My favorite geopolitical analyst - George Friedman - is back from a trip to Poland with a column of good insights about Russia hassling Europe via hybrid warfare. Hybrid warfare is an umbrella term for malicious acts that stop short of actual shooting war. Here are some key quotes.
If Russia were to attempt to attack and occupy the European mainland, it would first have to attack, defeat and to a great extent occupy Poland. Poland is thus what West Germany was in the Cold War.
Because Russia does not border Poland, Russian troops are blocked by Ukrainian forces. The only practical way Russia could attack Poland is through Belarus. (snip) However, the buildup of troops and the logistics needed to service them would be readily visible to European and U.S. satellites.
Russia’s only other course of action would be to attack Europe with drones and missiles. (snip) You can damage a country massively with drones, but as the Ukrainians have demonstrated, you cannot defeat and occupy countries with aerial weapons alone.
The Russian strategy, then, is at this point based on psychological warfare, attempting to convince Europe that it is facing catastrophe without triggering a full-scale war it would probably lose. (snip) Even if the rest of Europe were rattled, I do not think the Poles would be rattled. They know by experience what a Russian occupation means.
Russians are supposedly Europeans but their ethos is, in many ways, Central Asian - more brutal and less squeamish than we have become. It's something older Poles remember all too well.
