Thread

Starlink ground station in Poland hit by fire in suspected arson attack

183 points · 182 comments · giuliomagnifico

Shank · 1790247119 · focus · HN ↗
It feels like it’s very, very risky territory for these activities to be “occurring” in a NATO country. I’m sure everyone else is thinking the same thing, but at what point does Article 5 get invoked?
1. jwr · 1790247914 · focus · HN ↗
  It's a typical Russian strategy: gradually increase the intensity of operations, while pretending you have nothing to do with it. That is exactly how war in Ukraine began (way back with the first incursions of "little green men").
  What we have been seeing is this gradual escalation. It's like boiling a frog slowly. Each escalation is too small to trigger a significant response, but after a while you suddenly notice that your country is burning.
  I expect more of this in the near future. I wish the world stopped treating Russia as "just another business partner".
  1. vintermann · 1790248586 · focus · HN ↗
    Ukraine is currently striking facilities deep inside Russia.
    Russia could hit back in the same way easily, and to some degree they do. But their problem is that the equivalent weapons factories, refineries etc. often aren't in Ukraine, but in NATO countries supplying Ukraine and giving Ukraine explicit permission to use them against targets inside Russia - until they got that in May 2024, Ukraine understandably did not risk alienating their suppliers by doing that.
    There aren't very many new lines of escalation crossed here. Russia views it as NATOs proxy war against them now - many hawks in the west haven't been shy about describing it as such either.
    nl · 1790249267 · focus · HN ↗
    Countries have always had arms supplied from countries not involved in the conflict.
    It's a significant step to escalate to attacking those countries.
    > Russia views it as NATOs proxy war against them now
    It is an interesting argument to choose to invade a country, act with faux outrage when they find allies willing to supply them with arms and then call it a proxy war.
    Russia got themselves into this mess. They have an easy way to get out of it.
    vintermann · 1790249813 · focus · HN ↗
    > Countries have always had arms supplied from countries not involved in the conflict.
    My country, Norway, had a long-standing policy of not selling weapons to countries at war - yes even to the attacked party - because of the common understanding that would be tantamount to joining the war, and make us the target of reprisals. This prohibition also was a good shield against accusations of war profiteering or proxy warfare.
    That policy which had been standing for 60+ years, was dropped for Ukraine.
    vegardx · 1790262618 · focus · HN ↗
    That’s simply not true and a gross misreprestation of the policy, which is still in place.
    And it not dropped to cater to Ukraine, as it specifically has a carve-out for legal defensive war, which the Russian war of aggression towards Ukraine is.
    vintermann · 1790264258 · focus · HN ↗
    Check snl.no/våpeneksport_fra_Norge, which is more reliable than Wikipedia on this.
    It gives a list of the changes (or "clarifications") to the policy over the years. To the degree there ever was a carve-out for legal defensive war, it was certainly added after Ukraine.
    Actually there were two phases: in 2022 they defend giving weapons to Ukraine in that it was a donation, not a commercial endeavor (that suggests to me that they implicitly admitted, commercial sales would have been against the policy). Then in 2024, they allowed direct commercial sales as well. Of course their defense lawyers will say the policy is still in place, but "realism" again: you can't blame Russia for not being convinced by that.
    vegardx · 1790268568 · focus · HN ↗
    [dead]

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