Is NATO strong enough to deter a Russia-Europe war?

Three decades ago, at the end of the Cold War, NATO members looked feverishly to find a mission to replace the then-defunct need to prevent the Soviet Union from invading Europe.

NATO’s dilemma was encapsulated in the phrase “Out of Area or Out of Business.” That is, having been freed from the Soviet threat, the alliance ought to provide protection and stability and promote democracy beyond its European boundaries.

The idea led NATO, in whole or in part, to a series of out-of-area wars—first in tumultuous Bosnia and Kosovo, then further afield in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. All exposed the possibilities of unified action while opening new divisions over just how far the alliance should reach beyond its own frontiers.

Thanks to Russian President Vladimir Putin and his 2022 invasion of Ukraine, NATO’s out-of-area debate has been pushed aside and replaced by a return to the alliance’s original raison d’etre: defense of allied Europe.

The reaffirmation of NATO’s original purpose has nonetheless exposed a disturbing reality: In the face of a possibly open-ended and particularly vicious conflict in Ukraine, the alliance’s nuclear deterrent may not be enough of a deterrent to protect the continent from spillover aggression.

Putin had upended the notion that mere possession of nuclear bombs and the ability to deliver them is not enough to prevent conventional warfare.

Instead, Russia is showing that possession of a nuclear arsenal can provide cover for invading a sovereign nation with only conventional arms. Putin has repeatedly threatened to use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine to restrain Western support for Kiev’s defensive war effort.

This reality is driving NATO’s broadest changes in its operations in years. Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, NATO General Christopher Cavoli, ordered a revamp of SHAPE, an acronym for the alliance’s Supreme Headquarters-Allied Powers Europe he commands.

Cavoli demanded that SHAPE’s headquarters complex, located in Mons, Belgium, be upgraded into an ultra-modern war-making center. In the view of top officials, SHAPE had entropized since the 1991 climax of the Cold War, was mired in Brussels-based bureaucracy and depended too much on US power while allies cut back on military expenditures.

A so-called Tiger Teams responded with key strategic plans, including a provocative project to map out long-range air strike targets inside Russia. Heretofore, such targeting would not have happened until the outbreak of war in an alliance nation, NATO officials said. (Ukraine is not a member of NATO).

SHAPE upgraded its Mons war room to enable a fast call-up of armed reinforcements by increasing the number of personnel from different NATO nations at the SHAPE headquarters. That has allowed for direct communications that previously went through Brussels, the big NATO naval base in Naples, Italy, and certain military bases in the United States.

Before Russia’s invasion, NATO’s emergency mobile reinforcement contingent numbered 25,000, a force that advisors considered a mere token – especially as Russia was even before the invasion making long-term plans for the call-up of tens of thousands of new troops. (NATO’s total personnel numbers 3.7 million).  

In response, Cavoli ordered 300,000 multi-nation NATO soldiers to train as a new rapid-reaction force. Known as the Allied Response Force (ARP), it is currently undergoing training and is scheduled to be operational by July, in time for NATO’s next summit that month in Washington.

The contingents would serve as a ready deterrent to an attack on any member state, the fundamental role of the alliance as enshrined in Article 5 of NATO’s founding treaty.

“The key to effective deterrence was the demonstrated capability to inflict real pain on Russia,” said Ben Hodges, former general and head of US Army-Europe in describing the ARP’s objective. “If you want to prevent the Russians from making a terrible decision, then that means we have to be able to move as fast—or faster—than them.”

In addition, NATO’s supreme commander can now adjust the level of air defenses in Europe, move standing naval task forces around and increase the size of troop formations on Russia’s border from just over 1,000 soldiers to around 3,000 without time-consuming negotiations with NATO members.

Cavoli’s first major step after the 2022 invasion was the dispatch of 150,000 ground troops to alliance nations along the border with Russia.

For Cavoli, “[The] initial guidance and direction that started all of this was: ‘I need to be able to command,’” Colonel Bryan Frizzelle, an officer at SHAPE headquarters, told Foreign Affairs magazine.

The changes reflect a reversal of post-Cold War security assumptions. Before the USSR’s collapse, the US and Western European countries sought to engage Russia in friendly relations, even as the alliance pondered expansion eastward.  

A paper published in 2010 by the Rand Corporation, a US security think tank, predicted, “NATO’s attention will almost certainly turn to problems closer to home, such as confronting the continuing threat of radical Islam in the Middle East and the burgeoning Islamic population inside Europe, dealing with problems of piracy along NATO’s periphery, and perhaps contending with the emerging threat of Iran’s ambition for nuclear weapons.”

“Russia,” the 2010 report rightly predicted, “will be particularly meddlesome when it comes to considering new members of the alliance, significantly raising the cost of entry for such new members as Georgia and Ukraine.”

Notions of NATO-Russia security understanding evaporated with Moscow’s invasion of Georgia—which, along with Ukraine, was tentatively offered NATO membership at some unspecified future date.

Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine, in Crimea in 2014, did not ring great alarm, much less vast new NATO defense planning. Indeed, the alliance has yet to fulfill its own 2014 pledge that said each member should spend 2% of their gross national product on defense.

As of last year, only 11 out of 31 members had reached or exceeded that level; NATO officials say, that figure will rise to 18 this year. But what if Europeans and Americans are asked to make sacrifices beyond paying for arms, including by supplying Ukraine, during hard economic times?

The Ukraine war’s “most likely scenarios are continued fighting – though the pace of battle may vary – a frozen conflict or some form of negotiated agreement that, at least temporarily, stops the shooting,” the Rand Corporation earlier predicted this year.

The threat of the war’s expansion into Europe has pushed historically neutral Finland and Sweden to join the alliance, the former last year and the latter, this week, and prompted talk about reviving a military program most NATO countries had long dropped: conscription.

Currently, only Greece, Denmark and Estonia draft youth into their armed services. However, military officials in the US, Germany, the United Kingdom and Sweden have recently broached the controversial subject.

Meanwhile, NATO’s attention is fixed on at least one key out-of-area theater. For months, Houthi rebels in Yemen, with weapons provided by Iran, have disrupted commercial traffic through the Red Sea into the Suez Canal to Europe with armed drones and missiles that have targeted international ships.

Though not a formal NATO operation, the US leads a small international flotilla that includes warships from the UK, France, Greece and Spain to protect shipping in the area. UK and US missiles have struck Houthi launch facilities in Yemen, yet the danger persists.

This week alone, Houthi projectiles sunk two civilian cargo vessels and killed three sailors.