Nicolai Haugsted
NATO reveals 4,000-page battle plan in case conflict with Russia escalates.
NATO has spent the years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine rebuilding its defenses across Europe and preparing for scenarios the alliance hopes will remain hypothetical.
Those preparations are apparently not short on paperwork.
According to TVNET, military planners have produced roughly 4,000 pages covering how NATO could respond if tensions with Russia escalate along its eastern flank, according to Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, chairman of NATO’s Military Committee.
Speaking after a meeting of the alliance’s military leadership in Copenhagen on Saturday, Dragone said NATO has three separate plans covering the region – stretching from comparatively limited incidents all the way to collective defense under Article 5.
More importantly, he insisted that those plans are not simply gathering dust in a Brussels filing cabinet.
“The plans are ready, the structure is ready, and the soldiers, systems and weapons are ready. In the event of an attack, we know what we have to do.”
Three plans cover NATO’s eastern flank
Military chiefs from all 32 NATO countries gathered in Copenhagen on September 18 and 19 for the alliance’s annual Military Committee Conference.
Collective deterrence and defense featured prominently alongside military technology, new capabilities and continued support for Ukraine. NATO said commanders were moving their attention from promises about higher defense spending toward actually delivering the forces and equipment needed to defend allied territory.
Questions about Russia naturally occupied plenty of space.
“We have plans for the eastern flank – more specifically, three plans – to be prepared in case of an escalation in that area,” Dragone said.
According to his description, the planning establishes how NATO would move forces and respond as the seriousness of a crisis increased.
Scenarios range from smaller incidents and incursions into allied territory to the far more serious prospect of Article 5 being activated.
NATO’s eastern flank includes countries geographically closest to Russia, Belarus and the war in Ukraine, making military readiness there a particular priority since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Article 5 remains the big red line
Article 5 is NATO’s collective-defense clause, under which an armed attack against one member can be treated as an attack against all.
Dragone stressed that NATO remains a defensive alliance and said a direct Russian attack is not currently the scenario officials expect to occur.
Preparation, however, is rather different from prediction.
“We need to show strength and send a clear signal that no part of our territory, not even an inch of it, should be subjected to an attack,” he said.
Hybrid operations present a trickier problem.
Cyberattacks, sabotage, disinformation and other hostile activities can remain below the threshold of conventional military attack, meaning they do not automatically produce an Article 5 response.
Recent concern about Russian activity around NATO territory has increased the relevance of precisely those grey-zone scenarios. European intelligence officials have warned about sabotage and other hostile operations, although assessments differ over how imminent a direct military confrontation may be.
NATO knows it has an ammunition problem
Having thousands of pages explaining how to fight a prolonged conflict is one matter. Having enough ammunition to follow those instructions is another.
Dragone acknowledged that NATO remains acutely aware of the enormous quantities of ammunition consumed by modern warfare.
Ukraine has provided a rather unforgiving demonstration.
Artillery shells, missiles, drones and air-defense interceptors can disappear at extraordinary speed during sustained fighting, placing enormous pressure on production lines and national stockpiles.
Dragone said NATO countries are consequently pushing their defense industries away from the peacetime assumptions that existed before Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Allies have committed to substantially higher defense spending, and NATO’s military leadership says the challenge is increasingly about turning that money into usable capabilities. Dragone described precisely that shift while opening the Copenhagen conference.
“Funding will be ensured and we need to accelerate the capabilities of the delivery industry,” he said.
Factories therefore need to produce more – and produce it faster.
Drones have rewritten part of the rulebook
Lessons from Ukraine extend beyond artillery stockpiles.
NATO is also expanding work involving drones and counter-drone systems on its eastern flank, reflecting how inexpensive unmanned aircraft have transformed both surveillance and combat.
Protecting military infrastructure and Europe’s defense industry has become another concern.
Dragone said attacks against factories and warehouses could constitute ordinary crimes in some circumstances but could also form part of hybrid warfare.
Attribution remains one of the complications.
Security and intelligence services may disrupt planned operations without those cases ever becoming public, making it difficult to judge the full scale of hostile activity from publicly reported incidents alone.
Putin says Russia does not want a European war
Moscow continues to reject Western warnings that Russia intends to attack NATO.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has again said his country wants to restore relations with European states and has no aggressive intentions toward them.
“We are ready to cooperate and restore relations with our European neighbours,” Putin said during a meeting connected to Russia’s military-industrial sector, according to reports of his remarks.
Russia’s assurances are viewed with deep skepticism by many European governments, particularly because Putin also denied plans to invade Ukraine before Russian forces launched the full-scale assault in February 2022.
Putin, for his part, argues that NATO is the side expanding its military footprint and has accused European leaders of using irresponsible rhetoric when discussing the possibility of war with Russia.
NATO presents its preparations differently.
Dragone’s message from Copenhagen was deterrence rather than an assertion that war is inevitable: Russia should understand that attacking allied territory would carry costs far greater than anything Moscow could hope to gain.
Around 4,000 pages now spell out what NATO intends to do if deterrence fails.
