[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.