Ukraine can speed run through this war by sending one of their shitty rockets over to the Poland border, say Russia did it and trigger NATO Involvement.
Fucking psychopaths
Ukraine can speed run through this war by sending one of their shitty rockets over to the Poland border, say Russia did it and trigger NATO Involvement.
Fucking psychopaths
The ultimate point being to goad Poland into actually committing forces to Ukraine. One MLRS rocket overshoots and its Polish territory or a war plane gets close enough to the "border" to kick off Polish interceptors...
I can't imagine Poland wants a piece of this shit show, even if a rocket or two does come over the border.
I'm positive that few countries leadership want to sacrifice blood or treasure for this.
But just from looking at the blood lust that was instantly inspired (at least in the online and media spaces) in the USA when zero physical attacks have happened on domestic soil, how fast would that ramp up in Poland to the point that politicians would wind up being lead by the frothing masses into retaliating? (I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my brain is just too cynically doomer about all of this.)
Meh. Everyone wants to see the blood but nobody wants to be the blood. The Reddit Volunteers Brigade nipped enthusiasm for that in the bud.
People are shitting on the Russian military for being antiquated and sclerotic. I doubt the Poles kept their military hardware in any better condition. Again, I have no doubt that the media would whip Polish people into a frenzy. But not into a disciplined, experienced, well-equipped fighting force.
Doesn't need to be disciplined, experience, or well equipped. All that needs to happen is one NATO country starting the cascade of "country "X" honoring its NATO agreements so we're mobilizing military support."
Turkey is notorious about invoking article 4. But NATO did not rush into the fray against the Kurds. Or the Greeks for that matter (a weird one, since they were both NATO members).
I think there's a much bigger risk of one or two countries trying to pick a fight, thinking they've got NATO at their backs, only for the cavalry to never arrive. Like, the US might move in to bail Poland out if Russians decided to start nationalizing chunks west of Ukraine's furthest border. But I don't think Biden would come leaping to the defense of some Polish Charge of the Light Brigade into Ukrainian territory, for the same reason he hasn't been eager to back Ukraine directly to begin with.
The US is already spread thin and operating on absurd margins, thanks to privatization turning the Pentagon into a giant corporate piggy bank. I don't know if we could muster at the scale of Iraq again, much less Vietnam or Korea, given the real material limits on skilled labor and advanced electronics. Hell, what would a land war in Europe do to gas prices in the region? People in the UK are already seriously looking at £10/liter petrol.
Imagine doing to Eastern Europe what we did to the Middle East? Nobody in NATO actually wants that.