Long-term vs. short-term thinking.
Would you rather be colder in the winter for a couple years or live in a warzone and have your family killed and culture destroyed?
Would you rather be colder in the winter for a couple years or live in a warzone and have your family killed and culture destroyed?
1. Party Z invades Country U. 2. Continent C denounces the invasion of U and sanctions Z. 3. Z retaliates against C.
Does an act of retaliation (weaponizing Gas) from Z towards C count a declaration of war? Because if not, who exactly did Russia declare war on? Europe is many things, most prominently a continent and an idea. Was Germany declared war on? If not, is it reasonable to assume that Germany will be declared war on, and if so, which escalations from which involved party would lead to that?
(As always, I don't have strong opinions, just trying to make up my mind on what to expect/how to read the situation)
Not before first weakening and fracturing NATO.
Brexit split England off the EU (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20...). Trump expressed strong doubts about staying in NATO (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/us/politics/nato-presiden...) and was at the very least sympathetic towards Putin at times (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44852812). These are opening salvos.
In many ways the EU and Russia are at War. It's just not a shooting War
I still see people saying Russia cant cut off gas, or demand payments in rubles because some contract doesn't allow it. Those contracts went out the window a long time ago.