alt Hacker NewsRussia is already in a state of armed aggression against Ukraine, and committing sabotage against other countries throughout Europe.
Cooler heads in this case are idiotic heads. It doesn’t take two partners to start a war, it only takes one and Russia already decided.
Someone in the other comments linked an article stating that Europe was doing the “unthinkable” of planning to retaliate and I was agog reading it if true. Not because Europe was going to retaliate but that they hadn’t even come up with plans over the past decade of increasing aggression from Russia.
You don’t have war plans for every crazy situation your analysts and strategists can conceive of because you’re excited to use them. You have them so your state apparatus is prepared and ready to go in an unlikely emergency instead of needing to take the months to years that any large bureaucracy needs to be ready to take action.
That seems to contradict itself? Cooler heads plan carefully; hotheads act out - seek immediate emotional satisfaction without thinking of the consequences.
> It doesn’t take two partners to start a war, it only takes one and Russia already decided.
Wars are not acts, but the conseuqences of long chains - large graphs - of decisions often lasting decades or more. Wars come from situations where there is no other choice.
The main goal of international relations policy is to create optimal scenarios, to not get caught in a situation where you have bad options or no options. Russia's 'grey zone' actions, including of course online propaganda campaigns (seriously, why wouldn't they?), are trying to create the scenarios that suit Russia best. They are preparing the political ground, and warfare is fundamentally politics (the most widely accepted maxim of warfare - see Clausewitz).
For an example, people emotionally and aggressively advocating for warfare, like on this page, if widespread can set the political ground.
It takes two (or more) to get into that position. It's a game of chess - checkmate isn't the result of one move.