MORE: The Kremlin intends to accustom NATO militaries and governments to a baseline level of Russian activity and airspace violations in an effort to create tactical surprise if or when the Kremlin conducts further escalations — such as direct drone strikes on NATO targets.
The clearest historical comparison is Egypt’s actions in the lead-up to the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when it conducted regular military exercises near the Israeli border that initially prompted Israeli reactions but were gradually treated as routine –with the result that the Israeli military partially dismissed Egypt’s actual deployments to invade as just another exercise.
The Russian military is not conducting a rapid military buildup on NATO’s borders, to be clear, and this is an inexact analogy — but NATO must ensure that it does not relax into treating Russian drone incursions and aggressive flight paths by Russian military aircraft as routine and unimportant occurrences, either in terms of raising the threshold of what Russian action merits a NATO response (a fight the Kremlin has unfortunately already partially won) or in terms of reducing the urgency with which NATO states and populations respond to individual Russian actions.
SPECIAL REPORT | NEW: Russia is operating within a war framework against Europe while Europe continues to function within a peace framework. A full-scale war between Russia and NATO is not inevitable or imminent, but NATO and European states must recognize the framework the Kremlin is using to conduct necessary efforts to deter Russian escalation.
The Kremlin is conducting several mutually supporting campaigns against Europe in order to support its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and advance its longstanding grand strategic objectives of breaking NATO and reestablishing dominant influence over former Soviet states.
ISW assesses that the Kremlin is conducting a series of overlapping campaigns to achieve at least two overarching strategic objectives: Reduce or eliminate European military and diplomatic support for Ukraine; and neutralize NATO as a unified alliance capable of opposing Russia.
The Kremlin is also conducting three coordinated military campaigns in distinct operational theaters targeting the airspace and territory of NATO member states and Moldova that are extensions of Russia's war in Ukraine.
The growing pace of Russian kinetic actions against Europe is intended to cause two effects: to raise NATO's threshold of what actions are considered worthy of a response, and to inure NATO governments and populations to constant alerts so that they do not take any individual Russian action seriously.
The Kremlin also benefits, however, from European underreaction to the Kremlin's ongoing campaigns, and particularly from the analysts and public officials who reject any discussion of ongoing Russian kinetic campaigns against Europe or warnings of the near-term Russian threat out of hand. Finding a balance between necessary urgency and panic will be incredibly challenging in the face of both Russian information operations and good faith policy disagreements, but NATO and Europe must address this balance.
The difficulty European governments face in acknowledging that Russia is operating within a war framework and pursuing actual military lines of effort against and within European states is proof of the success of Russian cognitive warfare efforts. European political parties and populations must understand the degree to which they have been conditioned by extensive Russian efforts to avoid calling Russian actions what they are — parts of a military campaign intended to achieve discrete effects.
No one desires a war with Russia. The purpose of describing the Russian war framework and advocating for responses to it is to avoid escalation and conventional war. Europe (and the United States) must find a way to open their discourse to the idea that they must recognize the war framework.