Would Putin Attack a NATO Member?
Would Putin Attack a NATO Member?
The probability that Putin would challenge a NATO member militarily is not high, but his history of miscalculations and overinflated ambition should remind the alliance not to underestimate the risks.
NATO leaders meet this week in Washington, where supporting Ukraine and dealing with the Russian threat to European and trans-Atlantic security will top the agenda. The United States and its allies have several reasons to support Ukraine in its war against Russia. One big reason: no one knows what Vladimir Putin, were he emboldened by victory, might do next. Might his ambitions at some point turn to, say, one of the Baltic states, despite their membership in NATO?
Most analysts would strongly downplay the prospect of Russia attacking a Baltic state, citing precisely their membership in the alliance. They could be correct. But apart from his ambitions for Ukraine, Putin would like nothing better than to disrupt the post-Cold War European security system, the center of which is NATO. And he has surprised before.
Russia’s unjustified war against Ukraine began with the illegal seizure of Crimea ten years ago. The conflict has garnered far more attention following the large-scale Russian assault of February 2022. Some Americans argue that Ukraine does not constitute a vital national interest. Regardless of that, NATO and the security of Europe and the trans-Atlantic region do.
Putin does not like NATO, although evidence suggests he does not fear an attack. Finland’s entry into the alliance in 2023 more than doubled the border between NATO countries and Russia. Norway and Finland lie adjacent to the Kola Peninsula, which has huge strategic importance for Moscow, among other reasons, for the nuclear forces and infrastructure located there. Yet Russia has denuded its Norwegian and Finnish borders of Russian forces. In September 2023, the Norwegians reported that Russian troops near their border had been reduced by 80%. Last month, a Finnish official said Russian military manpower near Finland’s border had been cut by a like amount.
Putin’s dislike for NATO does not stem from a fear of attack. It stems from frustration that the alliance constrains him from, among other things, restoring Russia to his preferred position for it in Europe. Breaking NATO would greatly increase an increasingly militaristic Moscow’s freedom of maneuver vis-à-vis countries that were once part of the Soviet Union or Warsaw Pact.
Russia already has engaged NATO members in a hybrid conflict, using disinformation campaigns, election interference, cyberattacks and physical sabotage, among other tools.
Would Putin go further and use military force against an alliance member? Not now, absent a major provocation such as engagement of NATO combat forces on Kyiv’s side in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. With the bulk of Russian ground forces tied up with operations in Ukraine, the last thing the Russian General Staff wants at present is to have to take on NATO.
Things might appear different were Russia to defeat Ukraine and have a few years to regenerate its military capabilities. Leaders of the three Baltic states see Russia as a clear military threat. German and Danish officials also have warned that Russia is planning for a possible military confrontation with NATO in the future.
Putin denies it. In March, he told Russian air force officers, “We have no aggressive intentions towards these [NATO] states. The idea that we will attack some other country—Poland, the Baltic states, and the Czechs are also being scared—is complete nonsense. It’s just drivel.”
That denial would be more reassuring were it not for the fact that, in the months preceding the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Russian officials vigorously denied they would attack there. In November 2021, as Russia massed forces near Ukraine’s border, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov asserted, “Russia is not going to attack anyone.” In January 2022, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov stated, “There are no plans or intentions to attack Ukraine.” And, just six days before Russian forces launched their assault, Putin himself said Russian forces were conducting “purely defensive” drills and were “not a threat to any other country.”
Many Western analysts likewise dismiss the possibility of Russia attacking a NATO member. They may be right. But those same analysts in 2018 or 2019 would likely have ruled out the kind of war that Russia unleashed on Ukraine two years ago.
The point is: Putin overreaches, and he miscalculates.
His blundering decision to launch the 2022 invasion will go down as an epic in the annals of miscalculation. He expected to win in a matter of weeks, with Russian troops greeted as liberators. Twenty-eight months and some 500,000 dead and wounded Russian soldiers later, Russia is bogged down in a war with no end in sight.
Why would we not think it possible, were Russia to defeat Ukraine and rebuild its military, that Putin might not miscalculate again, particularly if Ukraine fell due to lack of Western assistance? If the United States did not stick with Ukraine, which has cost the lives of no U.S. soldiers, would Putin believe that it would send its military to fight to defend eastern Estonia? Nothing would break NATO more surely than a U.S. refusal to defend one of the allies. That could look awfully tempting to Putin.
In the end, the probability that Putin would go so far as to challenge a NATO member militarily may not be that high. But that is far from a zero probability. Putin has done the unexpected and miscalculated before. Underestimating Putin’s ambitions would seem a risky proposition.
