Comment by flohofwoe
15 days ago
Assuming it was intentional, just trying the waters. Testing what the response is, who actually responds versus who's willing to sweep the incident under the carpet, how hard any response is and how quickly it happens, how much of the internet infrastructure is affected for how long, etc... etc... that's a lot of useful information as preparation for an actual attack.
This is really interesting how you’ve explained it.
In many professional fights the competitors start matches with light, quick jabs to probe their opponents defense.
This feels just like that now that you put it this way. I never connected those dots though.
Maybe it's because I'm Swedish and we've experienced Russia's "probing defenses" tactic for a very long time (mainly "breaking" into Swedish airspace with airplanes, and discovering submarines at the Swedish shores), but I always thought this was common knowledge, always interesting to learn it isn't for everyone :)
I lived in Taiwan for a while and China does this to Taiwan often. Flying planes into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, sailing warships through the strait. It’s portrayed in (US, TW) media as war preparations, but some locals assume it’s all bark with no bite. How are those Russian actions portrayed in Swedish media?
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Not just Russian. Even NATO aircraft were rejected frequently, though not anymore for obvious reasons.
https://youtu.be/Z_EnkvE6LZA
The situation escalated beyond probing, this is tit for tat response for Ukraine getting and launching US tactical missiles. Russia seems to be now aggressively monitoring and raiding the submarine pipes and cables. Blowing up of Nord Stream made Russia go ballistic.
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>This feels just like that now that you put it this way. I never connected those dots though.
Boxers learned from the art of war, not the other way around.
"Probing attacks" are a standard doctrine. It's not always a clear signal of intent to increase hostilities because it's also just useful as an intelligence gathering exercise.
That's very similar to how the "accidental" flights over neighbouring territory works as far as I understand. This happens regularly between many countries. Just far enough to get some response, but not enough to get shot down immediately.
> but not enough to get shot down
Doesn't always work
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Russian_Sukhoi_Su-24_shoo...
Which is the only proper response to unwelcome military aircraft.
> This happens regularly between many countries.
I cannot find any lists (either in English or Swedish) but I remember Russia has been accidentally breaking into Swedish airspace like once a year for as long as I can remember. Submarines also sometimes "accidentally" end up close to Swedish shores.
It'd be interesting to see some total numbers, and compare other countries with how often it happens between Sweden/Russia.