2 years ago
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has triggered a careful balancing act on the part of NATO allies, who are eager to see Russia fail but also unwilling to jump into the war directly. This reflects the same challenge that has confronted the West vis-à-vis Ukraine for two decades: how to foster a sovereign Ukraine independent of Russia without necessarily inviting Kyiv into NATO or the EU.
The bottom line is that militarily, NATO will only offer limited assistance to Ukraine. Under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, allies are obligated to treat an attack on one as an attack on all. But the flip side is that they are under no obligation to help countries that aren’t members of the club.
While NATO’s short-term role in Ukraine may be limited, its bigger role now is to keep Russia out of the rest of Europe. For years, many have taken for granted that Putin will stop at NATO’s borders, deterred by the promise of an Article 5 response. But this is no longer a given in light of the Russian leader’s belligerence and unpredictability.
Although NATO’s Article 5 has not been triggered, Article 4 has — the provision of the treaty allowing member states to request consultations if they believe their “territorial integrity, political independence or security” is threatened. Requesting consultations may sound weak-kneed, but this in fact carries enormous political and diplomatic weight, with the potential to trigger serious military moves. Last week, no fewer than eight allies — Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia — called for Article 4 consultations because they believe Putin’s actions threaten them, too.
The serious concerns of these eight allies are yet another indication that NATO may have spread itself too thin. Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has become something of an ‘all of the above’ alliance, simultaneously engaged in collective defense in Europe, crisis management in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, and building cooperative security relationships across the globe from Morocco to Japan. Now, NATO needs to recommit to its original mission. In the short term, it should expand its frontline battlegroups in the Baltic States and Poland. In the longer term, the alliance needs to prepare to admit new members, equip itself to fight Russian hybrid aggression and expand its permanent presence in Eastern Europe.
Although the early days of the invasion seemed marked by some major setbacks for Russia and surprising momentum for Ukraine, the weight of evidence still points toward a brutal Russian victory. Russia retains overwhelming military advantage, and its drive to encircle Kyiv continues unabated. The Russian military has yet to commit all of the available forces that sit just across Ukraine’s borders. And the most likely outcomes remain a Ukrainian state dominated and/or dismembered by Russia and neighboring Belarus, which hosts an enduring, offensive Russian presence close to NATO territory.
NATO’s primary response — made after Article 4 was invoked — has been activating the NATO Response Force and its leading element, the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force, parts of which can deploy in as little as 48 hours. Notably, the alliance has never deployed any part of the NRF for collective defense purposes, not even in 2014 when Russia first invaded Ukraine. Sending this force to the alliance’s most exposed members in Eastern Europe, even though NATO has no intention of taking part in the war, is a powerful, tangible indicator of NATO’s commitment to defend every inch of allied territory and to deter Russia from expanding the conflict. Deploying the NRF is more than symbolic; it’s a response to genuine fears that the West may have its work cut out when it comes to deterring Putin.
Beyond this collective response, several NATO countries individually have committed to sending more defensive forces to Eastern European members and to continuing or increasing the flow of military assistance to Ukraine. These measures include the deployment of thousands of additional U.S. troops to Europe for both defensive purposes and to assist in managing the influx of Ukrainian refugees, an additional $350 million in U.S. security assistance for Ukraine, Germany’s groundbreaking decision to send anti-tank weapons and man-portable surface-to-air missiles, and an array of other steps.
The question is whether all of this is enough to prevent Putin from looking beyond Ukraine to the Baltic States or elsewhere in Eastern Europe. He may intend to create more buffer space along Russia’s western border, regain some lost semblance of Russian greatness, bolster his declining approval ratings at home or solidify his legacy. The point is, Putin’s evident unpredictability — and his government’s blatant lies on the eve of the invasion — create doubt that Western defense and deterrence thus far are adequate.
To reduce the risk that Putin will expand the conflict beyond Ukraine and prepare for the new reality of post-conflict Europe, NATO should expand the scale, mission and capabilities of the units that would be on the front lines of any Russian attack on Eastern European NATO countries. The Enhanced Forward Presence battlegroups, located in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, were established in 2017 as a somewhat belated response to Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine. Since 20 out of NATO’s 30 members contribute troops to these battlegroups, they represent a “tripwire”: If Russia was to invade one of the four host nations, several alliance members would likely sustain casualties, which would spur a faster, more unified NATO response. In this way, the EFP battlegroups help deter Russia by signaling NATO’s increased willingness to take a risk — the basic game theory at the heart of deterrence.
