[dubbel]

"Don't piss off Poland?!" There won't be a large scale war against the Eastern EU started by Russia that does not involve Poland. The EU has stronger mutual defense clause than NATO article 5+6 (of course, it doesn't have anything close to the military might of the combined NATO countries). Once there is an all out war, Finland would mobilize its army, threatening Russia's northern flank. The Baltic would be closed. The black sea would be closed. All out war would be terrible, but the deterrence is still too strong in my opinion, as the price would be too high.

The problem / question is what would the EU (or NATO) do, if Russia starts a small scale hybrid war against Estonia or Latvia. Creating a small "local" insurgency, that takes over a majority Russian speaking town on the border. If the military alliances do not react united in such a case they are done.

[margorczynski]

I think the critical question is what would the allies do (especially the ones with nuclear weapons) if Russia actually used one. There's a lot of treaties, words spoken and on paper but nobody really knows how people would react to the idea of partaking in a nuclear war.

If they dropped a nuke on e.g. Lithuania would the French do the same knowing that retaliation would come that could wipe out most of their people and country off the map? Would any country do that for someone else?