David Christopher Kaufman: Qatar, Europe, Venezuela — how a series of brazen attacks are pushing the world to the brink

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For the second time in one week, Russia has violated the air space of a NATO member. On Sunday, a Russian drone flew through Romanian airspace, coming just days after a Russian drone incursion over Poland. Both incidents represent an unprecedented provocation between Vladimir Putin and NATO with the potential to cast the West into armed and prolonged conflict. There is no playbook for theatrics such as these; Putin’s antics — although momentarily contained — reveal an official disregard for sovereignty and statecraft without clearly-defined objectives, ambitions or outcomes.

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Such weaponized uncertainty is the stuff of political nightmares, even as it increasingly becomes the norm worldwide. Russia’s drone-play came barely a day after Israel launched a brazen attack on Hamas’ political leadership in the heart of Qatar’s capital, Doha. Meanwhile, the U.S. — unleashed by President Donald Trump’s disdain for both terror and drug-trafficking — has now twice shot and destroyed boats off the coast of Venezuela that Trump claimed were ferrying drugs for notorious narco-gangs, such as the Tren de Aragua cartel. An early September attack killed a reported 11 traffickers, while a second Monday saw “three male terrorists” killed off of the Venezuela coast, according to the President. “Big bags of cocaine and fentanyl” were “spattered all over the ocean,”