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Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

Yes. Not necessarily a nuclear war. A wider conventional war is all too possible.

Poland could easily be drawn into this war by accident. Military supplies are being shipped into Ukraine from Poland and Germany. Soon, from the entire EU. Russian attempts to stop those might spill over the border into Poland, possibly by accident. An air attack overrunning the Polish border and being shot down by the Polish air force could happen very easily.

Poland is a NATO country. An attack on Poland within its borders activates NATO's mutual defense agreement.

Review how WWI started.

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I will note that article 5 states that member states must consider an attack on one as an attack on all. This does not say that member states must respond in kind, only that they must consider it as if it was an attack on themselves. This distinction is extremely meaningful.

Exactly, people are treating NATO like it's some kind of robotic smart contract that cannot be stopped. If an article 5 attack occurs, the USA could (and in the case of some NATO countries, probably would) simply sanction and yell about it and do nothing actual.

Of course, that may shake NATO itself, so the response will vary depending on what happens. Poland invading Lithuania wouldn't cause the US to nuke everything.

I'm not sure that an accidental border incursion would be an "attack" within the meaning of Article 5.

But Russia could deliberately try to attack the supplies while they are on the Polish side of the border. That would be enough to trigger Article 5.

Just adding information as I understand this is hard to follow (especially if you're not from Europe) but there were supplies from many countries delivered already. For example Czech Republic already sent a third shipment of weapons of all kind. Danish government allowed Danish to fight for Ukraine if they choose to. The support is coming from all directions.

I would personally think next ones would be non NATO or non EU countries like Moldova. Then countries that are on Russia's list up high like Lithuania.

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