Just finished “Guns Of August” yet again ... can see how things escalated very quickly.
You’re right, it did escalate quickly. An interesting alliance that has just recently resurfaced in the last week, is that of Britain, France and Russia being on the same side.
With Russia beyond doubt taking on ISIS, will Britain and France automatically follow whatever actions NATO takes.
If the initial situation I initially laid out did come about, would be bad for Obama and NATO. Because you go from playing chess on 1 level to 3 or 4 level chess. That is above Obama’s pay grade and maybe even “neutered” NATO’s paygrade but not Putin’s and his allies.
Who would the Eastern European nations side with. They were very much in disagreement with the EU over the Syrian refugee issue. The EU was treating them they way they have always treated Eastern European countries. Which is “you can’t possibly understand these more complicated geo-political issues.”