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Wednesday, November 16, 2022
Russia's Attack on Poland Reveals the Status Quo of the West
Kung Chan

Just not long ago, two Russian missiles hit the territory of Poland, killing two Polish citizens, while photos and videos of the clearly visible huge impact crater have now been spread all over the globe through social media.

Prior to the Russian missile attack, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has recently put forward a series of conditions regarding the prospect of peace negotiations, demanding war compensation and vowing to retake Crimea, among others. While Russia was eager for negotiations as well, these conditions would not be acceptable to the Russian side. Hence, Russia retaliated by firing missiles at Kyiv, two of which hit Poland, a NATO member that is regarded as the backbone of the war.

Now that a NATO member has been bombed with two people being killed, what will NATO and the West do?

NATO was feared in the past, but this is now history. The current NATO of course also includes the governments of the European Union and of the United States, which are government agencies controlled by a group of Western professional politicians. These politicians are characterized by their attitude of treating political work merely as a paid position of employment, much like the regular 9-5-jobs. More often than not, they are being looked down upon by others, even by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Their academic achievements in elite universities might be astounding, but the same thing cannot be said of their actual performance.

The Russian bombing of Poland must have horror-struck them. Things like this, not in their databases nor in their mathematical models, could cause them to be in panic. When such incidents happen, they will have to turn to their superior, and in this case, it would be the U.S. President Joe Biden. However, Biden is not that different from them either.

After the bombing, American National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan must have had some discussions with Biden. Predictably, Biden certainly does not wish to start a war. While Poland puts its trust in the U.S. and NATO, the U.S, would not want to get involved, and perhaps it would just request Polish citizens to remain calm and nothing else.

The same is true for NATO and the EU. Just like the U.S., NATO is run by a group of professional politicians. NATO today is no longer the same organization that did not hesitate to get involved in the Balkan conflicts in the past. Now, it is supported mostly by the U.S., and the politicians behind do not have the determination to cross the Adriatic Sea to actually fight a war like before.

As for the EU, more than anything else, the politicians there would just play with their words. Soon enough, we will see them making statements in front of the media, holding meetings, calling for investigations, expressing their intolerability of the incident, voicing their support, and urging Europe to unite and stay calm. When they urge "to stay calm", the message is directed to Poland. For the EU and NATO, a Poland that counterattacks is more dangerous than a Putin who launches missiles, as this would force Europe and the U.S. to get into the war directly. Hence, it is expected that Poland would be urged to "stay calm" and act "appropriately".

The message implicit in the phrase "to stay calm" is to ask Poland to ignore what had happened, while "to act appropriately" is tantamount to leaving the matter to the future, and if things cannot be settled in the future, then so be it. The war history of the European continent has always been in a cycle of disintegration and integration, and it is now in the disintegration phase. Smaller European countries can no longer hope for the help of bigger powers. If anything, the Baltic countries can only unite to fend for themselves.

Things might not just end like this, but there is nothing much else to be done. Perhaps the United Nations might take some actions, or maybe there would be some sort of retaliative moves, yet so long as nothing is done, the two missiles that bombed Poland would practically spell the end of NATO. The United States might get stronger and more powerful, but the same will not happen to NATO.

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