The first important thing to realize if panicking is that this is NOT an attack on NATO. We can be confident about that as it makes no sense.
It will just be a stray drone probably sent off course by electronic jamming or with a fault in it. As of writing this we don’t know it is Russian. It may even be a Ukrainian drone or air defence missile.
And no there is no risk of a nuke whatsoever. The NATO treaty is very much misunderstood. It is defensive NOT retaliatory. It does NOT involve nukes. Nothing in it is automatic. People make the decisions not computers. So ask yourself what would a sensible careful experienced human being do in this situation.
And obviously, they do whatever is necessary to protect NATO and keep its citizens safe. In this case it means better drone defences. Romania will surely investigate and find out how a drone got through its drone defences and how to fix it.
NATO countries already shoot down stray drones either Ukrainian or Russian that enter their territory.
We don’t yet know if this is a Russian or Ukrainian drone.
From your article:
That may be true. Drones have caused damage as they fly out of the Ukraine war including sometimes damage to housesm, but I think it may be the first actual injury.
This is not likely to involve article 5. At most article 4 consult.
The only ever use of article 5 was for 9/11 which obviously didn’t use nukes - that is a common misunderstanding of what the treaty is about.
There have been many strikes on NATO countries since the war started. Just drones that flew out of the war.
The injuries will mean that Romania will be looking to beef up its drone protection a lot. But it doesn’t mean it will attack anyone else. It’s all about defending people in Romania.
And it was likely just a matter of time before there were injuries from drones flying out of the war. There have been many previous cases of houses and other buildings damaged and luckily so far the damage didn’t harm anyone in them before. It’s just the same thing though. To beef up the drone defences.
Ukraine is working with NATO partners to improve their drone defences. But naturally it’s a far higher priority in Ukraine. Its neighbours however just need to shoot down very occasional drones and they can do them even with very expensive missiles fired from fighter jets. So there will surely be an investigation to see why that failed this time.
And this my debunk to help people similarly scared for an event much earlier in the war when a barn and a tractor in Poland was destroyed by either a Russian drone that went off course or - seems more likely - a Ukrainian air defence missile that misfired trying to destroy the drone.
BLOG: Why Poland doesn’t use NATO’s article 5
— it is:
- REQUESTED
— NOT triggered
- only for states which NEED HELP
— NOT based on a preset threshold
- ALWAYS to PROTECT members
— NEVER to attack others
You can read it here:
https://robertinventor.substack.com/p/fact-checking-natos-article-5-it
Also see my:
BLOG: It is impossible to win with a nuclear first strike
— and NATO’s article 5 is defensive not retaliatory
— IMHO much of the Twitter / social media panic is based on not understanding these points
You can read it here:
https://debunkingdoomsday.quora.com/It-is-impossible-to-win-with-a-nuclear-first-strike-and-NATO-s-article-5-is-defensive-not-retaliatory-IMHO-much-of-t
Also:
BLOG: How to see Putin will NEVER attack NATO
— “Because Russia will lose, and lose quickly”
— Admiral Radakin
— and Putin isn’t even trying to protect Russia from NATO
— [by lose quickly, Admiral Radakin means pushed right out of NATO territory, and any missile systems firing at NATO destroyed
— NATO wouldn’t try to defeat Russia as it is purely defensive]
You can read it here:
https://robertinventor.substack.com/p/how-to-see-there-is-no-way-that-putin
I know people were injured. Remember that the objective is to PREVENT MORE INJURIES. So - if you were in charge of drone protection in Romania would you say "We have to get France or UK or the US to use a nuke? How would that help?
Would that reduce the risk of future injuries. No it wouldn’t. It would just be a war crime against the Russians.
As for article 5 then no this is highly unlikely to involve article 5 because Romania would only use that if it is unable to respond to the incident itself. But it has hospitals to treat the injured. It has its military to prevent further drone attacks. It needs to figure out what went wrong and make sure it can shoot down future drones. At most that means article 4 consult. If it needs new equipment it would likely pay for it or they would get other NATO partners such as fighter jets patrolling over Romania to help. All of it likely informally not requiring anything like article 4 never mind 5.
And if they did use article 5 - well that typically would lead to calling up a few tens of thousands of extra soldiers to protect Romania, scaleable up to 300,0000 of them.
That is the only element of Article 5 guaranteed. The rest depends on the choices of member states and how they decide to help.
But Romania needs help to shoot down drones that fly accidentally into Romania as that’s what the alert is about.
Even 10,000 soldiers wouldn’t be able to stop the drones on the ground. While a few hundred or thousand anti-drone FPV pilots COULD stop the drones.
So that’s what they’d look for. Fighter jet pilots in the first instance. Probably informally and not under article 4 or 5. Maybe formally request help under article 4. And then for the future likely Ukrainian piloted drone interceptors as for the gulf states.
