Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
Diplomats said there are informal discussions on a working level on how to move troops and supplies if the Baltics or Poland come under attack.
Along NATO’s eastern flank, alliance and EU governments have spent the summer trading warnings about drones over Poland, arson at defense plants, and jamming near their borders.
The public language has stayed cautious. Behind closed doors, officials are now sketching out how the alliance would fight if any of it ever crossed the line into a full attack.
That planning is running through informal channels between NATO and EU capitals, RFE/RL reports, based on interviews with intelligence officials, diplomats and Baltic leaders.
Diplomats told the broadcaster the work currently takes the form of nformal discussions on a working level on how to move troops and supplies if the Baltics or Poland come under attack, with no official guidelines or firm preparations yet in place.
Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs told RFE/RL at the UN General Assembly on September 21 that the threat is no longer theoretical.
“We are not talking about a conventional war. We are talking about all kinds of provocations, all kinds of acts of sabotage, all kinds of tests, and definitely this is something that is already happening as we speak,” he said.
The Narva scenario
The most-discussed model in these talks is what officials call the Narva scenario, a possible Russian move against the small Estonian border city where a large share of residents are ethnic Russians.
Analysts cited by RFE/RL argue Moscow could stage a hybrid takeover there on the pattern of Crimea in 2014, and dare NATO to trigger Article 5 over a sliver of land that most member capitals would struggle to place on a map.
Rinkēvičs was blunt about where the line sits. “Our part of Europe is trying to be as ready as possible. But look, if Russia launches a missile attack, then it is absolutely clear this is Article 5,” he said.
Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna offered a more measured read from Tallinn. “Our intelligence doesn’t see any serious military movements on the other side of our borders because Russia is stuck in Ukraine,” he told RFE/RL, while cautioning that “we must be ready to act united.”
What ISW is telling policymakers
The intelligence picture that European planners are working from leans heavily on a September 24 assessment from the Institute for the Study of War.
Its Defense of Europe project describes a Russia that is operating “within a war framework against Europe while Europe continues to function within a peace framework.”
ISW catalogues arson at defense manufacturers, railway sabotage on aid corridors to Ukraine, drone incursions into NATO airspace, and cyberattacks on infrastructure in Poland, Denmark and Norway.
Two Kremlin objectives run through the campaign, the report argues: cut European support for Kyiv, and pull NATO’s collective-defense promise apart from the inside.
US moves into Poland
The American piece of the response is a permanent Army base in Poland. President Donald Trump said on September 17 that “major progress is being made towards establishing a US Army base in Poland” and that “the location will be announced very soon.”
Polish President Karol Nawrocki told reporters on September 23 that the project is confirmed and that US consultants have already visited candidate sites.
Warsaw has floated the name “Fort Trump.” Around 10,000 US soldiers are currently in Poland on rotational deployments.
