NATO’s Anti-Russian Plans

Last week’s NATO Summit ended with an uncharacteristically brief five-paragraph joint statement, the two most important points of which were that members committed to raising defense spending to 5% of GDP by 2035 and reaffirmed their support for Ukraine. On the topic of that country, what was even more significant than the aforementioned points was the omission of any mention about Ukraine’s future membership in NATO. Zelensky also didn’t participate in the working meeting either.

The joint statement’s brevity and the cold shoulder that was given to Zelensky, both personally and with regard to his country’s plans to join NATO, were the result of NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte wanting to appease Trump. Although Trump patched up his personal problems with Zelensky from their infamous White House meeting a few months back and even met with him on the summit’s sidelines, he still believes that Ukraine shouldn’t join NATO and that its pursuit of membership sparked the conflict.

Putin appreciates this pragmatism, but trust between the two leaders would have been damaged had Zelensky been invited to participate in the working meeting and then Trump signed a joint statement about the bloc’s support of Ukraine’s future membership. Even so, as was earlier written, the bloc reaffirmed its support of Ukraine, and arms supplies still continue. The US hasn’t resumed its Biden-era support for Ukraine, but it also hasn’t completely cut it off either, which is important to remember.

The aforementioned observations about the latest NATO Summit might lead some to conclude that the bloc is losing its relevance, at least under Trump and whoever from his movement might possibly succeed him. All those leaders didn’t have to gather for two days to agree to raising defense spending, which has been discussed among themselves for months already, and continue supporting Ukraine. It would be a mistake to count NATO out, however, since it’s actually undergoing a radical transformation.

Gone are the days of the US leading from the front and shouldering a disproportionate share of the burden for the so-called “Global West’s” hegemony, which includes Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea in this conception, all of whom were represented at various levels at the summit. Instead, it aims to “Lead From Behind” per the Obama-era Libyan War model in providing arms, intelligence, logistical, cyber, and propaganda support to those with shared stakes in whatever cause it might be.

NATO’s proxy war on Russia through Ukraine is therefore the latest calibration of this model and it continues evolving from Biden (or rather, the “Collective Biden” in terms of the shadowy figures that were really ruling the US back then) to Trump. With respect to that conflict, Ukraine still functions as the US-led bloc’s battering ram against Russia, but Trump has scaled back the US’ involvement for the time being at least, which he hopes will spur his envisaged intra-organizational changes.

While he deserves praise for his comparative restraint thus far, he also hasn’t done anything to coerce Zelensky into Russia’s demanded concessions for peace, which include recognizing the new ground reality, demilitarizing, denazifying, and restoring Ukraine’s constitutional neutrality. Simply seeking to freeze the conflict, to which end he’s offering Russia a vague resource-centric strategic partnership as an incentive (and which Russia is also offering the US to incentivize the aforesaid concessions), isn’t enough.

Such an outcome would likely lead to another round of conflict at a later time since the root causes wouldn’t be resolved and Russia’s national security interests accordingly wouldn’t be fully ensured. Even though Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth declared during his trip to NATO HQ in February that the US won’t extend Article 5 guarantees to member states’ armed forces in Ukraine, which thus far deterred France and the UK from conventionally intervening, a new administration could reverse his policy.

Trump has also flirted with the possibility peacekeepers in Ukraine partially comprised of Western forces, which would amount to the introduction of NATO troops there, albeit without Article 5 guarantees unless he abruptly changes his mind afterwards or the Democrats return to power. Russia rightly feels uncomfortable about that, and this is yet another reason why no tangible progress has yet been made on its talks with the US and Ukraine. All the while, a new division of labor is occurring within NATO.

The Central & Eastern European (CEE) countries are at the forefront of this trend. They’re voluntarily assuming more of the earlier mentioned burden by taking the lead in containing Russia, which is insufficient on its own given the power asymmetries between them and Russia but still represents a threat to Russia given that they’re NATO members under Article 5 protection by the US. This takes the form of the “military Schengen”, building up their armed forces, and constructing a new Iron Curtain.

