[yanmaani]

No. They are not at war "in all but name". War is a brutal thing, involving the deaths of thousands of young men. The EU is not by any stretch at war with Russia, nominally or otherwise.

The entire point of a free country is that people can handle the information. If not, why even bother?

[paxys]

Who do you think is supplying Ukraine with the weapons that are causing half these deaths? Who is feeding them real-time intelligence? The Russian economy is crippled by EU sanctions. Their foreign reserves are frozen. Russian planes cannot fly into EU airspace. Russian oligarchs are having their assets seized across Europe. Diplomats are being expelled on both sides.

These are not the actions between neutral, peaceful countries, but a full-fledged proxy war.

[yanmaani]

Europe, Europe, and Europe. But it isn't actually a war. A war is a horrible, brutal thing. Wikipedia tells us:

> War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, aggression, destruction, and mortality, using regular or irregular military forces.

When you describe what the rest of us would call 'poor relations' as war, it raises the question of what you call it when thousands are drafted and brutally slaughtered. If this also is to be called 'war', then it raises the question: if you're already at war with them, what difference does it make if you decide to draft a few million young men and send them over there? Or for that matter a few strategic offensive weapons (colloquially known as nukes)?

Alternatively, you may contend that what everyone else calls "war" you call, let's say, "war 2". But in that case, your definition is unique to you, and is not terribly useful for communicating with other people.

[notafraudster]

This is a tiresome distraction; okay, so by your definition of war, this kind of proxy war doesn't count. Fair enough, your definition of war is reasonable. We'll call the state between Europe and Russia "war prime" or whatever, since apparently no one disagrees with the actual state of affairs, just what to call it. Now we're back to the initial exchange, which was:

Person A: Why ban Russian state media? Europe and Russia are not at war. Person B: No, but they are at "war prime", which has some properties of war, including banning enemy propaganda.

Did creating the extra word to split the hair help resolve that conversation? It doesn't really feel like it to me. It seems like what most people would prefer the conversation be about is whether or not it makes sense to ban enemy propaganda in a state of "war prime" (or war, for that matter).

[delusional]

I think Europe has pretty clearly shown (by their actions) that they are mobilizing the machinery of war. They don't have (many) people currently in harms way, we are content letting Ukrainians fight it out for now, but the machine is humming.

The machine of war isn't monolithic, and what you're seeing is that certain parts of it (like shutting down opposing propaganda) can be started without other parts (like literal fighting) being needed.

[pixl97]

The terms cold war and proxy war have been around for a long time and are understood very well.

[MrDresden]

> War is a brutal thing, involving the deaths of thousands of young men.

Just want to point out that most EU millitaries, along with the Ukranians and the US have women as well. So there is death all around, no matter the sex.

[The_rationalist]

That is extremely misleading, men suffer from intense misandrism. Ukrainians men are forced to stay captive in their cities to fight while ukrainian women are allowed to save their lives and flee the city, because they own a vagina.

[marmarama]

No, women are allowed to leave Ukraine because, for the most part, they are responsible for raising the next generation of Ukrainians. The number one long-term job of any society is ultimately to raise the next generation. If you don't do that, the society doesn't exist in one or two generations' time.

What you consider misandry is in fact a feminist issue. Women often don't choose a life of childcare; it's something that can be forced upon them, because if they don't do it, no-one else will. Men get to choose whether to get involved. If the share of childcare was more equal, then there wouldn't be a reason to restrict leaving the country on a gendered basis.

[simongray]

Just guessing, but maybe you're in the US so it feels a little bit different to you...? This is what's it's like now in Denmark:

- We literally have 1 hour and 30 minutes of war updates before the half hour evening news every night.

- We've just delivered a huge batch of anti-tank weapons to Ukraine.

- We've basically sanctioned 90% of what is possible to sanction from Russia with more sanctions coming every day, plus private companies getting ahead of themselves to exit Russia the fastest, e.g. Maersk.

- People are volunteering to fight in Ukraine and our government has officially OK'd it.

- We're already taking in refugees coming in buses from the Ukraine.

It sure feels like we're at war here in all but name.

[MandieD]

Germany’s center-left government just committed to massively upping defense spending, and Germany’s neighbors are apparently fine with it.

Never thought I’d live to see that happen.

[dsabanin]

Russia is already sending same threat letters with "safety guarantees" to European countries. On March 4th they are planning a big gathering for another speech of Putin. Russia is making changes to ODKB rules (shitty version of NATO among the post-soviet countries), that introduces the definition of "coordinating member" of this military alliance. They are about to start a 3rd world war.