NATO must go on the offensive against Russia

Authorial writing by Janusz Bugajski for The Geopost

Following the invasion of Poland’s air space by a fleet of Russian drones, it is time for NATO to move from defense to offense in order to preclude any future attacks. Moscow escalates when it senses weakness, hesitation, and confusion among it adversaries, and it is also counting on President Donald Trump not to respond forcefully to the attack on Poland.

Since the penetration of over armed Russian 19 drones into Polish air space on September 10, Warsaw and NATO have held emergency meetings to craft a response. Although the drones were either shot down or crashed without loss of life, they were clearly a test by Moscow to provoke a NATO reaction.Reportedly, five drones were on a direct flight path toward a NATO base in Poland before being intercepted by fighter jets. As expected, in the wake of the attack, the Alliance focused on defensive measures to shield Poland and other eastern flank states from future assaults rather than tackling the source of the problem inside Russia.

Secretary-General Mark Rutte announced that NATO was launching an “Eastern Sentry” to bolster the defense of Europe’s eastern flank. The purposeis to integrate air and ground based defensesand improvesurveillance, reconnaissance, and information sharing. The “Eastern Sentry” operation will involve assets from several allies and is modeled on the “Baltic Sentry” operation launched by NATO earlier this year in response to the sabotage of underwater cables in the Baltic Sea. It will supposedly cover a vast area from the Arctic to the Mediterranean.

Rutte admitted that the attack on Poland was not an isolated incident, as Moscow’s provocations have been increasing and intensifying in recent weeks. The drone assault revealed that the Alliance is unprepared for modern warfare and had to deploy multi-million dollar weapons systems to shoot down a handful of cheap drones. The defensive operation also exposed that NATO is far behind Ukraine in its drone warfare capabilities. Kyiv usually intercepts between 80 and 90 percent of Russian drones every day despite facing much larger attacks. The allies simply lack cost-effective defenses to deal with Russia’s low-cost kamikaze drones. Launching a squadron of F-35s every time a drone is approaching NATO territory is a clear waste of the defense budget. Instead, Warsaw has called for the rapid creation of an anti-drone shield, which has been neglected despite repeated warnings from Kyiv.

Ukraine has developedits own cheap interceptor counter-drones, thousands of which are produced each month, and uses electronic warfare counter-measures against waves of Russian assaults. NATO states have failed to keep pace with such operational developments and European militaries need to alter their traditional procurement of small batches of expensive weapons and focus on mass drone development and production.

Trump has played down the seriousness of Russia’s drone attack on Poland, but further strikes may finally convince the White House that tougher measures are needed to stop Moscow by taking the war into Russia. To beginwith, the ban on Ukraine using American missilesfor deep strikes into Russian territory should be promptly revoked. And Kyiv should be supplied with all the long-range munitions it needs to decimate Russia’s military complex and energy infrastructure.

NATO itself must issue a direct warning to Moscow that if any further missiles, drones, or fighter jets violate Alliance territory then a range of offensive measures are being prepared against Russia. There are numerous targets in the country that are not fully protected by its air defense system because of frequent Ukrainian attacks. These may include drone production facilities, weapons storage sites, and transportation networks. In addition, the Kaliningrad exclave on the Baltic Sea can be completely blocked economically and militarily, while NATO jets can start penetrating Russian territory with impunity just as Russia does over the Baltic states.

Western fears of a Russian nuclear response are overblown and unrealistic. If after three and a half years of grinding war Moscow has not launched a nuclear strike against a non-nuclear power such as Ukraine, there is little prospect that it would use nuclear weapons against NATO. Above all, a forceful conventional response by NATO to a Russian assault on any NATO state will convince the Kremlin that the Alliance will not cower from using its own nuclear weapons if attacked.

Janusz Bugajski is a Senior Fellow at the Jamestown Foundation in Washington DC and author of three new books: Pivotal Poland: Europe’s Rising Power, Failed State: A Guide to Russia’s Rupture, and Free Nations, New States: The End Stage of Russian Colonialism(Anthology)

/The Geopost/