> foreign intelligence services gave them a button push so it's not a direct cyber war on Russia
meanwhile, russian intelligence services have already directly attacked nato countries, with barely any real deniability.
meanwhile, russian intelligence services have already directly attacked nato countries, with barely any real deniability.
Or lets start talk like adults and talk about current situation and how nations behave now. russia is the definition of evil of these days. I know US government focuses heavily on china for whatever reasons (I guess because its obvious they are #2 and moving up, russia is barely in top 10 in actual capabilities if we ignore nukes and and since they threatened to use them at least 100x in past few years we can safely ignore them for usual conflicts).
Don't hate the messenger, this is how they behave and have painted themselves consistently, heck they are even proud of it in typical russian redneck style if you follow their media a bit.
> Wars aren't, and really never have been, won by blowing stuff up.
That's a huge simplification. Blowing stuff up in a strategic way can certainly help win a war.
And losing public support for an effort via an embarassing disaster can just as certainly lose it, which was my point.
Yes yes yes, blow stuff up. Take territory, shoot people, yada yada. At some point that has to happen for a "war" to be a "war". But at the end of the day the winner is essentially always predetermined by economics and politics. Making deployment decisions in the absence of those considerations is generally how one loses wars.
Bulgaria: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/01/arms-dealer-10...
Poland: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/12/poland-to-clos...
And UK.
Plus a million cyberattacks against all sorts of infrastructure.
Now, predictably upon being told that it happens you pivot to NATO is useless.
Which is it: a set of attacks so obscure no reasonable person would be aware, or a horrendous onslaught where Article 5 should have been invoked and a mass retaliation begun?
NATO countries historically didn't invoke Article 5 even for terrorist attacks killing their own citizens. It takes a certain level before it makes sense to invoke, normally something beyond the capacity of that country to handle.
In other words, and following Eastern-European logic (which, trust me, helps in cases like this one, I'm from Eastern Europe myself), had Russia really attacked any NATO countries you and me both wouldn't be in here having this conversation over the internet.
Is there a threshold anywhere in the NATO treaty that I'm unaware of?
This was already answered but to be clear: ”doing something” and ”invoking article 5” is like the difference between saying ”asshole” in traffic vs rallying your friends to murder the driver’s family.
One could argue NATO countries should respond stronger to hybrid and clandestine warfare. Right now, we see a lot of ”angry letters”. But, it’s not clear eye for an eye is a strategically sound response, partly because it legitimizes the methods, and partly because it escalates tensions towards a war that nobody wants. Israel for instance takes an entirely different stance, basically retaliating with maximum force to deter the enemy (similar to punching the ”school bully” so hard, just once, that he stops). I don’t claim to be a diplomatic expert, but it’s worth noting that Israel is currently engaged in several major wars and conflicts, and tensions have grown.
The only time Article 5 has been invoked was when terrorists attacked America in 9/11.
And a lot of non-NATO countries offered support too, including Ukraine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participants_in_Operation_Endu...
The Russian military is already being destroyed in Ukraine (and even in Russia). The proportionate response is to give Ukraine everything they need to destroy Russia in a war that Russia chose to start. A war that they opened with a surprise invasion, no less. They are unambiguously the aggressor in their war in Ukraine and they should be defeated there, and we should give Ukraine everything they need to do that.
Russian and Ukrainian militaries are being destroyed, but it also matters how fast they are being rebuilt. As mentioned above, Russia and Ukraine are debugging all their outdated military doctrines. The survivors will have a lot of hard-won experience.
the west would not want russia to be that survivor.
They are very intentionally doing things that would not justify a full military retaliation by NATO.
Tell that to the very pro-Western political leaders here in Eastern Europe, they won't take that well at all.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackerangriffe_auf_den_Deutsch...