To elaborate on the last point, this refers to the collective effect of Finland strengthening its border fortifications, the Baltic States doing so under the banner of the “Baltic Defence Line”, and Poland emulating them with its “East Shield”. These CEE countries also exited or are in the process of exiting the Ottawa Convention, which prohibits the use of anti-personnel mines. The end result is a new Iron Curtain stretching from the Arctic to the middle of Central Europe at the Polish-Belarusian-Ukrainian tripoint.

Making matters even more concerning for Russia is Estonia’s willingness to host nuclear-capable jets from fellow NATO allies, which follows the UK’s announcement that it’ll purchase F-35As and join NATO’s dual capable nuclear aircraft mission. Seeing as how it already has troops in Estonia, these jets might therefore be based there upon their transfer to the UK from the US. Although the UK no longer has air-to-surface nukes, the Wall Street Journal speculated that the US could provide it with them.

It's thus little wonder that Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the talk of Estonia hosting nuclear-capable NATO jets as an “immediate danger”. In that scenario, Russia would have barely any time to assess whether every British F-35A taking off from that base is just carrying out a flight exercise or is about to launch a nuclear first strike sneak attack. The wrong move by the wrong person at the wrong time could lead to World War III by miscalculation. This makes it a very dangerous scenario.

If it comes to pass, then Trump and Putin’s efforts to build a new European security architecture after the Ukrainian Conflict finally ends would be for naught. Even if Trump pulls some US forces out of CEE like was previously reported that he might do, that wouldn’t make any difference in terms of alleviating the NATO-Russian security dilemma if the UK bases nuclear-capable jets in Estonia. Either Trump is genuinely unaware of this, perhaps due to being kept in the dark by his advisors, or he’s playing a double game.

In any case, it’s also important to remind readers that Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service warned in mid-June that the Brits and Ukrainians are plotting two false flag provocations in the Baltic in order to manipulate Trump into escalating against Russia. Coupled with the UK’s speculative plans to base nuclear-capable F-35As in Estonia, it’s clear that London is trying to carve out a sphere of influence for itself in this region. If the US pulls back some troops from there, the UK will then probably fill the void.

Germany is also expanding its influence there too after opening up its first permanent military base abroad in Lithuania, which strategically straddles Kaliningrad and Belarus. The military Schengen that it agreed to with Poland (and also the Netherlands) in early 2024 facilitates the free flow of troops and equipment to there. Germany, like Poland, has ambitious military plans. They’re actually competing right now to build the largest army in Europe, with Poland already commanding the third-largest in NATO.

Just like the UK, Poland also wants to build a regional sphere of influence, which it believes that it can achieve through the “Three Seas Initiative” (3SI). Although the 3SI is formally all about economic integration, its list of projects shows that some can have dual military logistics purposes, which can pair with the “military Schengen” to further facilitate the free flow of troops and equipment eastward. This represents a latent threat to Russian security that’s taken very seriously by the Kremlin.

Similarly threatening is France’s military presence in Romania and its security pact with Moldova. From there, France could hypothetically launch a conventional military intervention in Ukraine for capturing Odessa and then having its troops serve as a tripwire for a larger NATO response if Russia attacks them. It’s unclear whether that scenario will play out in the present conflict, but if the conflict freezes, then the next possible one could likely see that happen. That could then lead to a hot NATO-Russian war.

Putting together the past handful of paragraphs, the new division of labor that’s occurring within NATO will see the British and to a lesser extent Germany establish a sphere of influence in the Baltics, Poland doing the same in CEE, and the French entrenching their existing influence in Romania-Moldova. The overlap between them could synergize their combined efforts to threaten Russia after the Ukrainian Conflict ends irrespective of the terms and whether Trump pulls some US forces from CEE afterwards.

On the southern front, Turkiye also poses a challenge to Russia too. Even though Putin and Erdogan are friends with close working relations, their countries sometimes have divergent national interests, which it can’t be assumed will always be manageable. Turkiye’s continued arming of Ukraine, political rabblerousing about Crimea, and newfound influence in post-Assad Syria aren’t appreciated by Russia. There’s also the possibility that Turkiye might invade Russia’s wayward Armenian ally in the CSTO.

