Nato fears uncontrolled escalation with Russia if allies shoot down Moscow’s jets for violating its airspace – and Vladimir Putin is banking on its risk aversion to weaken the alliance, experts have warned.
This week, European allies warned that they were prepared to shoot down Russian planes violating Nato airspace after a series of incursions by Russia.
Donald Trump said on Tuesday that Nato allies would have his support to shoot down Russian planes breaching their airspace.
It marked a hardening of position on Moscow for the US President, who has previously demonstrated sympathy for the Kremlin narrative over the Ukraine war and contempt for America’s European allies.
In the past two weeks, a mass Russian drone incursion into Polish airspace was followed by another drone over Romania, before three Russian MiG-31 fighter jets with their transponders off entered Estonian airspace for 12 minutes last Friday in what that country called a “blatant, reckless, and flagrant violation”.
The jets were escorted away by Italian F35s participating in Nato’s Baltic Air Policing mission. Then on Sunday, Germany and Sweden scrambled fighter jets to track an unidentified Russian surveillance plane flying in neutral airspace over the Baltic Sea.
“Nato allies will employ, in accordance with international law, all necessary military and non-military tools to defend ourselves,” Nato said on Tuesday after its second meeting on airspace violations in a week and a half.
The British foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, accused Putin of “dangerous and reckless” actions that “open the door to direct armed confrontation between Nato and Russia”, and warned: “We are resolute, and if we need to confront planes that are operating in Nato airspace without permission, then we will do so.”
British RAF fighter jets have been sent to Poland as part of Nato’s Eastern Sentry operation to bolster the eastern flank.
Poland went further, issuing a direct threat of force. “If another missile or aircraft enters our space without permission – deliberately or ‘by mistake’ – and gets shot down, and the wreckage falls on Nato territory, please don’t come here to whine about it. You have been warned,” said the Polish deputy prime minister, Radosław Sikorski.
But questions remain over whether Nato would have the nerve to take serious action against Russia amid Trump’s wavering support, fears of escalating confrontation with Russia, and how this affects the war in Ukraine.
In 2015, Nato member Turkey shot down a Russian jet that strayed over its border from Syria after it ignored several warnings and following several incursions into Turkish airspace.
A furious Russia warned of “serious consequences” and imposed sanctions on Turkey, but did not declare war or even retaliate militarily. Over the past two weeks, many officials and analysts have pointed to the incident to urge a more forceful response to Russia’s latest airspace violations.
A Royal Air Force FGR4 Typhoon during the first Royal Air Force Eastern Sentry deployment over Poland, pictured last Friday (Photo: Ben Birchall/PA)However, the strategic environment has dramatically changed, thanks largely to the Ukraine war, and shooting down a Russian jet would drag Nato a long way up the escalation ladder.
“That would be a dramatic escalation and possibly an uncontrolled escalation,” said John Lough, senior research fellow at the New Eurasian Strategies Centre and former Nato official in Moscow. “Then you got to accept Russia will respond in a range of ways, and you may, you may not, be able to forecast what they all are, but the goal would be to disable Nato’s military capacity by ensuring it was politically overwhelmed.
“It’s a dilemma they face: in some ways, on a declaratory level, you have to escalate in order to deter and that’s something that diplomats are always frightened of because they think any escalation is dangerous. But sometimes, if it actually prevents military escalation, then it was effective.”
Ed Arnold, senior research fellow in European Security at the Royal United Services Institute, pointed out that Russian airspace incursions are routine in Europe. “The issue at the moment is we’re seeing an increase in the volume of that activity,” he said.
He emphasised that Nato was unlikely to move to downing a Russian aircraft.
“Putin’s risk appetite is high. You don’t want to misinterpret that and cause unwanted escalation,” he said. An accident could lead to shooting between Nato and Russia. “Whether it develops into a full-scale war I’m not so sure,” he said.
One outcome allies are wary of is Russia peddling disinformation blaming Nato for Moscow’s aggression. “From a Russian standpoint, losing a fighter would not be fully negative, from the aspect of being able to say it’s not a fully defensive alliance, and pump out misinformation, or even saying Nato aircraft are using electronic jamming [which Russia deploys routinely in eastern Europe],” said Arnold.
Patrycja Bazylczyk, programme manager at the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said shooting down a Russian plane could prompt Moscow to escalate with, for example, more incursions – or could lead to a situation in which Russia is deterred from taking further action.
Nato needs Trump for credible deterrence
After the Estonia incursion, Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte said “no immediate threat” had been detected in Estonia, while Estonia’s prime minister, Kristen Michal, said that “there are certainly parameters for the use of force” which, in this case, had not been met.
The former Estonian air chief Jaak Tarien told local media that during peacetime, force was not the first response. He added that further intervention could follow if the Russian planes were, in theory, carrying air-to-ground weapons and heading for a specific target.
Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte, right and Nato Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Alexus G Grynkewich, discuss the violation of Polish airspace by Russian drones in Brussels (Photo: Simon Wohlfahrt / AFP)If Russia takes such action again, Nato must do more than just escort their planes away or it risks losing credibility, Lough said. “If Nato want to stop things like this happening in future, they have to be really very clear with the Russian side, that they will take appropriate action. That’s called deterrence. And the key here is whether the deterrence is credible.”
That, he emphasised, depended on the US. Since Trump’s return to power, Putin has appeared emboldened by the American President’s unwillingness to impose any consequences on Moscow as it ramps up its war in Ukraine and interference operations against Nato.
Russia is using airspace incursions alongside other “grey zone” acts of aggression that fall below the threshold of direct war to not only probe Nato’s defences and collect data on response times but to assess its political will to confront Russia, and importantly, to undermine Western support for Ukraine, leaving it at the mercy of Moscow’s revanchist ambitions.
Nato, however, is assured enough not to feel pressured into responding too strongly to Russian recklessness, according to Russia expert Dr Mark Galeotti.
Russia’s actions are carefully calibrated not to push too far but nonetheless to provoke, he said on his In Moscow’s Shadows podcast, and Nato is “adult enough to recognise this, not to overreact”.
He suggested a host of other actions Nato could take against Russian jets including firing warning shots in the vicinity of any offending plane, bringing it into a radar lock as though to fire a missile, or generating wake turbulence to disrupt it.
Arnold said European countries could use frozen Russian assets to pay for weaponry to Ukraine.
Bazylczyk said a unified response from Nato could “change Russia’s political calculus to make them realise that their pattern of escalation is only going to trigger more escalation from or measured response from Nato members”.
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Read More“Reliance on Nato’s deterrent effect against Russia will definitely be important to keep this at a simmer,” she said. “Invoking Article 4 and bringing the alliance together to discuss this issue and understand the escalation ladder – that’s the best path forward.”
Nato could look at other asymmetric actions, including giving more of certain weapons to Ukraine, sending further deployments to northern and eastern Nato states, as well as reinforcements for its Eastern Sentry airspace defence mission. “There’s a lot of very subtle signalling that has to take place,” Lough said. He added that allies could even close the Baltic Sea if they wanted to strangle Russian exports.
The most important thing for European security and for Nato, however, is to signal the strength of its Article 5 mutual defence clause, so Russia thinks twice about further action. And that requires buy-in from the United States.
Trump’s comments this week, alongside the declaration of his UN ambassador, Mike Waltz, to the Security Council that the US would “defend every inch of Nato territory”, has gone some way to restore at least some hope in the strength of the alliance – and Nato may take that to step up its deterrence posture.
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