Don’t Rock The Sinking Ship

Why NATO’s larger members must squash attempts by smaller members to prevent Russian covert operations

Image credit: The Hill

A few days ago Finland — now a NATO member — broke with NATO’s proud tradition of remaining totally supine in the face of constant Russian aggression. Failing to live down to the high standards of larger NATO members like the UK (which sensibly does nothing when its ships and jets are attacked by Russian aircraft) Finland outrageously seized a Russian-controlled ship called the Eagle-S which had spent fifteen days dragging its anchor across the known location of undersea power cables and thereby had accidentally broken an undersea power transmission cable running from Finland to Estonia. This typical accident was merely one instance out of many similar actions conducted by Russian forces over the last couple of years and previously NATO’s highly successful strategy has been to ignore everything in the hope that magically one day it will stop.

Alas, Finland has now irresponsibly violated NATO’s unwritten charter of Do Nothing And Keep Eyes Firmly Shut. NATO is thus faced with a terrible dilemma: should it ignore Finland’s shameless provocation or is it time to let the Finns, along with the trouble-making Baltic nations who also want to take action against peaceful Russian ships and Russian security…