About that, Turkiye and Azerbaijan (which is a NATO partner) are losing patience with Armenia’s refusal to open up what Baku calls the “Zangezur Corridor”, the concept of which was agreed to during the Russian-mediated November 2020 ceasefire. Armenia’s latest unrest could also create an opportunity for those two to “finish the job”, as they see it in the strategic sense, while also dealing a symbolic blow to Russian interests in the South Caucasus. NATO as a whole would of course be happy to see that happen.

The bloc has also tried to provoke several rounds of Color Revolutions in Georgia, which officially aspires to join NATO even though enthusiasm has since cooled in response to the aforesaid regime change attempts. Tbilisi, under the leadership of its pragmatic Russian-friendly government, defied pressure to open up a so-called “second front” against Russia in Abkhazia and/or South Ossetia. While that scenario always remains possible, it’s not likely for the time being, or so long as there isn’t regime change there.

Far behind the New Cold War’s frontlines in the Balkans, NATO aspirants and partners aren’t all that relevant to Russia’s direct national security interests, but they still play a symbolic role. Serbia’s potential expansion of military ties with NATO as a whole and/or individual members could be spun by the West as a setback for Russia, thus boosting morale within their sphere of influence in the face of their failure to deal a strategic defeat to Russia in Ukraine. The same goes for Bosnia, but that’s a more complex issue.

Too much pressure upon it and too much meddling in its domestic affairs could spark another conflict right in the heart of NATO’s soft underbelly, which could have unforeseen consequences. The bloc might therefore decide to step back a bit and tread more cautiously to avoid any blowback. Altogether, the Balkans (with the exception of Romania, where the bloc is building its largest base in Europe on the Black Sea coast) aren’t as important to the bloc as other CEE regions, Turkiye, or the South Caucasus are.

All in all, NATO’s anti-Russian plans are increasingly taking the form of America “Leading From Behind” to empower regional allies and partners to do more of the heavy lifting in shouldering the burden of the “Global West’s” hegemony vis-à-vis Russia, which is aimed at reducing the costs to the US. The US’ grand strategic goal under Trump 2.0 is to “Pivot (back) to (East) Asia” to more muscularly contain China, which requires it to avoid entanglements and unexpected crises in Europe and West Asia.

This explains the new division of labor within NATO that Trump is actively encouraging as well as his decision to broker a ceasefire between Iran and Israel precisely at the moment when most observers expected their conflict, in which the US had just become directly involved, to unprecedentedly intensify. Just like in Europe vis-à-vis Russia, the US also aims to “Lead From Behind” for containing Iran in West Asia and China in East Asia through similar means, but they’re beyond the scope of this analysis.

The point though is that the US is practicing a hybrid Brzezinski-Kissinger policy of containment against Russia, Iran, and China, its multipolar rivals in the Eurasia, through the orchestration of conflicts in the “Eurasian Balkans” (Brzezinski) and then triangulating between them through diplomacy (Kissinger). As the saying goes, “the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry”, however, so it can’t be taken for granted that this devious containment policy will succeed.

The increasing complexity of the international system can lead to unexpected events (“chaos”) that derail the US’ plans and create openings for Russia, Iran, and/or China to exploit for pushing back against these US-organized “Lead From Behind” coalitions. This accounts for why they’re all engaged in their own talks with the US, namely to buy time for inwardly strengthening, exploiting the aforesaid possibilities, and/or preparing for a (inevitable?) hot war with the US and/or its regional partners.

The best-case scenario would be for the US to reach genuinely fair deals with them for de-escalating tensions and focusing on economic development, but that’s regrettably unlikely due to the inertial nature of US hegemony, which not even Trump himself can control even if he wanted to. For that reason, the US is expected to actively contain at least one of those three at any given moment while relying on others to do the same with the remaining two in the meantime, thus always keeping Eurasia unstable.