Comment by Shank
3 hours ago
It feels like it’s very, very risky territory for these activities to be “occurring” in a NATO country. I’m sure everyone else is thinking the same thing, but at what point does Article 5 get invoked?
3 hours ago
It feels like it’s very, very risky territory for these activities to be “occurring” in a NATO country. I’m sure everyone else is thinking the same thing, but at what point does Article 5 get invoked?
Undermining article 5 is the goal, so NATO needs to figure out how to invoke it gradually.
One thought is to pretend to not know that it's Russia, and invoke it against an "unidentified adversary".
Nobody actually wants to invoke Article 5. The European countries talk a lot, but they don't actually want to do anything serious.
Macron famously said that he would "have to send troops to Odesa" and yet 3 years later there are still no French troops in Ukraine and Russia has captured even more territory and is now actively bombarding Kyiv.
The reality is that, despite their public statements and posture, every leader in the EU secretly hopes USA can broker a peace deal and this all just kinda goes away.
> The reality is that, despite their public statements and posture, every leader in the EU secretly hopes USA can broker a peace deal and this all just kinda goes away.
100% agree.
> The reality is that, despite their public statements and posture, every leader in the EU secretly hopes USA can broker a peace deal and this all just kinda goes away.
This might've been the reality three years ago. A lot has changed in the US in the last three years.
Nobody wants to invoke article 5, I do agree. But I think they might understand that it's more likely that A5 is invoked than the US brokers a peace to with anybody. They're the department of war now.
This isn’t new though, and Russia has conveniently provided the west with exactly the avenue to respond. Just further increase support to Ukraine, and make it clear that further sabotage and really anything unfortunate that happens will result in even greater support.
In fact, Russia should be investing heavily in ensuring that nobody else goes asymmetric against NATO countries.
Most of the west is already helping Ukraine as much as we can within the current budgets (which have already increased a lot over a few years ago - the "peace dividend went away).
Anything more means countries go to war time funding of some sort. Would you accept if the law made buying or working on video games illegal for the duration - that is everybody currently making a video game now has to switch to working on something military related.
I just pulled the above example out of my head randomly, there are plenty of other "non-essential" jobs that could switch to making bombs, shells, tanks, airplanes... (either manufacturing or engineering).
My understanding is that increasingly “adversaries” who may or may not be Russia simply pay local gangs/thugs/idiots to do it. If you don’t appreciate the risk of being caught, I’d imagine these things are not that hard to pull off. While risk is low for the country of origin.
> My understanding is that increasingly “adversaries” who may or may not be Russia simply pay local gangs/thugs/idiots to do it.
Yes, and the playbook extends to some anti-war orgs throughout Europe who play the role of useful idiots by advocating things such as a) pressure your government to stop supporting Ukraine, b) force Ukraine to capitulate and agree to Russia's demands. They do so under the guise of "no to war, yes to peaceful negotiation" but the way they neglect Ukraine's best interests and push Russia's maximalist agenda is pretty telling.
And the West can and does return the favor. Perhaps Poland should fund the destruction of some Siberian pipeline pump stations? Article 5 against Russia is not going to get consensus anyway, so making it formal just increases the risk of escalation.
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Aside from the question "will Art. 5 be triggered" there is the question "what happens if it is triggered?"
The article only states that an attack on one is an attack on all. Further reactions aren't spelled out. It can go from "yeah, we recognize it, have a nice day" to "let's send nukes" That ambiguity has some value as the idea was that it discourages any offensives as reactions were unpredictable.
But Russia is testing the limits. They did it in Ukraine, where there were some "green men" strolling arouns in eastern Ukraine, which then lead to occupation of Crimea which all didn't lead to much of a reaction, so they escalated further till full scale invasion.
In parallel we see those things in NATO/EU territories. One could start at murdering Georgians in Berlin's Tiergarten park, planes accidentally entering Polish air space, drones near airports or military facilities ... always testing the reaction. Mostly actions which don't warrant forceful reactions, while testing how quickly the escalation spiral is turning.
Ukraine was never in NATO. Ukraine was getting closer and closer to NATO and there was reason to suspect they might join in a few years, but that hadn't happened (and there were a few things wrong in Ukraine that NATO was quietly demanding Ukraine fix first)
Let's cut to the chase here: the root problem is now a critical mass of the population simply won't believe the government blame for virtually any incident since false flags are now such a widely recognized concept.
The Nord Stream incident being a fine example.
Induction has always been a poor way of thinking
What?
