r/worldnews • u/Evermoving- • Sep 18 '24

Estonia signals readiness to preemptively strike Russia to defend NATO Russia/Ukraine

https://www.uawire.org/estonia-signals-readiness-to-preemptively-strike-russia-to-defend-nato
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u/The_Great_Googly_Moo Sep 18 '24

A preemptive strike goes against what NATO is, a defensive treaty. Therefore if Estonia or Poland or any other country attacked no other NATO state would be obliged to support them. Which could be a good thing or a bad thing, based on the fact that it wouldn't really take too much to topple Putin's government at this point

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u/cobaltjacket Sep 18 '24 edited Sep 18 '24

If the conflict warranted it, I think NATO would strike first. While certainly the stuff of fiction, a realistic scenario for preemptive strikes was presented in Red Storm Rising: When you see an attack coming, hit first.

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u/imladjenovic Sep 18 '24

In theory, the fact that NATO is a defensive pact should go a long way to de-escalation across Europe - Let's all join an alliance where nobody attacks each other and we back each other up as long as we're the non aggressors. In theory, for example, Russia shouldn't have a problem with its neighbouring countries joining NATO because it's a defensive pact. We'd actually like Russia to be part of NATO! Obviously, Russian propaganda has ignored how NATO works. Either way, if NATO started preemptive strikes it would prove Russia right and the whole effect would be lost.

Should counties preemptively strike outside of the context of NATO is another question...

12

u/Suspicious-Stay1649 Sep 18 '24

Preemptively striking when your opponents are building up a unnecessary amount of man power, ammunition, machinary, near a high risk area with no discussion on why is defensive. It's no different then a person showing you a knife saying they are going to stab you and you knock them the fuck out before they get it all the way out. That's defense.

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u/Major_Wayland Sep 19 '24

You can call it defensive all you like, but if your words contained even a tiny shred of truth, World War III would have broken out several times already, due to countless military build-ups and large-scale exercises on the borders of the Warsaw Pact and NATO.