The problem with the Danes is that they have been so sheltered for so long that the concept of their actions having consequences simply don't register any more. Everything is going to be welfare, roast pork and padding ourselves on the back for all eternity, war and disaster and calamity is something they have in "the warm countries", it will never affect us.
Lots of commotion internally in Denmark while the reaction would be decided upon in Washington.
I don't think Russia wants to retaliate so directly though. As I see it they have very little to gain from taking that bait. More likely acts of retaliation would be plausibly deniable cyber attacks or supporting some proxy in attacking Danish interests abroad. If I was a Danish troop in Iraq, I would be watching my back after this.
I doubt Russia would escalate in that way. If it happens, I'd imagine a "tit for tat" thing happening, where the Nordic countries sink the Russian Baltic Fleet and say that they consider the matter resolved.
When you say nordic countries, you mean sweden, norway, and finland would do a massive escalation, and open themselves up to retaliation? Surely they'd do the calculus and see there's nothing to gain and a lot to lose? I've heard the political situation in the EU was not great, but I expect that kind of hawkishness here on the other side of the planet, not from the countries that actually stand to lose anything.
Well considering both the EU and NATO have articles of mutual defence, they've already agreed to it twice (or once, for Norway and Iceland). I'm not sure sinking a ships qualifies as an escalatory response to bombing bases and sinking ships though. At that point the escalation has already happened.
It's not hawkish, it's the opposite. If there is no retaliation, then that signals that NATO is a joke, and bombing member states is fair game. If we don't shoot back, we lose our own protection, and we are much, much closer to war.
Nobody wants a precedent where NATO is called into question. Remember when there was a stray Russian missile that went into Poland, and immediately half of NATO leadership was there, and it was quickly swept under a rug? If Poland pulled the trigger there, NATO would have went to war.
The point is, Article 5 is not escalation, it's the status quo. If someone gets attacked, we all retaliate. Fucking that up would actually be a massive escalation against peace in Europe.
The only reason there is no war between NATO member states and Russia is NATO itself. If a NATO member gets attacked and NATO does not retaliate, NATO ceases to exist. If there is no NATO, there is no defence for the Baltics, no defence for Moldova, no defence for Poland, and no defence against the stated goal of Russia, the finlandization of the whole of Europe.
A policy of retaliation against warmongers is a policy of promoting peace.
the stated goal of Russia, the finlandization of the whole of Europe.
Would love a source for whatever you think this means
A policy of retaliation against warmongers is a policy of promoting peace.
The U.S., by far, is the most aggressive country on the planet. You certainly don't apply this logic to it, and there has not been a single time retaliation against the U.S. has deterred it from future aggression.
Finlandization comes from Dugin, and his book which has so far defined Russian foreign policy objectives. We can argue back and forth whether Putin and his government agrees with those goals, but support for right wing parties across Europe, dividing the US along racist lines, and supporting Brexit speaks to it being true.
The US is not an immediate military threat for Europe. Economic, ideological, maybe, but not military. Russia is. So US bad, yes, but Russia bad too, and Russia is here.
So "Finalndization" (again, whatever you think that means) is not in fact "the stated goal of Russia." You claim (without sourcing) it's from a Russian academic and then acknowledge there's room to speculate how much impact that academic's work has on the Russian government.
The US is not an immediate military threat for Europe.
You're changing the subject. I said:
You do not apply your "retaliation against warmongers" logic against the most aggressive country on the planet. This is because you do not actually believe it; you're just using it to justify fighting an enemy you already wanted to fight.
Retaliation against the most aggressive country on the planet has not deterred it from further warmongering, so your logic is largely disproven, anyway.
All I'm saying that sitting here in Rotterdam, if the Ukrainian bro asks if they can bomb the peeps who said they will nuke Rotterdam, I don't see people here saying no. Nobody here wants to fight anyone, WWII still has some open scars here. But so does MH370.
The US might be a fucktard, but it's not them threatening us militarily currently. And on changing the subject, why are we talking about the US again?
Nah, Marxist-Leninist analysis of the 30's is deep and paints an accurate picture of what was actually going down at that time based on material reality instead of... you know, vibes that help prop up the idealist liberal's flawed worldview. But to the contrary, the NATO sycophants' history books that just straight make shit up throughout the 20th century have an almost complete amnesia regarding many 21st century and especially recent events leading up to the current situation now. That way, they can just assign motivations willy nilly to the current actors involved, no matter how arbitrary or nonsensical so long as, again, it supports their worldview, as Marvel movie-like it may be, and even as untenable as it is in the face of any actual historical context. Kinda sad.