Russia was widely blamed for blowing up the Nord Stream pipe. You would get your comments removed from here if you said otherwise. Then it turns out they didn't do it. Oooops.
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they are probably referring to NordStream likely being done by Ukrainians, when the primary suspect was Russia for a long time as they could now claim force majeure to get out of delivery contracts in Germany.
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> The Nord Stream incident being a fine example.
If you know something the world doesn't know, you'd better get cracking at updating the Wikipedia article documenting the issue.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Stream_pipelines_sabotage
> but at what point does Article 5 get invoked
Article 5 doesn't mean what most people think it means... it's literally "we might help, somehow, somewhen, if we feel like it, in whatever way we want, maybe, maybe just by publishing an official warning to not do it again 'or else'"
> This assistance may or may not involve the use of armed force, and can include any action that Allies deem necessary to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.
Article 4 (formal consultation) is far more likely, and using that as a way of doing an "article 5 light" after consultation as a warning shot.
> ...but at what point does Article 5 get invoked
Probably not as likely as you think.
First, these things intentionally fall short of clear "armed attacks" and are designed around plausible deniability.
Second, Europe/NATO are not looking for a fight. Russia is in a bad spot right now, but NATO is not in a great spot for a kinetic conflict with Russia either.
Lastly, I don't think NATO countries are eager to test America's willingness to defend Europe under the Trump administration because they already know the likely answer when they call for help.
The last one is the strongest one. Our prior allies know they just can't count on us at all, when it comes to Russia, especially.
It is a sad state of affairs.
On the flip side, when your allies know they can count on you you stuff like them picking stupid fights because they know you'll back them up. Israel dragging us further into Iran during the first ~third of the conflict when the US was trying to find a clean place to stop the escalation is a pretty good example of that.
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After the 9/11 attacks, NATO did invoke Article 5 for the first and only time in its history.
When Israel starts bombing Turkey with US made weapons, NATO may invoke Article 5 again but I doubt the US will do anything.
That’s exactly the issue. If Putin provokes a measured reaction it’s a win, if NATO does nothing it’s also a win
The defender is fundamentally at a disadvantage with all or nothing clauses like article 5
Every hybrid attack will increase spending towards Ukraine.
So hybrid attacks are incentivised for someone else besides Russia.
Europe could respond without invoking article 5 though, so it's not really "all or nothing".
That's why USA is bombing Iran without everyone else bombing Iran. Article 5 hasn't been invoked.
It's a typical Russian strategy: gradually increase the intensity of operations, while pretending you have nothing to do with it. That is exactly how war in Ukraine began (way back with the first incursions of "little green men").
What we have been seeing is this gradual escalation. It's like boiling a frog slowly. Each escalation is too small to trigger a significant response, but after a while you suddenly notice that your country is burning.
I expect more of this in the near future. I wish the world stopped treating Russia as "just another business partner".
I am pretty sure every bigger German company has active sales team waiting for the end of the sanctions to fly on the same day to Moscow and continue/start new business. Construction materials, cars&trucks, oil refinery equipment, new deeper bunkers… everything is needed in russia. The west doesn’t see an enemy. Enemy of freedom, free speech and free thinking. Freedom to be a gay or autistic person in public. Euros and dollars matter though.
How are the Russians going to pay us though? Their economy is in shambles, Europe is busy divesting itself from fossil fuels, and their foreign currency/gold reserves are dwindling fast. And Russia as a whole will need to pay serious reparations.
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Ukraine is currently striking facilities deep inside Russia.
Russia could hit back in the same way easily, and to some degree they do. But their problem is that the equivalent weapons factories, refineries etc. often aren't in Ukraine, but in NATO countries supplying Ukraine and giving Ukraine explicit permission to use them against targets inside Russia - until they got that in May 2024, Ukraine understandably did not risk alienating their suppliers by doing that.
There aren't very many new lines of escalation crossed here. Russia views it as NATOs proxy war against them now - many hawks in the west haven't been shy about describing it as such either.
Countries have always had arms supplied from countries not involved in the conflict.
It's a significant step to escalate to attacking those countries.
> Russia views it as NATOs proxy war against them now
It is an interesting argument to choose to invade a country, act with faux outrage when they find allies willing to supply them with arms and then call it a proxy war.
Russia got themselves into this mess. They have an easy way to get out of it.
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And it is in a way. Ukraine is practically fighting on behalf of East European NATO states against Russian imperialism. NATO’s eastern flank is not immediately threatened only because Russia’s curbstomp invasion turned into a war of attrition.
