Europe’s war-party has been hard at work online trying to stir up some kind of “Article 5 response” (i.e. War) over Russia’s reckless drone incursion into Poland in the small hours of Wednesday. Those easily impressed and panicked by the night’s events seem oblivious of this kind of old-school Russian type of provocation. And they are clearly not familiar with the much worse shooting (and killing) incidents between the Soviet Union and NATO during the Cold War. As usual, since 2022 any such flare-ups are quickly seized upon by the radical pro-Ukraine lobby to try to bounce NATO into some kind of escalation against Russia. Instead, NATO needs to hold its nerve and avoid being dragged into Ukraine’s war.
The full facts of this operation are not yet entirely clear in all their details, but we know enough. Russia has been preparing to stage its annual large-scale Zapad military exercise in Belarus, next door to Poland. And on the night of 9th to 10th September, Russian forces unleashed another round of their usual drone and missile attacks on Ukraine. Of these, anywhere between seven and 20 Geran drones (Zelensky mentioned eight) appear to have been diverted through Poland.
Up to four of the Gerans appear to have been shot down by NATO quick reaction alert fighters – in what looks like a rather impressive multinational operation involving Polish, American, Dutch, Italian and Romanian planes – and most seem to have crashed of their own. One was allegedly found in a field some 300km inside Poland. A few Polish airports were closed as a precaution, and high alert levels and other standard readiness procedures were activated in the eastern regions of Poland as well as in Slovakia and Hungary.
President Zelensky rushed to call this a Russian “strike”, and a US congressman keen for publicity denounced it as an “act of war”. But after the skies cleared, NATO let it be known that it was not treating the incursion as anything of the sort.
Indeed, nothing about this episode suggests anything other than just one more outrageous Russian violation of NATO airspace: on a larger scale than previous similar incidents, but certainly not an attack. It’s not clear if any of the drones were armed – if they even carried warheads – as there have not yet been any reports of detonations on impact. One drone, for example, crashed into a Polish house near the border, but just damaged the roof and a nearby car.
The Russians certainly calibrated this operation quite carefully so that it would be alarming enough to cause panic in the European psyche and demonstrate Russian readiness to escalate, but limited and “harmless” enough so as to not amount to a real threat or to meet the definition of an actual “attack”.
The danger in this kind of situation from a Western perspective is not immediate military escalation to World War Three, but its exploitation for political purposes and the strengthening of the pro-war factions across Europe and indeed in the United States. The Ukrainians have already used this to ask for “partner [i.e. NATO] air defense capabilities in neighbouring countries to be used to intercept drones and missiles in the Ukrainian air space”. Others are trying to revive the old (and mad) idea of a full, NATO-enforced no-fly-zone over Western Ukraine.
There is no question that last night’s incident would not justify any of this, as it would be an entirely disproportionate response by any standards or historical experience. Firstly, since the 2022 invasion have been numerous incidents of Russian drones crossing into Allied airspace – usually in Poland, Romania – and even crashing on their territory. Admittedly, the 9/10 September incident appears to be of a more intentional and serious nature, and the first to occasion NATO shooting down Russian assets. But technically, it is only marginally so.
Secondly, the Cold War saw many deadly military incidents between the Allies and the Soviets, both in the air and at sea. In 1951 a US plane was shot down with the loss of ten crew; in 1953 a British plane was downed and seven crew died; there were other instances of US military planes shot down by Soviet fighters in 1964 over Germany and 1970 over Armenia. If none of these much more serious episodes led to escalatory reactions from NATO, why should last night’s drone affair do so? Conversely, did NATO’s refusal to escalate during the Cold War mean it was “weak” – or, rather, confident and strong?
With this new provocation Russia is not testing NATO’s military reaction – which they’ve been doing constantly through all manner of airspace violations even before the 2022 invasion – as much as they are trying to exploit the political tensions within the Western camp between the warmongers and the pro-peace faction, with the ultimate aim of impacting the ongoing negotiations with president Trump. The Russian strategic calculus, in general, tends to be driven by political analysis rather than strictly military – as explained in these pages with respect to a previous drone incident with Romania.
In the present case, Moscow is likely betting on an over-reaction from NATO’s European allies, and on the prospect that this whole affair will be blown out of proportion in the media – particularly in the US – causing new fears of “WWIII” especially among Trump’s MAGA base and perhaps in the president’s own mind. The Russians know that the last thing that Trump wants – quite rightly – is for the Ukraine war to expand and for the US to be dragged into it.
All of this would, perhaps counter-intuitively, create more political pressure on the American side to make more compromises in the negotiations in order to just get out of this European mess. Finally, Moscow also certainly felt it was politically imperative to give a “strong response” of their own to Trump’s recent comments about potentially increasing the number of American troops stationed in Poland.
As often happens in international affairs and especially in matters of war and peace, it is not a particular event itself which does the damage and triggers further problems – or catastrophes – but the political reaction to it. The drone incursion into Poland falls squarely in this category, and the best response from the Allied side is to keep calm and carry on – while strengthening the defence of NATO territory.
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