Not even just the 30s, they argue the same, and use the same tactics as the far right parties. I'm from a country where that shit was everywhere, the weirdest thing that only sticks out is that they repeat certain words in their arguments that have no clear definition, they won't define either, and their objective is both to hollow that word out by diluting its meaning, and also weaponize it because you can't easily argue against something with shifting definition.
Just look at how the US right wing uses "woke" and how these people use for example "escalation". Russia shoots you, it's explained away as "realpolitik", and just how things are, but if you dare shoot back, or if you give money to their victims, or if you call out their genocide, that's
ESCALATION
If you press them on the double standards, you get some genius answer back like "NATO is inherently escalatory", with no further explanation on why banding together against an aggressor to preserve everyone's peace is somehow "escalation" while publicly plotting attacks against all your European neighbours, or for example blowing up military bases as shown here is not done, if it's done by Russia.
I'm not talking to them, I'm talking to you and people like you, because if this shit is pervasive without being challenged, people stop thinking critically and start mainlining the panels.
If I didn't believe in the pervasiveness of human stupidity (and the GRU), I'd guess tankies are a right wing psyop from the CIA to discredit leftists by putting shit that fascists say in their mouth.
like "NATO is inherently escalatory", with no further explanation on why banding together against an aggressor to preserve everyone's peace is somehow "escalation" while publicly plotting attacks against all your European neighbours
Operation Gladio (support for Nazis and other far-right groups in Turkey, West Germany, Greece, etc., use of false-flag terrorism and propaganda to rig elections in Italy to prevent the rise of communist countries that would align with the Soviets), Libya (bombing of innocents and destruction of the country, support for racist mercenaries who later brought back the open slave trade), participation in the brutal imperialist bombing of Afghanistan, this is the history of NATO’s “preservation of peace.” NATO is an organization created to maintain Western supremacy, and to act like it’s simply a “defensive alliance” “banding together against an aggressor” is fundamentally dishonest nonsense. Who is not thinking (let alone critically)?
As others in the comments have shown, Angela Merkel already admitted peace agreements were made to stall and arm Ukraine against Russia, so who is “publicly plotting attacks against European neighbors”?
If Article 5 applies to responses from NATO countries bombing foreign soil, then any NATO country could bomb anyone they wanted, and if they fight back, expect the entirety of NATO to attack that country.
Which is how the US operates, but I doubt the rest of NATO wants to back Victor Orban if he decides to relive the heady days of 1940 and bomb Serbia or Erdowan feels like recreating the Ottoman Empire.
Denmark isn't bombing foreign soil, Ukraine is bombing the country that invaded them. If giving equipment to Ukraine would be equal to joining the war, we'd be at war with China and Iran. We are not.
If Russia bombs Danish military targets, that is an unilateral attack from Russia towards Denmark, and if Denmark decides it wants to call NATO to war, either NATO goes to war, or they effectively dissolve. Which means that at the very least all countries that rely on NATO for their security - the Nordics and the Baltics for sure, Poland and most of Eastern Europe as well - have to go to war as if their own security is threatened, because it effectively is.
You can't argue with these NATO shills. They'll just deny history or try to rewrite it in such a way as so as to also deny the current inconvenient reality, move goalpoasts, and accuse anyone with any sense as being on "Putin's payroll." If you use a material analysis of the situation, they screech about how talking about realpolitik is... bad somehow or something? It's a mess. Look at this /u/maynarkh@feddit.nl loser right here in this very thread exemplifying what I'm talking about. They're... equating "wokism" as a term with the concept of "escalation" (simply a thing that any sane person would agree does happen) and saying we use the latter the way chuds use the former. wut? lol. Lost the fucking plot. It's nonsensical.
These kind of people can't be reasoned with. They just regurgitate the propaganda they know, no matter how many times it's been easily and thoroughly debunked. And to claim we're the ones that sound like CIA ops when they're the ones spouting the US state department lines like the good little sycophantic useful idiots that they are and carrying water for open, proud, admitted Nazi fascists while they call us "tankie red fash." The projection is so painfully obvious it's literally embarrassing.
I guess it could be a self defense mechanism for when one knows in the back of their mind that everything they're saying is just pure ahistorical often chauvinist horseshit but they know their worldview would come crashing down if they didn't do everything in their power to keep tilling it and shoveling it, so till it and shovel it they must. Truly, it's... .