GTFO, Russian propagandist. If Russia dislikes the state of affairs there's a reallyyy easy solution: don't invade other countries baselessly. "NATO's proxy war" is a really funny way to describe the Russian war of aggression.
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I'm very curious about the downvoting here, which looks suspicious. I do realize that what I wrote might not be popular with a certain country (and its online trolling teams), but it is factually correct.
Unlikely given that disposable cutout agents or useful idiots are used.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unrestricted_Warfare or hybrid warfare is designed to avoid full military action. But the tit for tat escalation in kind can lead to real war.
It would be interesting to see graphs of how similarly "unprovable" sabotage actions have developed in Russia over the past few years. I doubt we'd ever see accurate reporting out of Russia, but it seems like an obvious thing to do for both Ukrainian intelligence and also for the wider West. It's also be likely to be underreported on because neither the perpetrator nor the victim gains all that much from reporting these kind of things.
>it seems like an obvious thing to do for both Ukrainian intelligence
Yes it must be obvious for Ukraine to use people who are already in Russia to help with local sabotage. It could be as as crude as putting rocks on a rail line or as simple as floating toy balloons across a strategic installation until the local Russian defenses get tired of the false alarms, stop paying attention and don't see an incoming drone.
It's surprising that there are apparently no strong claims of this from either side, but especially from the Russian side. I don't agree that Russia has nothing to gain from arresting people for such activities. Wouldn't it deter others?
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I see it as obvious that the Nord Stream pipeline was not blown up without US permission at the very least. (And the media's insistence that it was probably Russia which blew up their own pipeline convinced me beyond doubt that they see loyalty to the war effort as trumping any obligation to the truth). Of course there are going to be sabotage actions the other way too.
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Sounds very like what happened in London a couple of years back:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c04g5x1wq5vo
Trump considers the EU to be his enemy and Putin is a master of salami tactics [1] so the answer is ”Probably never”
[1] https://youtu.be/yg-UqIIvang
Is it? I think the comical Euro response to the Nordstream sabotage showed what a joke the continent is.
We're nowhere near it. Article 5 is armed conflict between nuclear armed nations.
No one wants to go near that because everyone will reliably die.
There is absolutely no reason why triggering article 5 will end with nuclear annihilation, MAD doctrine remains in effect.
huh?
what exactly do you think is going to happen if article 5 gets invoked? did America's current Special Military Operation not make it clear that missiles alone don't win wars, and that there's fuck all you can do when the other side yeets their missiles at you in return?
also, a friendly reminder that all willing parties are free to go fight Russia right now. https://ildu.mil.gov.ua/
> did America's current Special Military Operation not make it clear that missiles alone don't win wars
not really. The operation accomplished all the goals: it removed the current leadership of Iran. Of course the results where completely predictable: meet the new leadership - same as the old one (often just the children of the old). Lets not pretend that it didn't get the intended results. It just got some other unintended results as well (which were mostly predictable)
There are limits to what war can accomplish. Depending on how you fight the war you can get different long term results.
It will lead to a gradual escalation, probably air spaces closed over Kaliningrad, Belarus and Ukraine for Russian planes and army mobilization towards the eastern flank of NATO in the first steps.
Sufficient assistance can be given to the Ukrainians without deploying troops to the battlefield so that the Russians are pushed out completely. Losing Crimea would be Putin's death knell.
Maybe like destruction of Russian military command structure sparing just the silo based nuclear force?
NATO does not need to win a war. They just need to hurt Russia bad enough Ukraine wins.
Invoking Article 5 and winning a war are entirely separate operations.
In terms of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weinberger_Doctrine if article 5 was invoked, one could set much clearer victory conditions - chase Russia back into Russia. Maybe arrest Putin war crimes or something.
It would still be extremely unpleasant, painful and expensive, of course; winning an exchange of blows still means taking a load of punches to the face. So the true winner would be China.
>did America's current Special Military Operation not make it clear that missiles alone don't win wars, and that there's fuck all you can do when the other side yeets their missiles at you in return?
Neither Putin nor his associates are religious fanatics happy to die for their cause, they're just money-loving strongmen. If faced with real danger they'd much rather do whatever they could to avoid dying, not risk being martyred.
Putin has backed himself into a corner. He has tied too much of his credibility to Ukraine, in turn if he loses Ukraine it is highly likely to loses his life in some "accident". He is smart enough to know that and so will double down as long as possible. Since his life is in danger anyway he has no reason to hesitate about using nuclear weapons if it looks like he is losing.
so in your educated opinion Putin will do nothing when NATO attacks Russia directly?