20461

After all the saber-rattling Putin has done, it is only fair that Poland gets to do some now. The Winged Hussar lives!

Putin should spend the next several weeks terrified of NATO’s response. Now mind you I’ve no idea what the response should be, but Poland urging NATO to blow up Moscow is definitely part of it, even if cooler heads ultimately prevail.

20462

People look at Russia now and see blood in the water. Their military is greatly weakened and their people don’t want to fight. All they seem to have are the nukes.

20463

Halfway joking that there’s going to be a volunteer Polish tank division or two rolling toward Crimea in a day or two.

20464

POLITICO Pentagon Reporter:

20465

The big deal of the Crimean war is that it bookended (with American Civil War on the other end) the introduction of the age of modern rifle infantry. Prior to that is had been pretty much all muskets. Most sides were armed with modern weapons but the officers were trying to run battles with the expectation of age-of-muskets formation fighting. As is always the case when military tactics haven’t caught up with advancements in military technology, a hell of a lot of people died while the officers figured out what they were doing wrong.

20466

Biden trying to get some shit done before Kevin McCarthy (R - Belgorod) takes over.

20467

Sadly, in a way that’s all they need.

20468

I had originally just assumed that this was the usual errant missile incident.

But I’ve now seen a map online claiming to show the electricity grid interconnect between the EU and Ukraine where it crosses the Polish border. It’s an incredible coincidence how close the missile impact was to that line. So maybe not as accidental as I first thought.

20469

Can you post that?

20470

Neither Poland or the EU are currently suggesting it is anything but accidental. We’ll see. But I wouldn’t draw conclusions from internet maps unless the sources are rock solid.

20471

Nor directly on top of the line… but damn close. One town over basically.

20472

Given that the energy grid is exactly what Russia was targeting in today’s barrage, it’s definitely enough to make you go hmmm.

20473

Given it missed anyway it seems much more likely they were aiming for something in Dobrotvirska.

Because now Poland + NATO kind of have to do something to make it clear that they will not tolerate this kind of thing, and whatever it is it will probably be expensive for Russia.

20474

We should expect things to go relatively quiet until tomorrow. From the BBC a few minutes ago:

What will Nato do now?
We reported earlier that Poland was considering whether it needed to activate Nato article four - meaning member states consult on whether the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any member state is threatened.

Dr Jamie Shea, former deputy assistant secretary general for emerging security challenges at Nato, says the organisation’s response to the incident in Poland “is more or less automatic”.

"Poland can of course invoke article four and convene a meeting of Nato ambassadors tomorrow morning.

“But even if they didn’t - and that’s highly unlikely - the Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, given the gravity of situation, would immediately get the Nato ambassadors together.”

He says Nato will be looking to Poland to present all of the facts that it has, which will “hopefully be clearer tomorrow morning in terms of conclusive evidence - that we really are talking about Russian missiles”.

“It will be interesting to see what Poland is asking the allies to do - a display of solidarity is automatic and I’m sure that’s going to be given.”

20475

Since, it is virtually impossible to know what Russia really intended and nobody will get fired for assuming the worse about Putin’s Russia, I think we should assume that is a deliberate attack on the electric grid connecting Poland and Ukraine.

The goal should be to get Putin to publically apologize to Poland, compensate the families, and also to get some tangible benefits for Ukraine.

20476

We certainly don’t want or need a precipitous response, but then, NATO is anything but precipitous so there’s little fear of that really. Best option would probably be a solidifying of support for Ukraine and increased supplies of certain weapons and equipment that would be of use in countering Russian terror attacks.

As much as I would like in many ways to see direct strikes against Russian launch sites I’m pretty sure the game isn’t worth the candle. If you strike at a prince, you must kill him; a half-assed tit for tat response would I think do more harm than good. If you are going to strike at Russian forces directly, do it big.

20477

I’ll get the magical flying unicorns ready for when that definitely happens LOL.

20478

Well, you don’t start negotiations low…
The real goal is to scare Putin and/or his cronies.
Clearly, Poland gets to play bad cop in this scenario, and probably France and maybe Germany get to play good cop, arguing for not doing anything rash. I don’t know what role the US should play.

But in the words of Churchill never let a crisis go to waste.

20479

Doesn’t work for the analogy, but muscle.

20480

I know, and totally agree that’s the thing to do. But I was laughing so hard at the thought of Russia actually apologizing for something. Instead of it being a sober thought, it’s so ludicrous nowadays it shifts into comedy.