> I have no delusions that NATO will not engage in any military conflict, since nobody wants to start WWIII, but this has to be disturbing developments for countries like Poland, Romania, etc.
Don't you mean that you have no delusions that NATO will engage in conflict? Otherwise you're saying you think they will.
I am Polish. It is extremely disturbing. What I find most appalling is that Western Europe seems to have learned nothing from our shared history. We already had crazy leaders invade small neighboring countries, and we tried to appease them without raising too much of a fuss, so as to preserve economic interests. This is how it begins.
Now — we start to see history repeat itself, and what do European countries do? France seems to be fine with continuing to sell warships to Russia. Germany is mostly worried about economy and what the lack of Russian gas will do to it. Great Britain seems to be mostly occupied with thinking about whether to leave the EU.
We don't necessarily need a full-blown conflict, but I'm of the opinion (that seems to be the majority opinion in Poland) that Europe should immediately impose serious sanctions and implement a plan to stop buying Russian oil&gas within, say, a year. Yes, it will tip economies into stagnation or even recession, but to hell with it: we should not be complacent and just watch as history repeats itself!
I think NATO would, under some circumstances, engage militarily, but not in this conflict. If, for example, a small non-NATO country with no nukes was to attack a member state, NATO would respond pretty quickly. In an alternate universe, if Ukraine (without any support from Russia) was to attack Poland, NATO would respond. But NATO is not strong enough to oppose Russia without major casualties. I believe that if all NATO member states were to at once attack Russia today, they would win but it would be a war, not a surgical strike. This is why we won't see that happening.
Don't you mean that you have no delusions that NATO will engage in conflict? Otherwise you're saying you think they will.