Ukraine has an armed force – and at this point a production capacity for drones and other critical weapons – that no Western European country can match in the near or medium term. And Europe – when supported by the US – still has enough resources to help this force stop Putin within Ukraine’s borders. The drone cannon is now squarely in NATO’s court.
There are at least five lessons that Europe and the United States should learn from Russia’s unprecedented decision to launch drones into Poland as part of another massive wave against Ukraine. All of them require either an immediate response or a reassessment.
FIRST AND MOST IMPORTANT: No one should dismiss as ridiculous the idea that Russia — so embattled in Ukraine — would never dare attack a NATO member. It just did, despite the Russian Defense Ministry’s claim on Wednesday that it had no intention of striking any targets in Poland. Nineteen drones entered Polish airspace, according to Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, enough to make it clear that it was a deliberate act and to give Poland the right to activate NATO’s Article 4, which calls for consultations between allies when a member is under threat.
According to Fabian Hinz, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, analysis of the drones downed so far indicates that they were Gerberas, a cheap fixed-wing model designed for the Russian military in China. These serve multiple roles, including as attack drones and as decoys to overwhelm Ukrainian defenses.
But more important than the configuration of the drones used, Vladimir Putin has been clear from the start of the war that he sees the expansion of the Western alliance to include former Soviet bloc countries as one of the “fundamental reasons” behind the decision to invade a neighboring state. As long as NATO does not accept his demands, he will continue to push forward – not because he fears a Western invasion, but because the alliance limits the sphere of influence that he is determined to restore to Moscow.
SECONDLY, the night attack clearly demonstrates the fact that Ukraine is Europe’s first and strongest line of defense against a vengeful and revisionist Russia.
One only has to imagine that Putin finally achieves his goals in Ukraine: to occupy – or have granted – all the territory from Odessa in the south to Sumy in the northeast, while imposing a pro-Moscow government in Kiev, on what remains beyond the Dnieper River. The case of Belarus clearly shows that Putin does not need to occupy a country to station missiles, troops and air defenses there, nor to dictate policies to neighbors he considers unruly. Drone incursions, launched from a closer range – and therefore with less reaction time for NATO defenses – would be just one of the many destabilizing tools at his disposal.
THIRD, as airpower expert Phillips O’Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews, wrote, NATO’s use of extremely expensive aircraft and missiles to shoot down just a few of the Russian drones that crossed into Polish airspace shows that the alliance’s defenses remain unprepared even after four years of war near the border. “God help them if they face 600 drones and missiles in a single night,” as is regularly the case with Ukraine, he wrote.
Now the question arises: would Putin – who has already reoriented Russia’s economy for war and tested the limits of Europe’s will and capacity to resist – miss the opportunity to use these tools?
FOURTH, this war has shown that Putin does not need to invade a country to attack it. This can be done through cyberattacks, sabotage, or with missiles and drones launched in quantities that would have seemed unimaginable just a few years ago. Russia does not need to be adjacent to a country to strike it, although that does increase its options. In fact, it does not even need to invade to test NATO and question the seriousness of Article IV, the basis for collective defense. That testing has already begun with what O’Brien called the “spare-wheel” attack on Poland.
The U.S. response now—whether with an absolute and unequivocal commitment to Poland’s defense, or something less—will be critical. It will determine whether Putin backs down after receiving the answer, or whether he continues to try to find other weaknesses that will expose and destroy the alliance, changing the geopolitical calculus across Europe. Without a meaningful U.S. commitment to security, Putin would be on the verge of succeeding where his predecessors in the Kremlin—back to Joseph Stalin—failed: separating Washington from Europe and transforming Russia into the leading military power on the European continent.
AND FINALLY – FIFTH, the drone attack on one of NATO’s most heavily armed states shows the corrosive effect of Europe’s lack of military capacity and the lack of U.S. political will. This combination has allowed Russia to seize the initiative in Ukraine this year.
It should have been US President Donald Trump and Kiev’s allies in Europe and Asia who would have increased economic and military pressure on Russia, forcing the Kremlin into negotiations for a lasting end to the war. Instead, it is Putin – secure in his alliances with China, Iran and North Korea – who is increasing the pressure on Ukraine and its supporters. His hope is that Kiev’s allies will either abandon Ukraine or force it to surrender in the face of his objectives and the new balance of power in Europe that will follow.
This was just a warning shot. Neither of these extreme scenarios is inevitable for two reasons: Ukraine has an armed force – and at this point a production capacity for drones and other critical weapons – that no Western European country can match in the near or medium term. And Europe – when supported by the US – still has enough resources to help this force stop Putin within Ukraine’s borders. The drone cannon is now squarely in NATO’s court. (Bloomberg)