this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2023
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No, NATO doesn't interfere if a member starts a war. It's a defensive treaty. That said, Poland alone wouldn't be able to do much, and democracies rarely openly declare war.
I had a deployment with Polish soldiers. They are a modern and extremely capable defensive force. It would likely turn into the same thing we're seeing in Ukraine (smaller force that is well trained and better supplied vs sending a lot of bodies and old tech). I don't think we'll ever see a Polish led force invading Belarus or Russia without a massive NATO backing and a lot of foreign units already on the way to support them. Defensively, they will fuck you up. Offensively, they don't have the man power to go deep into enemy territory.
The Polish have historical grudges with Russia and are chomping at the bit to hurt some Russians. It is probably NATO that is holding them back from sending units to Ukraine
However what if a NATO country starts a war with Belarus, and then Russia attacks the NATO country?
The NATO country would never have initiated a war with Russia, they would have initiated it with Belarus.
Does a NATO country automatically become vulnerable if they have any wars currently ongoing? Because that would mean Russia could have attacked America during the war in Afghanistan and NATO would not have been able to get involved.
It's probably a case where Russia could attack Poland's forces in Belarus but attacking Polish soil would involve article 5.
The way it works is that the attacked country invokes article 5. If the country does it then other members are obligated to help. If they don't, they are undermining NATO.
Having said that, NATO doesn't specify how countries supposed to respond. It could be something to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoney_War
I think putin sending Wagner to Belarus is indeed thinking to force Belarus to attack Poland or a Baltic states and see what happens. Of course that would be simple, it would be Belarus vs NATO, and would end up quickly.
So he is tipping the scale and saying that attacking Belarus will be also attacking Russia, hoping that it will be ignored like two Russian missiles hitting Poland. If it won't be ignored, then he is just sacrificing Belarus.