But shortcomings persist. Each battlegroup consists of roughly 1,200 troops, which probably isn’t enough to deny Russian advances. The EFP units also lack persistent American contributions (except for the unit in Poland, which is U.S.-led), struggle to share information internally and with one another, and lack the ability to tackle hybrid Russian threats.
It’s reasonably clear that Russia understands it will incur costs if it invades a NATO country — what international relations scholars call “deterrence by punishment.” What’s less clear is whether Russia sees the NATO military presence as foreboding enough to rule out the idea of invasion altogether — or “deterrence by denial.”
To change Putin’s calculation about a potential invasion of the Baltics or Poland, NATO can take a number of steps. First, it should expand each EFP unit to an enhanced brigade of 5,000 troops. This would dramatically increase the deterrent effect given that a typical Western brigade is a far more capable, self-sufficient combat formation in a way that a battlegroup simply is not.
Second, the United States should contribute at least a battalion to each of the expanded EFP units. There’s no substitute for American boots on the ground in Europe, which are a physical manifestation of the United States’ commitment to Article 5.
Third, the alliance should quickly provide each EFP unit (and the four nations that host them) common advanced, secure voice and data communications equipment and network tools, perhaps supplied by the United States. It’s here — in communications — where the number of allies involved in EFP is an Achilles heel instead of a strength. Twenty contributing allies can mean 20 different types of radios and computers, leading to serious internal communication challenges — a problem not faced by the Russians, who operate largely without allies. A common, off-the-shelf solution will not only enable the individual contributors to each EFP battlegroup to communicate, but also permit more effective communication between EFP units so they can operate together across borders.
Fourth, NATO should expand the mission of the EFP units. Currently, the units are almost entirely focused on conventional military missions. They are not equipped to conduct operations in the information space, with electronic warfare and signals jamming, or in cyberspace. Yet when I visited the units last year, I learned that they struggle against Russian information, electronic and cyber attacks almost every day. The alliance ought to authorize the EFP units to engage in these domains (only in accordance with host-nation policies, of course).
Beyond immediately strengthening EFP, NATO needs to think more strategically about how to adjust in the aftermath of Russia’s dramatic upending of European security. Given the challenges posed by Russia (and to a lesser degree, China) and the requirements of collective defense, NATO probably can’t do it all. It will either need to pare down its appetite and focus almost entirely on collective defense as in the Cold War, or receive increased resources from the allies to maintain the global set of tasks it’s taken on since the 1990s, including in crisis management and security cooperation in Africa, Asia and elsewhere.
Additionally, NATO must craft a nimbler open-door policy. In particular, it should be prepared to fast-track an application from Finland. By promising to eventually admit Ukraine and then effectively placing that membership on ice for 14 years, NATO opened a window for Putin to exploit. Finland, like Ukraine, shares a long land border with Russia, and Moscow has regularly warned it not to join NATO. But unlike Ukraine, Finland has already aligned its defense policy with NATO, it has an advanced military force that would strengthen NATO’s defense, and it’s an integral part of deterrence against Russia, especially in the Baltic and the Arctic. If Finland decides to pursue NATO membership, the alliance should not leave Helsinki dangling.
A post-invasion NATO should also begin planning now for an expanded role with regard to Russian hybrid actions. Though the current conflict in Ukraine involves primarily conventional forces, Moscow has used its extensive hybrid capabilities as well, including attempted false flag operations, debilitating cyberattacks and covert ‘sabotage’ teams. Getting a defensive alliance like NATO engaged in more offensive activities won’t be an easy sell for some members, but if the allies want NATO to continue strengthening their security, they will need to give it additional capabilities.
Finally, NATO should begin preparing a significantly expanded permanent presence in Eastern Europe to ensure it can more easily defend allied territory and deter Russian aggression. Poland is the obvious first choice for an expanded posture in the east, given its exposure to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, its port, rail and military training infrastructure, and its expansive terrain relative to smaller allies in the same region, such as the Baltic States. However, Romania should also host an increased permanent NATO posture, especially given the likelihood of increased Russian intimidation in and around the Black Sea from its expanded presence in Crimea. Among contributors to a reinvigorated NATO presence, the United Kingdom and Canada should return permanently based forces to the continent. Spain, France, and Italy should be leading contributors as well given their military capabilities.
Even though the invasion of Ukraine is a watershed moment for European security, the alliance should view it in a “back to the future” context. NATO has shown it’s good at many things, but this past week has been a wake-up call that the alliance must more determinedly embrace its original mission — keeping Russia out of its territory. It’s time to refocus NATO on what it was created to do.
English (US)