Ukraine isn’t a NATO member, and the United States has tried to signal since the crisis began that it would use military force to stop similar aggression against a NATO member under Article 5 of the alliance’s treaty. But the commitment to retaliate against outright attacks raises the question of how NATO would respond to Ukraine-style subversion against a member by “men in green” proxy forces. If Russian-speaking separatists seized territory in a Baltic country, for example, would NATO strike Russia? Such contingencies need more discussion.
And does NATO still have the military muscle to mount an effective response, assuming it has the political will? The United States has cut its forces in Europe to a fraction of what they were during the Cold War, and European nations, distracted by economic crises, haven’t implemented pledges to boost their own forces. Even Britain, traditionally America’s most stalwart NATO ally, isn’t meeting the defense-spending target set last year at a summit in Wales.
It’s back to the future in Putin’s Europe. But the muscle memory of deterrence seems to have atrophied. It has been so long since NATO was really tested that alliance members may have forgotten what collective self-defense really means.
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