Ukraine will be able to use Danish and Dutch F-16s to strike into Russia, while Belgium is saying only for use in 1991-border Ukraine.
Archived version: https://archive.ph/Iv4Fu
So what happens if some Danish military bases get bombed or a frigate gets sunk with dozens of dead? Does Denmark pull back or call for WWIII?
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.
