A hypothetical war between Russia and NATO would not resemble the one in Ukraine at all. The scale of the enemy and the potential targets are simply different.
According to a number of Western officials, Russia planned its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 as a decisive, three-day campaign to quickly overthrow the authorities in Kiev. Now, more than three years later, this scenario seems like an unrealistic dream, summarizes the magazine "Foreign Policy". The American publication argues that currently the Russian armed forces are suffering horrific losses in men and equipment and are bogged down on a static front line hundreds of kilometers from the Ukrainian capital. While Russia has made some tactical gains over the past year, there is currently no sign of a military breakthrough anytime soon.
Although Vladimir Putin appears to continue to believe that his country will win a war of attrition against Ukraine. Or at least that is what his public statements suggest, as the Institute for the Study of War commented.
The Washington-based think tank notes that the West has failed to persuade Putin over the past year to rethink his theory of a future victory in Ukraine. His public statements show that he continues to believe that the Russian armed forces can win a war of attrition by maintaining a gradual advance along the front line for an indefinite period, American analysts argue.
However, the first major conventional war in Europe in eight decades has awakened European NATO allies from the blissful illusion that such conflicts are a thing of the past, and they have begun to take steps to rearm. This came amid warnings from several high-ranking representatives of alliance countries that Russia could attack a member state of the pact in three to seven years, notes "Foreign Policy".
The American magazine commented that these two ideas about Moscow at first glance are difficult to reconcile. On the one hand, it fails to achieve its goals in Ukraine, but on the other, it poses an existential threat to NATO and, more specifically, to the Eastern European countries of the alliance. The key to understanding this apparent paradox is to realize that a hypothetical war between Russia and NATO would be very different from the one in Ukraine. Moscow's main goal would not be to seize territory, but to destroy the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as a political and military organization capable of opposing it, argues "Foreign Policy" and makes the proviso that achieving it does not require victory in open battle or the entry of the Russian army into Berlin, as in 1945.
Contrary to its bellicose propaganda, the Russian political and military elite is aware that the country would probably lose a full-scale conventional war against NATO, even without US intervention, the American publication writes. Therefore, according to "Foreign Policy", it would be of paramount importance for Moscow to avoid a protracted war of attrition and instead secure a quick and favorable outcome for itself.
A Russian attack on NATO would still likely begin with a limited incursion into a neighboring country of the alliance, specifically into a supposed "weak spot," the magazine suggests. That is why the alliance needs to strengthen its eastern flank.
Such a hypothetical attack would be based not so much on the balance of power, which clearly favors NATO, but on the alliance's supposed reluctance to intervene, "Foreign Policy" commented. Therefore, the publication calls on the countries of the pact to prepare for war militarily, including in the field of modern weapons and the nuclear arsenal, but also to leave no doubt that they are determined to counter.
In this regard, the NATO summit starting tomorrow provides an excellent opportunity for the alliance to send a clear signal to Moscow.