The past several weeks have been a critical test of NATO’s defense capabilities and response times when faced with coordinated assaults from Russia. 19 drones violated Polish airspace in what was likely a deliberate provocation, a Russian MiG fighter flew for 12 minutes over Estonian airspace, Romania’s airspace was violated, as was the safety zone of a Petrobaltic drilling platform in the Baltic Sea. While not yet confirmed, the recent drone sightings over Copenhagen Airport and other airports in Denmark and Norway may be a Russian provocation as well, as reporting indicates the drones may have taken off from Russian-flagged vessels in the Baltic Sea.
For NATO, this moment is a critical test of the alliance’s Article 4 and Article 5 clauses, with both Poland and Estonia opting for Article 4 consultations, but Denmark not yet requesting them. Thus far, the response from alliance leaders has been positive, with Polish President Donald Tusk, Czech President Petr Pavel, and even President Donald Trump suggesting that now is the time for NATO to shoot down Russian warplanes or drones that violate alliance airspace. Ukrainian President Zelenskyy in an interview also chastised some alliance members for being too weak and too afraid of Russia, urging all NATO member states to ‘shoot down everything’ the next time Moscow chooses to provoke.
The past weeks serve as a sharp reminder that the present conflict largely contained to the Donbas and large-scale aerial attacks on Ukrainian cities remains a threat to the heart of Europe and its collective defense. As Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski recently remarked at the UN, Russia has to be defeated not just on the battlefield in Ukraine, but psychologically. For Sikorski, and other NATO leaders from the alliance’s eastern flank, Russia’s imperial mindset that makes it impossible for Moscow to live in harmony with its neighbors also has to be defeated.
In responding to Russia’s aggressive maneuvers there is recent precedent to look towards. Lithuania’s defence minister was one of the first to cite the case of Turkey shooting down a Russian warplane that violated its airspace for only 12 seconds in 2015 as a response that other alliance members should follow. As Pavel, Tusk, and other leaders from NATO’s eastern flank with a history of Russian occupation or forced alignment recognize, a forceful, united response is the only one that Putin will respect and take seriously. Anything less just invites more aggression and violations that will fall below the threshold of necessitating a direct military response, something Russia has mastered in its hybrid warfare campaign against the West for decades. While shooting down a Russian drone or jet in southeast Poland or a jet over the Gulf of Finland carries the risk of escalation and miscalculation, the message it would send to the Kremlin is unmistakable.
The hard truth is that Russia has been waging a concerted hybrid war and has been in a state of war with NATO for multiple decades now. NATO’s collective response has been much slower, with some member states like Poland and the Baltic states recognizing Russia’s threat and war posture more clearly than others. As an alliance of largely like-minded states, NATO’s strength lies in its consultative, democratic approach to problem-solving. It is an alliance built on mutual trust and respect for the individual histories and strategic perspectives that its member states bring to the table. The histories of Canada and Estonia, or Turkey and the UK, could not be more different, but the value of their territory and sovereignty, at least on paper, is worth the same. The response from the Trump administration to NATO’s defense may change based on who Washington is speaking with, but NATO’s geography, its sense of history and its fundamental reason for existence remain fixed qualities.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, NATO has arguably been morally and strategically led by the frontline states where history doesn’t return. For France, the UK, Spain, and others in Western Europe, history returned with brute force in February 2022. In contrast, from Finland and Estonia to Lithuania, Poland, and Czechia, history is always present, not as a straitjacket limiting a state’s ambitions, but as a tool, guiding other states along to the next chapter in their history with respect for the past and fortitude for the future. After weeks of Russian provocations that are likely to continue if they go unchecked, it is time for NATO to not just manage a series of crises but to define the course of its coming history. President Putin will undoubtedly respond, and he may respond forcefully. However, a response on NATO’s terms rather than the Kremlin’s is what will be necessary for the alliance to prove its worth during what is a dangerous, but also a hopeful, hour for Europe.
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