Hot War, Cold War, New War

A few weeks ago, Belarus shocked the world when it forced a commercial flight from Athens to Vilnius to land and seized two passengers, one a dissident journalist. But that outrage was only the most recent affront to international law and accepted state behavior by Belarusian autocrat, Alexander Lukashenko, and more importantly, his patron, Russia's Vladimir Putin. For years, Putin has pressed the countries along Russia’s border: cyber attacks on Estonia and Ukraine, war with Georgia and then Ukraine, the seizure of Crimea, constant air and naval border violations, as well as aggressive disinformation campaigns—all designed to sow chaos.

Lithuania is a frontline state in the growing confrontation—some think it is already war—between East and West. Dalia Bankauskaitė, a defense and security expert at Vilnius University, and Marius Laurinavičius, a journalist and analyst at the Vilnius Institute for Policy Analysis are both in that camp. Moreover, in this episode of the New Thinking for a New World podcast, they insist that Russia’s hostility, partly exercised through its puppet Belarus, is aimed not just at Lithuania, but at Europe and the United States.

Is this what war in the 21st century feels like? What do Putin and Lukashenko want? What should we do? What do YOU think?