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
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.
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.