[hyko]

Wars have started over less than this.

How long the democratic nations of Europe permit an autocratic regime in their bosom is an open question…if I was Belarus I’d keep my fucking head down.

The thing about a destabilised world order is that it works both ways.

[vbezhenar]

Belarus is backed by Russia. Russia is strong enough to make any attempt of invading Belarus to cost a lot of lives. And invading Russia itself is out of question because of nuclear response. That's how I see that geopolitical situation. War is very unlikely in my opinion.

[iso1631]

> War is very unlikely in my opinion

Which is a good thing, War rarely turns out well.

An appropiate reaction would be to stop overflights of Belarus - which both eliminates the risk of Belarus forcing down civilian planes, and reduces Belarussian income

[tomjen3]

We don't need to invade Belarus, we just need to, for example, level the airports in the country, something that Russia can't do much against.

Not to mention that Russia is no doing very well themselves.

[dandanua]

Waiting when those dictators with nuclear weapons will lose their mind completely can cost even more lives.

[arcturus17]

There is country devolving into an autocratic regime within the EU (Hungary), and the EU doesn’t seem to be doing much about it.

[pteraspidomorph]

There are two, Hungary and Poland, and they have each other's back. EU laws weren't designed to be resilient against two failing countries at the same time, so everything would have to be rethought, and we're notoriously slow and bureaucratic. I'm sure the pandemic didn't help either.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/16/eu-hungary-vet...

[pms]

If you think that Belarus is close to being as autocratic as Hungary (it isn't) and then you think that Hungary is nearly as autocratic as Poland (which is far from the truth as well), then it's time that you learn more about these countries.

Belarus is probably as autocratic as Russia. Hungary significantly less so. Poland is significantly less autocratic than Hungary.

As a Pole, I don't support the current Polish government, but putting Belarus, Hungary, and Poland into one basket simply feels wrong.

[V-2]

It's patently ridiculous, especially taking the context into consideration (persecution of opposition).

[throwaway21_]

> The thing about a destabilised world order is that it works both ways.

Maybe it took 30 years to become obvious to you but at least you got it - sadly that happened only when you ended being on a receiving end.

[tim333]

>How long the democratic nations of Europe permit an autocratic regime in their bosom...

There have been autocratic regimes in the region throughout recorded history. It's the "democratic nations of Europe" bit which is novel. I guess gentle pressure will be applied and hopefully when Lukashenko and Putin die or otherwise go we'll get someone more reasonable.