Originally Posted by
Asturias56
""A little over 30 years ago, few thought the invasion of Kuwait very likely..."
well Iraq had threatened for long enough ' and of course they were right next door ' Russia is someway from the UK.......
I’m not suggesting invasion by Russia and the notion that there is a close parallel is not implicit in what I wrote; to interpret it that way is wrong. I was merely highlighting that things which seem unlikely can happen, particularly when we choose or neglect to see situations through the potential adversary’s eyes.
The fact that Iraq had ‘threatened for long enough’ points to a habituation to the threat and a consequent failure to recognise it was real and imminent in 1990. Sometimes, what seems like sabre rattling is actually more threatening. Sometimes, risks actually materialise, and sometimes the worst case scenario - often conveniently categorised as completely implausible - becomes the reality. Two instances of Russian CBRN terrorism in the UK - and the pre-event plausibility judgements associated with them - speak for themselves.
Post-WW2 history is replete with failures to see surprises that seem a lot more inevitable with hindsight (with due regard to the fact that hindsight is 20/20, etc).
As to Russia‘s proximity to the UK, surely what that means in effect terms depends on the context? Yes, it’s always physically going to be some hundreds of Km away. That would take a lot of time for a ship to traverse, but very much less for an aircraft (or cruise missile). Does Russia feel more proximate when its ships, submarines and aircraft are close to our territory? I’d suggest it does, and we should be clear-eyed about why they are there, and so frequently, and what it tells us about the underlying motivations of the Russian regime. Its primary motivation, regime survival, which it wraps up into the domestic-audience-pleasing recovery of great power status and historic victimhood neurosis, makes for strategic calculus that does not easily align with western risk management thinking.
When we find ourselves asking questions like ‘why would a country like Russia act so obviously against its own economic interests?’ (the sort of thing that sits at the heart of western thinking), we assume that prosperity is more important than, say, national pride. Nope. There are plenty of examples where that assumption has proven wrong in other places in the past. What we see as a rational or irrational choice might appear different to someone else. Add to that the perennial risks of strategic miscalculation (Iraq did not believe an international coalition would form to eject it from Kuwait (and Saudi Arabia - let’s not forget that it seized Al Khafji too)) and things look less certain.
Additionally, when it comes to geographical proximity and claims on the territories of others, we shouldn’t lose sight of Russia being very close to some allies who probably feel Kuwait-esque, and who we are treaty-bound to assist were things to ‘go noisy’...