this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2023
188 points (96.5% liked)
World News
32375 readers
903 users here now
News from around the world!
Rules:
-
Please only post links to actual news sources, no tabloid sites, etc
-
No NSFW content
-
No hate speech, bigotry, propaganda, etc
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I'm not up to snuff on NATO regulations. As I understand it, if a NATO nation gets attacked, the rest of them are obliged to defend, correct? What happens if that nation is "the aggressor". Like in this situation if Poland were to do a first strike against Belarus or Russia and they respond attacking Poland, is the rest of NATO obliged to help defend Poland?
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.
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.