English Outsider: Why Europe’s Provocation Of Russia Is Likely To Fail

by English Outsider

lifted from a comment
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“My prognosis and I hope I’m wrong: EU will find ways to send drones/missiles into Russia until they get Russia to react in the same way. A Russian missile hitting a German factory, say, is a *good* event for Brussels. I believe they have the intention and the tools to achieve that.”
Posted by: Konami | Jul 1 2026 8:35 utc | 317

Yes.  They need some more “unprovoked Russian aggression”.  Then the European populations will get behind Cold War II.   We’ll have to tighten our belts to pay for it but will do so willingly given the “Russian menace”.  Who cares about potholes when the enemy is in plain view?

Can’t see it working.  The Russians have too many options, military and economic.  This is not 2022.

It’s true that up until early ’22 the Russians  had a range of options as well as a reply to NATO aggression.  They could have used economic levers or diplomatic.  Or they could just have waited it out: both the USA and Germany, the only significant players in the West, were going downhill fast and were plagued with internal problems.

So there was no need for the SMO.  No need for military action as a response to NATO aggression.  Leave it a while, let Putin and Lavrov hold the fort with the diplomatic stuff, and the problem of NATO aggression would sort itself out.  Except – the Kiev forces were mustering on the LoC and there were no economic or diplomatic options open to the Russians that would ward of that threat.  Only direct and forceful military action would serve.

So in 2022 we had succeeded in narrowing down  the range of options open to the Russians to one.   Use of overt military force.  Not only had we forced the Russians to that one option of the use of military force.   Once the Russians had resorted to military force a battery of sanctions could be imposed to bring them to their knees.

But that’s not going to work again and the Western powers are foolish to expect it to.  We should be aware of the reasons for that.

First, we forget what a shock the Russian military action in 2022 was.  The Russians had virtually no international diplomatic support for that military action and very many within Russian itself were appalled.  It took a couple of years for that to change.   Today, in 2026, if the Russians respond forcefully to the current provocations, most of the non-Western countries will know why and although they may be too scared of the West to actively support the Russians, there are none I think that will now be actively opposed.   When it comes to world opinion the position is therefore quite different from the position in 2022.

That’s important to the Russians.   It’s the non-Western countries they want good trading relations with, not us.  The fight for hearts and minds, the “information war”,  has been comprehensively won by the West within the West.  Not outside the West.

Worth a digression here, to look at quite how comprehensively the West has won the information war as far as we Westerners are concerned.  There are a few isolated bubbles of dissidence like “b’s” blog and similar blogs in the States but for most in the West, the Russians are the baddies and such opposition to fighting them as there is does not spring from any conviction the Russians are in the right.  Merely from the pragmatic consideration that though we’re in the right, we’re losing.

There is little noble moral conviction in the West behind popular opposition to the war.  Merely the recognition that in fighting the Russians we’re not harming them as much as harming ourselves.   Weidel or Wagenknecht do not say publicly, and dare not say, “We’re in the wrong.  We should recognise that and mend fences”.  They say only “We cannot afford this war and it’s harming us.”

Though to be fair I’ve heard La Fontaine hinting at the first position.  But do such as he have any traction in current German politics?  You’re the expert on German politics but to this outsider, it doesn’t seem that he does.  We have to recognise that the Merz/von der Leyen position is more morally consistent than Weidel’s.  Given that Merz and von der Leyen assert the Russians are 100% in the wrong, what else can we do but resist the Russians with all the means we have and no matter the cost?

That digression’s important because until we in the West do recognise that this war was forced on the Russians by us, that it’s the Russians who are in the right and we in the wrong, there is no moral basis to opposition to it.    But it’s not important outside the West.   As far as they’re concerned we’re a bunch of rogues and as far as they dare – though they don’t dare very much in most cases – they support the Russians in trying to hold us in check.

That was not how they felt in 2022.  So the difference between 2022 and now is that back then we were the winners in the information war.  In 2026, and outside the West, we’re now the all time losers.  That was how non-Western opinion was swinging well before Gaza and Iran and of course, after Gaza and Iran it’s case closed for I think all non-Western countries.  We are now indisputably the baddies.

The second consideration is the economic.  In 2022, and for all but a few oddballs and dissidents, we looked to be set fair to bring Russian to it’s knees with sanctions.  Don’t need any lengthy  digressions to see the change there.  The  Russian economy still has a few wobbly bits but in general, the sanctions have enabled them to strengthen their economy to a degree unimaginable in 2022.  In 2026  it’s us the sanctions war is hitting.  Hard.

Hence our attacking Russia with drones and missiles to, as you say, attempt to force a response.  That’s the West’s Hail Mary.  But this is not 2022.   Then, the Russian options were narrowed down to one and they had no choice but to take that option.  Today, they have an entire menu of  options in response to NATO aggression and no need to worry about what their new trading partners think of it all.   Unless we’re in the Hamish de Bretton-Gordon camp and still hope to bring Russia to it’s knees (and even that camp knows they’re punching air)  all we can do is sit and wait, to see which option the Russians choose.

…………………………

My money’s not on the Karaganov option.  More on what we can call here on “b’s” site the JR-L option.  Ukraine is penetrated through and through with Russian Intel.  It has an underground resistance just waiting for the word.  Popular dissatisfaction with the Kiev regime is gathering force.  And even a couple of years ago there were local regime officials wanting to mend fences with the Russians before it was too late.

Kiev is not Berlin 1945, holding fast until the very last days in the bunker.   More like Kabul 2021.   If that Kabul scenario evolves much further, the West’s Hail Mary will be a damp squib.  There will be no proxy territory to launch drones and missiles from.

Posted by b on July 1, 2026 at 15:01 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2026/07/english-outsider-why-europes-provocation-of-russia-is-likely-to-fail.html