[MaxPock]

Europe believes that Russia is doing all sorts of bad things and there's also the belief that Moscow plans to invade the EU .

Isn't the logical action for EU to launch massive pre-emptive strikes on this big bad country that hates the western way of life ?

[TulliusCicero]

> Isn't the logical action for EU to launch massive pre-emptive strikes

To be clear, strikes wouldn't be "pre-emptive", Russia is already in a war, and it's entirely allowed for any nation to join the side of Ukraine. None of the rules of war prevent helping a friendly country by joining the fight.

[belter]

"Europe thinks the unthinkable: Retaliating against Russia" - https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-thinks-the-unthinkabl...

[dmix]

EU makes plans to makes plans. Sounds like the usual strategy.

[lostlogin]

I take that over the US support for Putin.

[eptcyka]

I don’t believe the leadership sees Russia as an existential threat in Brussels. Baltics and Poland see it differently.

A pre-emptive strike would be expensive and immediately retcon into making Putin be the good guy - he’s long said NATO is the aggressor. Best to make invading EU to be too expensive to be worth it.

I think the bigger risk currently that Europe faces is the low and mid level corruption where Russian agents extend their tendrils into government structures in EU.

[TheOtherHobbes]

This has already happened. Just as in the US, all of the far-right "movements" in the EU are Russian fronts.

The two biggest targets are the UK and France, because both have an independent nuclear deterrent. If those are captured by puppets, expect nuclear explosions over European capitals.

This is not hyperbole. Russian government insiders have made it absolutely, unambiguously clear that Europe must be "crushed."

As a direct quote.

The real tragedy is oligarch complicity. Oligarchs and aristocrats in the US, UK, and EU have decided they have more in common with their Russian counterparts than with the native populations of their respective countries.

[actionfromafar]

Aristocrats pretty much always believed that.

[gnerd00]

How many armies in the world, have ever had a person in uniform demand that "the other army must be crushed" ? ok, is there any army that did not say that, to each other, or to an audience? Get a grip on the invective and do not blabber!

[redeeman]

> This has already happened. Just as in the US, all of the far-right "movements" in the EU are Russian fronts.

And you, singlehandedly have the supreme insight into all these people, to ascribe motive on them? Impressive

or perhaps its possible that some people just have their own opinions that is not yours, and MAYBE has some overlap with russian? (assuming that to be true)

I bet you share many opinions with Putin, for example, I believe he considers exercise to be healthy, why, by your previous logic, that would make your health advice a russian front?

[lugu]

> making Putin be the good guy

Come on. Who cares what he pretend?

> Best to make invading EU to be too expensive to be worth it.

How do you propose to estimate how much it is worth doing it?

IMO, it is best is to make the kremlin government collapse by all mean necessary. Including sabotage, assassination, propaganda, confiscation, corruption/trahison. And preemptive strike if needs to be.

[eptcyka]

This worked great in every other country where some other country believed the situation will be more stable if you just topple the current regime, didn’t it?

[kspacewalk2]

It's not about "hating the western way of life" or any such silliness. They can hate whatever they want within their internationally recognized borders.

War is best prevented by robust deterrents. When it comes to belligerent fascist regimes who want to see how far you can be pushed, not responding to provocations and aggression forcefully makes larger-scale war more likely in the future.

[TulliusCicero]

The logical thing to do is respond proportionally: if the ships are deliberately damaging property, seize the ships, and imprison the offenders.

[lovich]

Responding proportionally means you are always the one on the defensive and your opponent gets to decide the course of the conflict.

There should be a tit for tat response but the tit needs to be much larger than the tat to create the incentive for no longer attacking

[TulliusCicero]

That's simply not true. The US response to Pearl Harbor was proportional -- you attacked us, that's war, so now we're warring -- but that didn't mean staying on the defensive.

If it's known that Russia is using ships to attack Western infrastructure, blockading those ships is entirely proportional. A blockade, in this case, isn't so much an act of war, as it is a response to an act of war.

[lovich]

They shot some of our boats and we dropped portable suns onto two of their cities.

A proportional response would be to take out of one their fleets. We explicitly went disproportional when we conquered their entire nation and dismantled their empire.

Please stop pushing ahistorical claims

[kyboren]

I know it's supposed to be an oversimplification, but this is pretty shockingly ignorant of the scope, scale, and brutality of the Japanese campaign. They didn't merely "shoot some of our boats"; that's an egregious minimization of their culpability and the proportionality of their comeuppance. The Japanese launched a coordinated all-out assault not only on Pearl Harbor but also:

  - The Philippines, a US territory, where tens of thousands of American soldiers were killed or captured and
    subjected to the infamous Bataan Death March. Hundreds of thousands of Filipinos are killed during invasion and occupation.

  - Guam, also a US territory

  - Hong Kong, Malaya and Singapore: British territories

  - Thailand, an independent kingdom

All this after having already invaded Manchuria and French Indochina, and then later going on to invade and occupy Burma, the Dutch East Indies, Borneo, New Guinea, and a whole slew of Pacific islands and atolls.

Not only did the Japs attack Pearl Harbor, formally declare war on the United States, enjoy an alliance with Germany and Italy who themselves declared war on the Unites States, and conquer or attempt to conquer all those places to build their empire; they also fought fanatically and with exceptional brutality, they committed countless atrocities (wanton murders, amputations and mutilations, gang rapes, sex slavery, vivisections, human experiments--you name it, they did it), they administered conquered territories cruelly, and they treated prisoners of war even more cruelly.

Considering all of the above, conquering the Japanese nation and ensuring their total defeat was not only justified (as I believe you'd agree), it was also entirely proportionate to their warmongering and brutality.

Please stop pushing ahistorical claims.

[lovich]

And in exchange we destroyed their empire and government

We did not respond proportionately, we responded disproportionately. I don’t know how this is even being argued by people that our response on WW2 to any of our belligerents was in measured proportion.

Like, it was the last time we went to total warfare and indiscriminately bombed civilian population centers

[rasz]

Hey, thats exactly what Ahmed al Ahmed was thinking. He ripped rifle out of Bondi Beach terrorist hands but didnt shoot him immediately because that would be "disproportional". Terrorist ran back to his friend, pulled another gun from the bag and killed several more innocent people.

[rasz]

for context https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bondi-beach-shooting-hero-ahmed...

"I didn't think to shoot, and I don't want to put my hand in blood. I don't think I'm the one who can take life of people."

Terrorist ran away, grabbed another gun and not only killed more people but also shot Ahmed 5 times.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/dec/29/wound...

"Ahmed, 44, was shot five times shortly after wrestling with Akram."

[ForHackernews]

No, pre-emptively starting another war is not a good idea. But yes, the West should work hard to make sure their enemy loses the war it has already started.

[luke5441]

We have functional democracies here. You'd have to convince the population this is the right course of action and then the politicians will do it.

Good luck with that, though.

[belter]

> Isn't the logical action for EU to launch massive pre-emptive strikes on this big bad country that hates the western way of life ?

Depending on the days, the priority changes, between Russia or attacking the US first, maybe with the help from Canada :-))

You have to deal with one threat at a time, and it seems the fight against chlorinated chicken will take priority for now... :-)

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2025/12/17/trump-demands...