Timeline for Is an attack on the leader of a NATO country whilst outside NATO considered an attack on NATO, and thus a trigger to Article 5?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
14 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 16, 2022 at 10:30 | comment | added | wrod | @CGCampbell and if you think I underestimate the level of preparedness or strength of the Russian army, consider the relative strengths of Iraq vs Ukraine. Ukraine has 43mil ppl. Iraq has 39mil ppl. US has lost ~4500 soldiers in 15 years of war of Iraq. Russia lost ~13500 soldiers in 20 DAYS of war in Ukraine. | |
| Mar 16, 2022 at 10:24 | comment | added | wrod | @CGCampbell all of this is theoretical, btw. Given the relative strengths of today's armies, Poland would destroy (rather than simply defeat) the Russian army within a week if only conventional forces are used. The only time Russia has fought a professional army was in Georgia (a country of 3 million people). And they were still evenly matched. Russia's army largely consists of conscripts. They have little utility in operating modern military equipment. All the equipment Russia has is operated by amateurs. Even Russian pilots only appear effective against civilian uprisings. | |
| Mar 16, 2022 at 10:12 | comment | added | wrod | @CGCampbell they will be killed on the spot as soon as they cross the border. Multiple national leaders have made this commitment. Joe Biden has re-iterated the commitment to protect "every inch" of NATO territory every week for the past month. It's also a line from the State of the Union. You can try to get into his head, but speculation is not what we do here. Speculating what would happen if governments ignore all the laws they have and all the treaties they sign is just not the point of this site. | |
| Mar 16, 2022 at 9:13 | comment | added | CGCampbell | My personal belief is that, without truly understanding Putin's/Russia's end-game, the following may occur: Russia, having finished taking over Ukraine and installing a puppet regime, may declare refugee camps in Poland as sources of terrorist forces, and move troops into Poland to "ensure the security of Novo-Ukraine." Then what does NATO do? Yes, the West should come to Poland's aid and blockade the Polish/Ukraine border, but now were still at the MAD-impasse and NATO/EU may decide Eastern Poland is "not worth" ending the world. What then? | |
| Mar 16, 2022 at 9:02 | comment | added | CGCampbell | @wrod On the contrary, it DOES seem to need to be said, redundant or not. Some here, especially after multiple questions all asking a similar form of "if x happens, does that trigger Art. 5?", seem to have a perception that NATO Art 5 is this end-all be-all line that once crossed NATO countries will have no choice but to declare war and attack the aggressing nation, which at the moment is Russia, and thus "triggering" an automatic WW3. The reality is simply that there is no such forced trigger. | |
| Mar 15, 2022 at 23:43 | history | edited | wrod | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 714 characters in body
|
| Mar 15, 2022 at 16:33 | comment | added | wrod | @CGCampbell yes, I could say "the request cannot be denied without, as a consequence, altering the structure of NATO," but it kind of seems redundant to have to add that. Obviously any treaty compliance is voluntary and non-compliance results in effective abandonment of the treaty. | |
| Mar 15, 2022 at 16:28 | comment | added | wrod | @Trilarion that is a good question. But it's a different question. You can ask it in a separate question. I don't know the answer, btw. But I suspect that (for example) getting a nation leader's daughter drunk wouldn't count despite infuriating the said leader. It may very well be that the member nations are simply expected to exercise restraint and good judgement in this matter, but I simply don't know. | |
| Mar 15, 2022 at 16:22 | comment | added | NoDataDumpNoContribution | "But if there is legitimate basis for treating an event as an act of war, the request cannot be denied." This statement seems to be almost empty. Who decides if there is a legitimate basis if not the helping countries themselves. | |
| Mar 15, 2022 at 16:21 | comment | added | CGCampbell | Of course the request can be denied. That would (probably) result, at the least, in the expulsion from NATO, of the non-complying country, and at worst, dissolution of NATO. But a sovereign country is just that. | |
| Mar 15, 2022 at 16:09 | history | edited | wrod | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 311 characters in body
|
| Mar 15, 2022 at 16:06 | comment | added | wrod | @Philipp which is why it would be a choice of the country whose leader was killed. But if they chose to treat it as an act of war, there would be little basis for denying the precedent. | |
| Mar 15, 2022 at 16:04 | comment | added | Philipp♦ | World war 1 was over a hundred years ago, though. That was a very different time. | |
| Mar 15, 2022 at 16:01 | history | answered | wrod | CC BY-SA 4.0 |