Very common but not very thoughtful sentiment. You are missing the frankly obvious point that Russia wants NATO to overreact, giving them the ability to continue internally escalating the conflict, to increase their already strained mobilization effort, et cetera. Do you think Russia somehow forgot about the Turkey situation?

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rwyinuse 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It's also pretty obvious that Russia respects only strength. If NATO doesn't react strongly enough, it is perceived weak by Russia, which increases the likelihood of them trying something against a NATO country.

I don't think shooting down aircraft that severely violate NATO airspace is overreacting. It's what Russia would do to NATO aircraft violating their airspace. I think everything Russia does should be responded with a measure of similar size. Being overly careful with Russia hasn't worked very well at all historically.

	▲	polotics 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Showing strength is also showing restraint. The Russian pilots now know that they owe their life to NATO's restraint, a restraint that they know they cannot expect from their own chain of deluded command. The releasing of this information to the Russian public demonstrates clearly who is what, and how foolish joining the ranks of the man-eating army of the losing side would be.

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8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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throaway95 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Shooting down a plane violating NATO airspace is the correct reaction, not an overreaction.

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throwuxiytayq 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Think about it for a second. Is it really the "correct" reaction when it achieves precisely the outcome wanted by the Russian command? How is this a wise policy?

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frogperson 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Stop defending bullies. Russia will push a d take until someone says no. its just how they operate.

	▲	throwuxiytayq 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		All of you silly internet people keep repeating the "Russia is just a bully" mantra like it's some sort of an important insight. Putin is playing chess while you guys are struggling to comprehend the rules for checkers. If NATO is to successfully defend against Russia, we need to do better than, uhh, whatever this is supposed to be. Since you completely failed to address anything I've said, I direct you back to my messages above. I also highly recommend William Spaniel's excellent analysis on this and related subjects if you care to catch up.

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tim333 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I was thinking that. The most plausible reasoning I've seen for Russia's recent behavior along those lines is Putin is mostly concerned with his personal power and position in Russia.

The Ukraine war doesn't make him look very good in Russia - a lot of dead Russians and burning oil facilities in return for occupying some bombed out land where the people hate them.

If he gets into a low level fight with NATO then he can sell it at home that they are in a noble war with a much larger enemy rather than getting beat up by a small and largely peaceful neighbor they chose to attack.

The strategic option for NATO is probably to mostly ignore Russian planes and drones flying near them but respond by helping Ukraine win.

(Or personally I'd like if they took out Putin but that doesn't seem the done thing. Better to kill a hundred thousand innocents than the guilty one seems to be the thing.)