This September in Europe was a tense month of military posturing and preparations. Sweden recently began a three-week war game, its largest since the Cold War. Even as it did so, across the Baltic Sea, Russian and Belarusian forces concluded the Zapad military exercises – which NATO officials called “serious preparations for a big war”.
Major war games such as these bring a risk of real conflict. But neither the Russian invasion that Russia’s neighbours fear, nor the NATO incursion implicit in the Zapad scenario, are likely events. Our research on conflict escalation suggests that the US, Russia and Europe should worry about a far riskier contingency: what if a separate crisis emerged at the same time that large numbers of troops and equipment are already deployed in the region?
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WNU Editor: It would actually take a lot to trigger a war between Russia and NATO. An accident .... a cyber shutdown .... even the shooting down of an aircraft would not be enough. Mind you .... shooting down an aircraft would heighten tensions to an unprecedented degree. What would trigger a war is a coordinated attack that has been OK'd by a government in NATO and/or by NATO as a whole .... and on the other side an attack ordered by Moscow. Another event that could trigger a war would be something like this (where one side believes that they are being attacked) .... In Order For U.S. Missile Defense To Work Against North Korean Missiles, The Interceptions Will Need To Occur Over Russia.