Several unarmed drones, mostly from Belarus, appear to have violated Polish airspace in recent days, raising serious concerns and doubts. What are we to think? Hypothetical deductions seem to abound. While, on the one hand, as several commentators have observed, the number of drones was such that it could not be considered a simple "accident," on the other hand, that same number of drones, unarmed as far as media reports have shown, was certainly insufficient to constitute a full-blown "attack." But the underlying impression cannot be overstated without considering that Poland is a NATO member, and precisely for this reason, the Polish government did not hesitate to invoke Article 4 of the NATO Treaty, which, indeed, allows any member state to request extraordinary consultations with its allies in the event of a threat to its territorial integrity. In short, for Warsaw, if it knows neither how to read nor write, it's better to act quickly and remain vigilant. The crux of the matter, in reality, regardless of the circumstance considered in and of itself, appears to be only one. Is the danger of the conflict escalating real, or did this unspecified action, whether intentional or not—perhaps it matters little—have and have other purposes? Perhaps that of pure and simple "provocation," so to speak, exploratory? This hypothesis is likely, and could also be plausible given the additional circumstance that it would be complex and nuanced to understand who would benefit most, or simply gain an advantage, from an escalation of the conflict that would seriously embarrass the governments of all countries, especially European ones, potentially involved because they are unprepared for war after decades of peace. It would not be surprising, however, if Vladimir Putin's Russia wanted to test the intentions of Western countries with a "sentinel" operation, risky without a doubt, but not excessively so. The incursion of those unarmed drones may have constituted a "stress test" to understand the limit of tolerance, if we wish to call it that, not so much of the Europeans, but rather of Donald Trump, who, with his "penultimatums," appears unconvinced and far from willing to intervene directly in the conflict, except as an "interlocutor/mediator," though not too much. One thing certainly appears certain: that the drones, completely undisturbed, violated Polish, and therefore European, airspace, thus unequivocally revealing a certain weakness and perhaps unpreparedness of the European Union for the eventuality that subsequently occurred. The risk, if potentially real, would be that of a widening of the conflict, but in reality, it seems difficult to predict what course the situation might take. Also because, if one were to stick to the level of concrete findings, it would be impossible not to note that immediately after the Alaska summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, Russia, far from mitigating its actions, instead intensified its attacks, violating—by mistake or not, time will tell—the airspace of a NATO country. A calibrated gamble? If so, the Russian president, strengthened by the outcome of the SCO Summit, may have confirmed the impression he had formed following the thawing meeting (if one wanted to call it that) in Alaska. To date, pursuing a sort of confrontational rhetoric without any ifs or buts appears to be of no use to anyone. Strategic caution would seem to prevail over the potential winds of a wider war. To use a metaphor, "simple as doves, cautious as snakes."

Giuseppina Di Salvatore – Lawyer, Nuoro

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