NATO’s Russia Problem: The Alliance’s Tough Road Ahead Post-Warsaw Summit

Christopher S. Chivvis, Stephen J. Flanagan

NATO, Europe

Will these initiatives will be enough to meet the extraordinary new security challenges facing Europe and America?

The meeting of NATO leaders in Warsaw over the weekend was partially overshadowed in the U.S. press by the tragic events in Dallas. But its significance shouldn’t be lost – least of all on Russia.

There were few dramatic new initiatives and Warsaw was not the “historic” summit that some leaders wished to make of it afterward. But it clarified that NATO is ready to pay the cost of enhancing the security of its eastern flank in the face of growing aggression from Moscow. The alliance also took several lesser steps to defend its interests in other areas.

The question on everyone’s mind, however, is whether these initiatives will be enough to meet the extraordinary new security challenges facing Europe and America – not only from a revanchist Russia, but also from the Middle East and North Africa.

Steps to enhance NATO’s deterrent strategy along its eastern flank send a strong message of allied resolve. 

The deployment of four battalions to Poland, Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania, in tandem with measures recently implemented to enhance reinforcement capabilities, should have a significant deterrent effect and thus reduce the chances of conflict with Russia.

These new deployments may not be as large as some analysts argue they need to be to ensure that a major attack on the Baltic States is a high-risk gambit for the Kremlin. Yet the battalions will reduce the already low possibility of such an attack, while improving defenses against the surreptitious forms of aggression Russia has sponsored in Ukraine – often referred to as “hybrid war.” Also, four battalions is far more than most observers would have thought possible coming out of the last NATO summit in September 2014.

Importantly, Germany, which had evinced deep concern about provoking Russia with such deployments, will in the end be a lead nation for the battalion deploying to Lithuania. This should resonate in Moscow and encourage the Kremlin to rethink its aggressive approach to the alliance. 

NATO leaders also committed to enhanced presence in the Black Sea region, where Russia has recently boosted its naval operations and deployed anti-access area-denial capabilities. Stabilizing the Black Sea is especially important to Turkey.