But war is interested in YOU.

Eric S. Raymond
@esrtweet

The city of Narva, Estonia, sits at the Russian border, on the Narva river, opposite the zone where the Russians have declared a curfew for its inhabitants and a no-go zone for people who don’t already live there.

Narva is 87% ethnic Russian.

There are intelligence reports that Russia has been building hospital facilities near this border.

Russian border guards have been spotted shoring up the banks of the Narva River in exactly the way you would expect if you thought they were going to throw expedient military bridges across it.

Russian border guards have also removed a set of buoys in the river marking the Russian-Estonian border, sparking a formal protest from the Estonian government.

Putin has claimed the right to intravene militarily to protect “oppressed” ethnic Russians in the near abroad. The invasion and annexation of Crimea was justified on these grounds.

These are all facts. Draw your own conclusions.

A few more cold, hard facts from Stephen, including what may end up being the one that really tells the story (bold mine).

But here’s where it gets truly disturbing: “The city of Narva, Estonia, sits at the Russian border, on the Narva river, opposite the zone where the Russians have declared a curfew for its inhabitants and a no-go zone for people who don’t already live there.“

Narva is 87% ethnic Russian, a result of Russian colonization efforts in the Baltics, both during the Czarist and Soviet era. “Putin has claimed the right to intervene militarily to protect ‘oppressed’ ethnic Russians in the near abroad,” Eric posted. “The invasion and annexation of Crimea [in 2014] was justified on these grounds.”

I make zero predictions, none whatsoever, about what comes next.

It seems absolutely insane by most measures for Putin to make warlike moves like these while virtually all of Russia’s conventional combat power remains committed to his own Forever War in Ukraine.

But then I’m reminded of a quote attributed to Dwight Eisenhower: “If a problem cannot be solved, enlarge it.”

Maybe a real test of NATO resolve — and perhaps fracturing the alliance, if Putin can make a joke out of Article 5 — is the Russian leader’s way of enlarging the unsolvable problem of Ukraine.

And if NATO resolve is not found wanting?

I’m not sure I want to know, but I’m not the one throwing the dice on the banks of the Narva River.

Disturbing, no?