'Yesterday the Polish government went even further. The Foreign Secretary Radek Sikorski, said publicly it was not inconceivable for European forces to be deployed into Ukraine. At the same time, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, used extremely war-like rhetoric, when discussing the present reality. The old war was over, a dangerous new one had been born, and European states needed to understand that.
..
..If the French, Poles and Czechs are going one way (and the Finns and Baltics are already there), the Germans remain very much operating under a form of reflexive control.''The issue of sending European forces to help Ukraine was never one to be dismissed—it was always a possibility. In fact it has become more of one as the USA has stepped back and withdrawn aid. Europe is now faced with a terrible dilemma—watching Ukraine potentially run out of ammunition, or stepping in and helping Ukraine more directly.
The real reason the vast majority of people rejected the second option (when its always been a possibility) is because Putin had gotten into their minds with his threats. He kept saying it was inconceivable, and would result in nuclear war, and thus many just seemed to think it was true.
Well its not—and this was the week that many important European states seemed to break free from Russian reflexive control as well. Maybe the two most important were the Czechs and Poles, who only nine days ago were supposedly running away from Macron, started identifying more and more with the position of the French President. Three days ago, the Czech President, Petr Pavel, after meeting with Macron, was supportive of the French President’s move. While saying he did not think Czech “combat” troops would be sent to Ukraine, Pavel actually endorsed Macron’s statement that all options needed to be on the table. Interestingly, he mentioned that European troops might go into Ukraine itself now to do training—something that publicly would have seemed impossible only the week before.
Yesterday the Polish government went even further. The Foreign Secretary Radek Sikorski, said publicly it was not inconceivable for European forces to be deployed into Ukraine. At the same time, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, used extremely war-like rhetoric, when discussing the present reality. The old war was over, a dangerous new one had been born, and European states needed to understand that.
"The times of blissful calm are over. The post-war epoch is gone. We are living in new times, in a pre-war epoch. In fact, for some of our brothers, it is no longer even a pre-war time. It is a full-scale war in its most cruel form. It is not our fault that our daily vocabulary includes, once again, such words as fighting, bombings, rocket attacks, genocide,"What we are hearing, is the breaking of Putin’s attempts to control the narrative—and that is why this might be the week that reflexive control started to end. Returning to Sikorski’s comments, its clear the Polish Foreign Secretary wanted to align Poland with what Macron said, precisely because it was a rejection of the world Putin had made for European leaders. Indeed, Sikorski went so far as to say that western leaders needed to hoist Putin on his own petard, by actually finding ways to escalate the war against him.
"That is why I applaud the recent French initiative. Because, in my opinion, there are good intentions behind it, namely to make the Russian president ask himself what our next step will be, instead of allowing him to be certain that we will not do anything creative and to plan his own scenarios," Sikorski said.
In his opinion, the West should "implement creatively defined and asymmetric escalation".This is therefore an extremely important moment, but of course not everyone can free themselves from living in Putin’s world. If the French, Poles and Czechs are going one way (and the Finns and Baltics are already there), the Germans remain very much operating under a form of reflexive control.
..
..The direction of travel is clear, and it is heading Macron’s way.
And this is so important. It will add uncertainty and worry to Putin calculations. He will see his nuclear threats failing to work and he will have to wonder if Europe might intervene and destroy his calculations. Instead of Ukraine’s supporters running around like chickens with their heads cut off, wondering if they might be pushing Putin so far, he will wonder if he might do something that will result in more direct European support. This is all for the good..
..
Ukrainian mass UAV attackAs this is being written, there were stories of a mass Ukrainian UAV attack (40+ units) against military production targets inside Russia. Its far too early to assess the damage from these, though it looks like there were some fires and explosions in Taganrog and Kursk. At least one report claimed that Ukraine might have been attacking the facility where repairs are made on their dwindling stock of A-50 aircraft.
This is all for the good. I’ve been hearing that Ukraine is making advances in both the number and capabilities of its UAV force, and should soon have the ability to launch more regular attacks of this type. As these are Ukrainian systems, they can also be used to attack targets deep inside Russia (no reflexive control here). Its also heartening to see Ukraine building up reserves to launch such attacks. It shows the signs of being well prepared and executed.
Its early days, but we can probably expect more of these.'
- Prof. Phillips P. O’Brien,
Weekend Update #71: Was this the Week Reflexive Control Broke? March 9, 2024
Context'..Soviet-era concept .. in Russian policy during this war .. is known as reflexive control.'U.S. Warns Russia of ‘Catastrophic Consequences’ if It Uses Nuclear Weapons'What are Ukraine's borders? .. they’re internationally recognized and defined in 1991.' - Navalny