NATO: STANDING UP TO PUTIN

Over the past week we’ve seen another aerial incursion into NATO air space in Estonia, and mysterious third party drones controlled by ‘professional operators’ shutting down Copenhagen Airport and Aarhus Airport in Denmark. They also appear to have made short appearances in Norway and southern Sweden, but Denmark is their main target. That small country has been instrumental in standing up to Russia and aiding Ukraine in ways few others (except the British, whose involvement in Ukraine is one of the best kept secrets of the war and will one day be revealed for the vital part it played), ever have.

Add to all of this the cable cutting campaign, now temporarily retired as the targets knew what to look for and how to prevent it, the ongoing cyber attacks, attempted assassinations, blatant deliberate sabotage at industrial sites producing weapons all across Europe, and Russia has been very busy. Western security services have never known a time like it in this century. They’ve had some success in countering much of it but for the most part such things remain quietly celebrated by just a handful of those in the know. Such is the nature of counter intelligence operations.

While it’s absolutely certain the undercover programs will carry on regardless, it’s the physical and obvious hostile acts that are now coming to the fore.

The drone incursion into Poland is difficult to quantify, even some Ukrainian sources think it could have been the result of jamming, but let us assume the worse and say it was deliberate.

What was the point of it? A test of capabilities? Whatever it tested its now made it an irrelevance as Poland has increased its detection and countermeasures operations. Its even going as far as changing the law to take back its sovereign rights to open fire on Russian drones and missiles even inside Ukraine – a right it ceded to the EU and NATO in 2022 for political reasons.

The day of the Estonian incursion the same aircraft flew on down the Baltic and buzzed a Polish rig in international air space, and only two days ago another Russian jet buzzed the German Frigate ‘Hamburg’ taking part in a NATO exercise in the Baltic.

A pair of Russian Il-20 naval reconnaissance aircraft, flying as usual without a flight plan or transponders, were intercepted in the southern Baltic – they carry synthetic aperture side looking radars to map in detail everything they can.

The question is why the Baltic?

In simple terms it’s a Russian effort to make it clear to the west that while the Baltic may appear to be European NATO ‘lake’, it remains a critical naval and commercial artery for the Russians. Vast amounts of oil flow through it from Ust-Luga in illegal tankers – but there’s nothing that anyone can really do to stop them in what amounts to international waters – and that includes the straits controlled by Sweden and Denmark, which under international law are treated as having a right of passage (the same applies in the English Channel).

Russia also knows that the Baltic states are extremely aware of their size, very aware of their history being incorporated into Russia against their will for much of it. Yet despite that NATO has gone out of its way to deploy multinational troops and tripwire forces to make it clear that any ground invasion would involve multiple nations instantly.

The Europeans have allowed Putin too much leeway now and they realize it. The probing has gone on too long and too often and there’s now a widespread feeling that only force will persuade the Russians from continuing. This morning even Ursula Von Der Layen, the EU president, essentially said the time had come to shoot things down if incidents continue.

The question is will the Russians continue to press their luck or finally get the message? The East Europeans, Baltics and UK have all been subjected to various aerial incursions, at one time or another.

Yet this is different. Russia is losing the war against Ukraine, despite stretching itself to breaking point it’s really not making any significant progress and the costs of what little it does make are egregious. Z-bloggers are noticing how bad things are – one even going as far as to say that Russian cannot win the war under this administration ‘along the colonial lines its currently using’.

Is the pressure so severe that Putin’s response to it is to make Russia look more aggressive and dangerous elsewhere? What can he gain from it?

One oft repeated answer seems to be that by pressing the west to use more of their resources for their own benefit, they’re not using them in Ukraine against Russia, yet I find that incredibly hollow as an argument.

It’s my belief he wants to be seen as willing to escalate to make it clear that we are dealing with a dangerous player unafraid of what we might do. Except it’s exactly because he is afraid that he tries to pretend he is not.

In the event of a hard conflict arising – let’s for the sake of argument say another Estonia situation – if orders come through to shoot down who is giving those orders?

It’s this question that draws in the US and the NATO command structure. It should be a political decision in NATO that the policy is adopted generally, and the final call should be the Supreme Allied Commander – an American. First off would the Americans even agree to such a policy – I doubt it (which would require another structure). That places the US in direct opposition to the European powers and immediately questions the unity of NATO. And that is the likely end game for Putin. If he can split the NATO command structure and effectively render NATO impotent because of American reticence, he’s just won a major victory.

And that is exactly why Europe has got to look towards a separate path forward for its own military chain of command, it needs the Americans to step out of NATO to free Europe and the other allies to act as they see fit, or it acts within a secondary level of command that’s EU driven but has the buy in of Norway and the UK to work with it as non-EU members. That shortcuts the American led chain of command.

European sentiment is largely of the opinion that the only way to treat the next such incursion is to pre-warn the Russians officially that anything like it will face combat and shooting down. If they test us we must then do so. It will lead to a tense moment or two, but the Russians are in no place to engage western forces in any meaningful way. They’re holding on in Ukraine only by sheer force of numbers.

It is in my opinion, time to give the Russians a final warning on the matter when it comes to blatant air incursions. And back up our words with action if we have to.

As to the other incursions? The only way to play the game is play it the same way. We know Ukraine is running rampant across Russian territory with drones and sabotage ops. We need some of our secret drone profits to suddenly appear over Russian airports and naval bases, unidentified, ‘professional’ drones operated entirely for the purpose of intimidation. That is after all their real purpose.

The Analyst

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