Now That Poland Has Formally Invoked Article 4, NATO Is Closer To All-Out War With Russia Than Ever

Now That Poland Has Formally Invoked Article 4, NATO Is Closer To All-Out War With Russia Than Ever

Michael Snyder

I am sitting here trying to process everything that just happened. I was doing research for this article, and then I got the news that Charlie Kirk had just been shot. I am going to try to find the words to express what I am feeling at this moment, and I will be putting together a full article about this horrifying tragedy later today. 

Meanwhile, NATO is literally closer to all-out war with Russia than it has ever been before. Last night 19 Russian drones entered Polish airspace, and NATO fighter jets shot down several of them…

Polish fighter jets, with help from NATO allies, shot down multiple Russian drones that entered its eastern border early Wednesday, Sept. 10. It was the first time the NATO member directly engaged with Russian military assets in its airspace since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Polish officials said 19 objects entered its airspace during a large Russian air attack on Ukraine. Polish jets shot down at least three of the aircraft.

No casualties have been reported.

Just yesterday I wrote about 13 major World War III developments that had just occurred in a 48 hour period.

And now this has happened.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk is warning that his nation is dangerously close to a direct military conflict with Russia…

Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, said the country is closer to military conflict “than at any time since the second world war” as Warsaw and Nato allies weighed a response to an incursion of Russian drones into Polish airspace.

Poland scrambled its own and Nato air defences, shooting down at least three drones, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine spread to Nato territory early on Wednesday in the most significant way since the full-scale invasion more than three years ago.

This is an extremely serious situation.

Following the incident with the drones, Poland formally invoked Article 4 of the NATO treaty…

Poland and the United States are members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which at its core is a mutual defense pact formed after WWII to deal with the threat posed by the Soviet Union, meaning an attack on one may be considered an attack on all.

Tusk said he had activated Article 4 of NATO’s treaty, under which alliance members can demand consultations with their allies, and that he was in touch with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, who called the incursion “reckless behavior,” irrespective of whether it was deliberate.

A NATO official confirmed to NBC News that Poland had “requested consultations under Article 4 of the Washington Treaty,” only the 8th time that the article — which does not trigger a military reaction — has been invoked since NATO was established in 1949.

Invoking Article 4 does not mean that we are going to war.

Instead, what it means is that members of NATO will now discuss what steps should be taken next…

This is not the better-known Article Five, which activates obligatory collective defence from all members, but rather one that triggers a consultation process. Per NATO itself: “Any member country can formally invoke Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty. As soon as it is invoked, the issue is discussed and can potentially lead to some form of joint decision or action on behalf of the Alliance. Whatever the scenario, fellow members sitting around the Council table are encouraged to react to a situation brought to their attention by a member country.”

The Russians are insisting that they had absolutely no intention of attacking any targets inside Poland…

Russia labeled the accusations “groundless” and said it did not plan to attack any targets in Poland.

The Russian Defense Ministry said it had attacked the “military-industrial complex of Ukraine” in a “large-scale strike” but that “there were no targets envisioned for destruction on the Polish territory,” pointing to the flight range of the drones it said it used against western Ukraine.

It said it was “ready to hold consultations with the Polish Ministry of Defense on this matter.”

The Russians obviously do not want NATO to get directly involved in the war in Ukraine.

So why did Russian drones end up flying into Poland?

The Belarusian military is claiming that the Russian drones “lost their track as a result of the impact of the parties’ electronic warfare assets”…

Yes, it is entirely plausible that electronic warfare caused the Russian drones to accidentally veer off course.

But I think that there is also a possibility that electronic warfare could have been used to purposely direct those drones into Polish airspace.

There are those that are absolutely determined to drag NATO into the war in Ukraine by any means possible.

One of those individuals is Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.  Following the drone incident in Polish airspace, he immediately proposed “a joint air defense system” that would “create an effective air shield over Europe”…

There are several reasons for this brazen behavior of Russia, and they are absolutely obvious to everyone. We need to work on a joint air defense system and create an effective air shield over Europe. Ukraine has long proposed this, and we have concrete solutions. We must respond together to all current challenges and be ready for potential threats to all Europeans in the future. Likewise, we need to significantly increase joint funding for the production of interceptor drones. They have already proven their effectiveness.

In other words, he wants NATO to provide air defense for Ukraine.

But it wouldn’t end there.

Zelensky knows that Ukraine can never defeat Russia alone.  So he is desperate to get NATO ground forces involved, and it is interesting to note that French hospitals have been instructed to prepare for mass casualties by March 2026…

More....