While Russian diplomats have not yet stated the following, preferring to make polite requests of US and NATO forces in Europe, they may have the international legal high ground to attack if NATO attempts to build up sufficient forces on the Russian border to prevail.
The United Nations Charter, conceived to prevent aggression like the Axis attack on the Soviet Union, does not permit developing aggressive military alliances to defeat a nation and moving armies towards it as NATO is doing. In fact, international law would seem to support pre-emptively destroying these forces before they are ready to attack.
Article VII of the UN Charter reads, "Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations". All that is required is that it be "immediately reported to the Security Council". It covers preventive action, when you believe an object is being placed to imminently attack your country and its indepdendence.
To quote the interpretation of international law experts in the UK:
Article 51 of the UN Charter does not require a state passively to await an attack, but includes the ‘inherent right’ – as it’s described in Article 51 – to use force in self-defence against an ‘imminent’ armed attack, referring back to customary international law
As the British view states, one does not need to stand idle and wait to be attacked by an adversary, while one believes the adversary is assembling a military coalition or military infrastructure for aggression.
Russia outnumbered
Being the lesser military force in terms of pieces of equipment and numbers of troops, as was also the case during the German invasion in 1941 and prior, during Napoleon's 1812 invasion, Russia is under no obligation to wait passively as a massive 30-nation alliance rallies armies in front of its territory to threaten it with overwhelming force. If NATO attempts to accumulate forces near Russia capable of inflicting a decisive defeat on it, this will give legal justification for Russian leaders to attack and cripple Alliance objects that pose imminent threats near their territory. This will of course not include targeting the home territories of the US, UK and France, which are part of a quite different calculation concerning mutual destruction.
We have to remember that the UN Charter was written after the Second World War, and the Soviet Union played a major role in its adoption. It barred wars of aggression against the existence of a state.
For NATO to bring missiles and a coalition of armies from thousands of miles away to menace Russia cannot be perceived as anything other than preparation for aggression. This will fall entirely on the wrong side of international law, and justify every form of warfare by Russia to remove the imminent and encroaching threat. NATO forces will have no legal right to respond to being eliminated along the Russian border, since the Russian attack will be limited only to imminent threats it notified the UN about.
NATO could crumble under a justified Russian attack
Russian forces could solely use their conventional missiles, and not exit the Russian borders, tightly adhering to international law so that their actions cannot be interpreted as anything other than an appropriate and surgically precise response to imminent aggression.
Rather than going nuclear, NATO would most likely capitulate to Russian demands in such a conflict situation (with the exception of announcing some sanctions and doing additional media manipulation to convince people to think Russia may have been the aggressor). NATO military forces, like Russian troops, may be willing to obey orders and fight to the bitter end in a nuclear war, but the reality is that NATO is led not by these men but by civilian pencilnecks whose main message in all their actions is that they really don't want to get hurt. In fact, that's why NATO expanded. The core member states of NATO don't even want to fight, never mind get hurt in a conflict, hence the desire for buffer states.
Preferring complete immunity and having no chance of dying has been the core motive of all NATO's policies, including those responsible for the current crisis. As soon as the promise of growing security was replaced with real violence and the spectre of a chaotic death, NATO leaders would no longer care about defeating Russia and would only think about saving their own skins.
- ClubOfInfo
