Concerning news of the crashed plane at Smolensk earlier today

[polaris93]

A Tu-154M airliner carrying the heads of the Polish government and military to a commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Katyn Forest Massacre http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8612825.stm. All 96 aboard were killed. The pilot had been repeatedly advised by Smolensk ground control to divert to Moscow or Minsk, but, as unixronin says, this

Comments

[jordan179]

I suspect Putin, for no other reason than that he has murdered his political opponents, including those abroad, before.

[polaris93]

I agree. So does banner.

[jordan179]

Problem is, such an attack only makes sense on Putin's part if he's either

(1) assuming that the Poles are cowards and will be terrified into submission by his murderous action, or

(2) is planning on attacking the Poles within the year.

If neither "1" nor "2" is true, all that happens is that the Poles invest heavily in arms and frontier fortifications and keep their forces on higher alert, and refuse to negotiate with Putin under any circumstances because he just killed the last diplomatic team they sent over. Which weakens rather than strengthens Russia in Eastern Europe.

The scariest possibility is that Putin is assuming condition "1" (cowardly Poland) but is prepared to go to condition "2" (invade Poland) if Poland does not submit. This is scary because Poland is a member of NATO, which means that either we'd be in World War III, or NATO would become a scrap of paper as meaningful as was the League of Nations.

[polaris93]

We definitely live in interesting times, don't we? You know, when Rich and I started writing our series of novels, it was clear to us it was just fiction. Yeah, right . . . It's getting more like that pre-War alternate history every day. If it culminates in something like the limited nuclear Two-Day War (or worse), let's hope that what comes of it is the same as in our series: a desperate push to the stars that actually succeeds.