia doesn’t trigger full scale war are slim to none.
That’s a key phrase.
Pariah, possibly, but I don’t think a party like the AfD would particularly care about pariah status. I’ll also remind you that Article 5 has been triggered once, by George W Bush after 9/11. He then wanted to invade Iraq, and did not receive the full support of NATO members.
It’s just not that simple, unfortunately.
Yes because Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. You can’t make up an attack on a NATO member and then ask for the article 5 to be invoked.
Surely you see that?
Of course. But the principle remains that if your allies do not want to participate in your military action, they are not required to.
It’s the people in charge of that country that make the decision of how they want to respond to your Article Five invocation, based on their own values and priorities. That freedom of choice is fundamental to NATO.