aunuwyn08 said:
I disagree. The collective defense provision of NATO hinges on being attacked. If Poland were to Leroy Jenkins over the border to attack, too many members of NATO would vote against Article 5 invocation.
No one wants to get drug into a nuclear Holocaust because some frontier NATO members decide to YOLO into Russia.
If Russia wants to fracture NATO, they would be smart to do everything they can to antagonize an attack from Poland. That being said, Poland probably could beat them in a conventional engagement with non battlefield support from NATO partners at this point.
Russia's military has cashed in all their Risk card sets this turn, and they're going to be out of meeples by the time they consolidate Ukraine.
Article 5 is explicitly stated to be action AGAINST an armed attack. So Poland going YOLO would not trigger it specifically. It's why several of the members have had wars and conflicts outside of NATO. It's the case of fire only when fired upon. Now, if Poland were to attack and Russia does Russia things and starts blowing up Polish cities... probably a gray area to my knowledge simply because it has never been tested before. Still doubt it would trigger an Article 5 though as Poland would be the original provocateur. But again, it has not been tested to date and who knows how the winds of politics would be blowing at that time and how things are "interpreted".
With that one specific piece of wording out of the way though, there is actually a ton of nuance built into the treaty in how a country can respond. It's actually literally wide open. It is specifically stated that NATO members will "assist" in areas deemed necessary to restore and maintain the North Atlantic. So that leaves an out for the members to act as they will, as long as they are "assisting". IIRC that was actually a big fight when the original treaty was being drawn up, as it was us, America, that wanted leeway to not be drug automatically into a declared war if anything kicked off. It gives us the ability to observe and temper our response accordingly. Net effect of all that is that a NATO nation does not need to go all out warfare, even if an Article 5 is greenlit. They don't even have to fight at all, as long as they can provide aid.
All that to say, if Poland were to attack Russia with nothing else changing geopolitically, I would think an Article 5 is null and void out the gate.
There has been a single time an Article 5 has been greenlit and it was us after 9/11. Many nations subsequently lost lives and billions financially in the ensuing disaster that was the GWOT. So we can hem and haw about NATO (and I do), yet when it was actually needed that one time, we were the beneficiaries of it.
ETA: Ah. Reread your post and realized you were agreeing with me. Mea culpa. Reading is hard. I was responding to your third paragraph and not including everything else you said.
