11 September 25
A drone incursion shows the limits of an alliance without America at its head.
Some of the world’s most advanced military systems—Polish and Dutch fighters, German air-defense equipment, and Italian surveillance aircraft—were activated to respond to the incursion, NATO officials said. But the episode is only the latest evidence of NATO states’ constant failure to accurately assess their security concerns and national interests.
Russian drones and missiles have strayed into Polish territory on previous occasions in the past few years—with no consequence. Alliance members have not bothered to prepare properly for immediate threats, much less future war. Their constant weakness to this point has emboldened Putin to flagrantly violate NATO airspace while reinforcing the idea that member states have no idea how to look after their own security.
The U.S. ambassador to NATO, Matthew Whitaker, offered a firm statement, declaring on X, “We stand by our @NATO Allies in the face of these airspace violations and will defend every inch of NATO territory.” Yet the leader of the most powerful NATO member reacted ambiguously. In a peculiar post on Truth Social, Donald Trump said, “What’s with Russia violating Poland’s airspace with drones? Here we go!” Unlike European officials, the U.S. president—who has been bizarrely solicitous of the Russian dictator in discussions of the invasion that he launched into Ukraine—did not immediately condemn the incursion. The U.S. has not announced any specific role in defeating the attack, nor has it promised any noteworthy action in response.
Perhaps confused by the lack of U.S. leadership, Europeans have struggled even to describe what happened. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who is normally clear-sighted in his analysis of Putin’s military actions, declared that Polish airspace had been “violated by a huge number of Russian drones.” To Ukrainians, an incursion of only 19 unmanned aircraft would be a quiet night.
Tusk also said that “those drones that posed a direct threat were shot down”—a statement that left open the possibility that NATO had engaged in a form of triage rather than simply shooting all of the drones down. NATO countries are relying on extremely expensive systems to counter drone warfare—a task that Ukrainians are undertaking on a larger scale at a fraction of the cost. The incursion into Poland gives little reason for confidence about how NATO forces would fare if faced with 600 drones and missiles on a single night.
Oddly, given Tusk’s seeming hyperbole about the scale of the incident, NATO states seem coy about directly admitting that one of its members has come under deliberate attack from a hostile power. To be sure, Russian aerial systems have high error rates, but all of the evidence suggests that the incursion was intentional. Nearby Slovakia and Hungary, whose leaders have aligned themselves with Putin, did not suffer any intrusions into their airspace.
But NATO officials are nevertheless describing the incident in restrained terms. Allison Hart, an alliance spokesperson, said on X that “numerous drones entered Polish airspace.” Even Poland characterized the incident cautiously, as an “act of aggression.” NATO members have ample reason to doubt that the Trump administration will back them up in a confrontation with Russia. By downplaying the importance of the drone incursion, alliance officials avoid the ugly spectacle of seeking American assistance that will not be forthcoming.
A firm response to the incident would involve a promise by NATO to shoot down all future hostile drones in any member nation’s airspace, and a warning to Russia that if more drones appear in NATO airspace after traveling over Ukraine, then NATO can help Ukrainians with theirnational air defense.
Instead, we are witnessing a multinational failure. NATO states, even those most immediately imperiled by Putin’s expansionism, lack the capabilities to deal with Russian warfare, and they have not understood the true strategic peril they are in.
They can no longer count on American leadership and support. Trump seems at best uninterested in the security of America’s European allies, and at worst eager to collaborate with Putin, who poses the greatest threat to them. The security of NATO states is in reality more reliant on the independence and power of Ukraine than on the competency and trustworthiness of the United States.
That beleaguered country has sought admission to NATO as a protection against further Russian aggression. But Ukrainians, not to mention the West’s enemies around the world, just got a clear illustration of the alliance’s limits.
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