Russia ‘plotting to plant explosives’ on passenger jets to the US
Russia ‘plotting to plant explosives’ on passenger jets to the US
Incendiary devices found at shipping hubs could be Moscow putting pressure on West not to support Ukraine, warn officials
Incendiary devices found at shipping hubs could be Moscow putting pressure on West not to support Ukraine
Yeah, that’s totally how countries react to terrorist attacks.
Yeah, that’s totally how countries react to terrorist attacks.
In the words of a recently departed music star: "We'll put a boot in yer ass, it's the American way"
It's how we've reacted to their aggression so far.
Bullies always assume they're the strong ones and everyone else knows they're secretly really weak in comparison.
We watched for years as the nazis rampaged across Europe, it hurts to watch that again.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17?wprov=sfla1
It’s how we’ve reacted to their aggression so far.
The United States really does not want to get into a direct conflict with Russia. There's no question that we'd win any kind of conventional conflict but the American people have no desire for another land war in Europe. We've been there and done that, twice, and while I think we would support our European cousins for a 3rd go around getting support for it would require that the Europeans commit themselves first.
On a tangent but speaking frankly Europe as a whole needs to plan for dwindling support from the United States. Regardless of who wins the 2024 US elections the voting demographics of the United States are changing fast. There are literally tens of millions of current and near future immigrants from all over the world who will never care about European security as much as the current voters do. Why would they? Why should they?
The average immigrant from Asia or Latin America will not have ancestral ties to Europe and as their impact on US politics grows it's inevitable that US support for European shenanigans will dwindle. As voters they will push the US Government to care far more about what's happening in India, Mexico, Guatemala, Venezuela, and various countries on the African continent.
This is going to happen even if the United States elects nothing but Progressive Politicians for the next 10 election cycles and Europe needs to prepare for it.
That's an act of war.
Also a dick move.
Also potentially a war crime. Aren't civilians and civilian assets supposed to be off-limits?
They don't care. They're not only targeting civilians, they're targeting hospitals, schools, double tapping medical first responders, raping and torturing, executing POWs, they don't give a flying fuck
The secretive weapons were found to be electronic massagers modified with a flammable magnesium-based substance, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.
One source said these incendiary devices do not get caught by traditional security controls
Well, I guess prepare for air security to care more about vibrators than in the past.
Little do they know that we have an impenetrable TSA army that have trained for this very moment, waiting to spring into action!
But in all honesty, I think the odds that Russia would want to bomb US passenger planes is about as likely as a land invasion from North Korea.
I'm not that worried about this.
It wasn't a good idea for Iran back when Iran tried bombing airliners as leverage.
I am even more comfortable saying that it'd be a bad idea for Russia.
Russia could, no doubt, bring down airliners one way or another if it were set on doing so, but:
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I think that it's very questionable that Russia actually benefits from escalation. That will only happen if Russia is (a) being irrational (not impossible, but diplomats can go bang on that), or (b) we've dicked up managing the escalation ladder. Russia doesn't come out on top in pretty much any kind of conflict with NATO, so trying to generate more conflict once Russia hits the "there is a response" threshold, which they are definitely past, seems like a bad idea.
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What's the worst that happens? Maybe a coordinated attack on multiple airliners, kills a few hundred, thousand people, destroys a handful of jets? I mean, sure, that's bad, but it's not that big a deal as interstate conflict goes. Like, if Russia wants to attack in some way, that's a pretty bad way to expend the advantage of surprise.
Maybe the idea could be that an attack couldn't be firmly attributed to Russia, especially if Russian intelligence tries paying people in country to do something, as was the case IIRC with those arson attacks earlier, but then it's at least more-difficult for Russia to use that as leverage. Like, trying to make use of the window where you both have plausible deniability so that the other side doesn't feel like they're on firm enough ground to act and actually feels confident enough that you were responsible to be affected by using it as leverage seems like a very narrow and dangerous place to act.
If it were a fantastic way to conduct interstate conflict, then this sort of thing would be the norm in interstate conflict, and it isn't.
As risky and escalatory as it is, I can at least understand using freight airplanes to deliver incendiary packages to shipping warehouses.
I'm not saying I think it's good, but I can at least piece together the rationale for such actions from Russia.
The same cannot be said for blowing up civilian airliners.
Just from a realpolitik perspective, domestic support for military aid to Ukraine is broadly down across the voting populace in most, if not all, of Ukraine's biggest ($$$$) partners. Eventually that will likely result in the election of candidates who reflect that view.
Want to know the fastest way to not just immediately reverse that, but have 75%+ of the voting populace support radically escalating Western involvement? Blow up one of their civilian airliners.
Shit, blow up a French airliner and I'd say it would be coin flip whether they deploy active duty military ready for combat operations, in theatre, within a month.
Sure, but that was accidental. If they could have avoided that shootdown, they would have, and while I have no doubt that a lot of countries were annoyed by them not paying compensation, they were also aware that Russia wasn't intentionally trying to shoot down an airliner.
If Russia, say, adopted a policy of sending fighters into Poland and firing missiles at any airliners they find in Polish airspace, that's going to garner a more-unpleasant response.
Downing a civilian aircraft with a SAM battery, or MANPAD, near an active conflict, is galaxies apart from planting explosives on civilian airliners.
And I don't mean legally speaking, although it is, I mean they aren't even in the same universe when talking about blowback, politics, military responses, threat management, PR, escalation ladders, etc.
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you mean all those nuclear missiles pointed at us on a hair trigger for the last 60 years were just their way of saying i love you?
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/23/world/europe/russias-sarmat-missile-test.html
They can't shoot them.
The old ones, designed by ukrainians in the ussr, have expired, and the new ones are more likely to nuke Russia than anyone else.
They have a busted flush, hence all the attempts to scare us into giving them all of Europe.
No, but it goes both ways. They have missiles aimed at us. We have missiles aimed at them. They probably aren't gonna be better off if they use theirs. As long as we structure stuff such that escalation from them is disadvantageous to them, and as long as they're acting rationally, they're incentivized to not act, whether in smaller things like bombing airliners or larger things like the missiles.