Russia violated Poland’s airspace early on Sunday with a cruise missile launched at targets in western Ukraine, Poland’s armed forces said.
Russia launched 57 missiles and drones on Ukraine in the early hours, including attacking Kyiv and the western region of Lviv that is near the Polish border.
That would mean WW3, and likely (HOPEFULLY) everybody involved is avoiding that.
I don’t care how the winning chances are for each side, this could desolate half of Europe if gets nuclear.
Countries have the right to control their own airspace, including shooting things in it down, absent treaty commitment otherwise. It’s not a causus belli to do that.
We shot down that spy balloon from China that flew over the US a bit back. China did not declare war on the US.
Now, maybe you’d score political points if you refrain from shooting it down, given that in some cases the violation is maybe accidental or especially if it’s a manned aircraft. But a cruise missile flying a programmed route is probably about as reasonable a target as one could get.
And legally, Russia would have been the one in the wrong, as they don’t have the right to move military forces through a country without that country accepting it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_007 The Soviet Union had used this very argument. Despite the loss of a US House Representative during the incident it did not in fact start WW3
Yeah. Or, say, the Gary Powers shootdown, where we were spying on military sites, and unlike KAL 007, the overflight wasn’t accidental. That’s probably more-analogous to the cruise missile here, because it’s unlikely that Russia inadvertently flew a precision-guided munition a kilometer or two into another country – it shouldn’t have that level of accuracy error.
I’d also add that from Ukraine’s standpoint, while it’s probably not desirable to have cruise missiles coming from another direction, there is one benefit that might accrue from Russia doing this. While there might be infighting in Congress over the Ukraine aid bill, there are no constraints on the Executive Branch over sending US forces in defense of NATO countries. I know that Turkey requested the US have some Patriot batteries stationed over there for some time. So if Russia trying to slip cruise missiles down the Polish border becomes a thing, we can probably allocate resources to it a with a lot less potential for friction.
I wonder exactly what Russia’s goal is with this?
considers
I can think of maybe three possibilities.
First, just having cruise missiles from another direction might make Ukraine’s air defense problems more-complicated.
Second, it might be trying to exploit poor coordination in areas under two different military commands. If Poland doesn’t want to shoot into Ukraine and Ukraine doesn’t want to shoot into Poland, it might be a clever way to leverage that. By flying it right down the border, it might mean that neither Ukraine nor Poland shoots at it, and might be that neither is sharing full information with the other on what exactly is flying around. For information that is shared, it may take longer for the Polish military and Ukrainian military to communicate than it does either to communicate information internally, if it has to go up through some high-level figures…air defense requires pretty rapid response.
Historically, there have sometimes been major military successes by exploiting poor coordination between military forces without unity of command, as they can’t exchange information and react as quickly than if only one were clearly being hit, and don’t have freedom of action in the area of the other’s command. In World War II, the Japanese scored a major victory against the US at the Battle of Savo Island, almost entirely because they had an operation that crossed areas of responsibility of US command that weren’t coordinating well – and that wasn’t even two different countries. MacArthur’s command didn’t know that Nimitz’s command was conducting a major operation that might be put at risk by the Japanese counterattack. Nimitz’s command had the information to understand the risk and import of Japanese movements, but didn’t have the reconaissance information that MacArthur’s command did. While they did share information anyway and could have figured things out given time, that information-sharing became a matter of some hours. Result: Japan was able to have their forces, despite being detected multiple times, conduct a ballsy and extremely-successful surprise counterattack.
And third, maybe if you send cruise missiles right atop the border – or even zig-zagging back and forth between countries – then it creates grounds for political disputes, like if Ukraine shoots at the thing with a SAM and the SAM misses and lands in Poland. Or, even a successful shootdown by Ukraine over Poland might generate political fodder for, say, people like Robert Fico in Slovakia, who has raised concerns about the war expanding to NATO countries. Russia can’t outright create an international incident between the two, but they can create conditions fertile for them, maybe have an information campaign ready-to-go if one does occur.
considers
One option to counter Possibility Two might be creating a no-fly zone spanning the border where Poland and Ukraine agree that the other’s military is free, absent prior warning that something friendly is moving in the area, to knock down anything they see flying down the border corridor.
We’ve also had ISR aircraft, F-35s flying in stealth mode, and tankers refuelling those in the Polish-airspace-bordering-Ukraine over the course of the war, so I kind of assume that there’s already some sort of interchange of information among countries going on.
The fuck are you talking about?
If someone’s lobbing missiles over your territory at someone else, and you say “fucking stop that or I’ll shoot them down”, and it doesn’t stop, and you shoot them down, that’s not escalation to nuclear war. That’s just doing something you said you were going to do.
Walking on eggshells around Russia and Putin is how to lose this war and the one after it. Everyone being too afraid and uncertain to do anything in response is the exact geopolitical geopolitical calculus that Putin is relying on.
Putin an old school KGB hardliner. He worked tightly with the Stasi in East Germany. In an adversarial situation, those types respond to force and threats of force, and that’s it. It’s dismaying how many people simply refuse to understand or believe that.
I see you’re not very smart, so I’ll say it more clearly.
If Poland shoots them down, even after notifying, Russia would very likely retaliate. That would involve all NATO and at that point is open war.
This is not an opinion, nor a justification to let Russia do as they please, it’s just a fact.
Russia has done much worse that. Only Putin knows if this is them pushing their limits or a miscalculation, but if war has to start, I hope it’s not because airspace was breached 39 seconds.
No, it’s not a fact. You can’t just say a thing, suffix it with a statement that “it’s just a fact”, and then just expect everyone to take that at face value. State your sources; make your argument. But I and others are under no obligation to take your word as gospel if we judge it as nonsense. Which at this point, I still do.
The fact that you started off with an ad hominem attack indicates to me that you’re not seriously participating in this discussion, and that you’re likely arguing in bad faith, so you’re definitely not winning any points there.
Not going for points, just trying to make it easy for people with low comprehension skills.
I’ll upvote you as it seems important for you.
I don’t care what you upvote. I’m just trying to point out that you’re being a dick, and the fact that you’re being a dick is diminishing any argument you’re trying to make.
If you want to have an actual discussion, we can do that. But your responses aren’t conducive to a discussion, and when presented with potential counterpoints, you responded with personal attacks and dogmatic, dated, Kissinger-esque “great power” geopolitical calculus (that most policy-makers in the world these days have realized isn’t how the world actually works anymore, if it ever did), which makes me think you’re more interested in trying to “dunk” on someone than actually discussing the situation.
By all means, I encourage you to prove me wrong and actually have a discussion. I enjoy debating the implications of geopolitical issues in our modern world. But you should know that I also enjoy undercutting and pointing out bad-faith arguments… so in the context of this interaction, I’m having fun either way.
I’m sure we could all manage to read 1 or 2 sources and comprehend them in relation to your argument. Don’t feel the need to dumb it down for us morons
🤡
They have piles and piles of red lines others crossed where all they did was bitch. Russia isn’t even issuing a red line here, don’t add one for them.
Russia ain’t going to do shit. Being paralyzed in the face of a bully only encourages them.
Funny, NATO member Turkey shot down a Russian jet, killing a pilot, and nothing fucking happened. That’s an actual fact unlike your opinion masqueraded as fact. Maybe you should look in the mirror before slinging insults.
Shooting down a cruise missile=WW3?
Why, in your estimation, did Turkey, a NATO member state, scrambling F16s to shoot down a Russian SU24 in 2015 trigger absolutely nothing?
A cruise missile is a cruise missile. This was a strategic bomber, with a crew. One of whom was killed. No WW3.