Why is NATO not responding to Russian provocations?

Hello all,

It looks like Russia has intensified their hybrid campaign against the West, and recently there have also been several examples of violations of NATO airspace with Russian drones. However, the Western response remains remarkably calm. In this video, which I published earlier in the week, I discuss why that is the case.

You can watch it here or read a transcript below.

Best,
Anders

Transcript:

Recently, there's been a lot of talk about hybrid attacks on Europe. There have been sort of strange events, fires, sabotage, those sorts of things. And there are several indications that Russia may be behind at least some of this. And then recently, there have also been some incidents where Russian drones have violated the airspace of NATO countries. So one could perhaps have expected that the Western countries would be very agitated about this, and it would be a big topic in the news, but that is not the case. And there's a good reason for that. So let's talk about it.

Recently, there's been a range of events in European NATO countries that could look like hybrid warfare. So there have been fires, there's been sabotage events, cyber attacks, even murders and attempted murders. And then over the last month, we've also had these cases where Russian drones have been flying over NATO airspace. So there have been violations of Romanian airspace by Russian Shahid drones. And there was also a Shahed drone that, for some reason, ended up in Latvia and crashed on Latvian territory. There was also a story about a drone that violated Polish airspace, but then later the Polish authorities sort of backtracked on that story. And now they say that there was no violation, in fact.

But the Western response to all these things has been very calm. There's been no direct action against Russia for any of this, aside from a bit of complaining. And in the case of the drones in Romania, the Romanians actually scrambled their F-16s, but they didn't shoot them down. Instead, the Romanian F-16s just escorted the Russian drones back into Ukrainian airspace. And that has caused a bit of debate because it would have been perfectly legal for Romania to shoot down this drone. But instead, they let it find its target and cause some damage and maybe even kill someone in Ukraine. So people in Ukraine are obviously upset that the Romanians didn't do anything about it.

I've actually made a video about this before, about why is it that the Western countries don't seem to react to Russian provocations and to hybrid warfare. But it's a long time ago, and I think it's probably worth updating the argument for sort of in the light of current events.

But I think the first thing to understand is that this is a very, very deliberate strategy on the part of the Western countries not to make a big deal out of these things. So it's not because the Western countries don't have the guts to do it or the politicians lack the courage to take a confrontation with Russia. But it's because the Western governments believe that it is not in their interest to take a confrontation.

And the reason why that is the case is that the point of all these provocations and of the hybrid attacks from the Russian side is not actually to create a kinetic effect with the attack, but it is to create an effect in the information space. So what Russia wants is for the Western countries to make a big deal out of this so that it gets a lot of attention and it creates a big effect in the information space. So the important thing is not really that some warehouse was burned down or that a cable was cut or that a drone flew over some farm fields in Romania. The point is that the Russians want to provoke a reaction so that they can set the agenda in the Western news media.

In several videos, I've been talking about how Ukraine is trying to move the war from Ukrainian territory and into Russian territory because they believe that it will help them win the war. That it will make the Russian population feel the consequences of the war on a personal level, and that will force the Russians to use military resources on protecting their own country instead of fighting in Ukraine. And these hybrid attacks are essentially Russia's attempt at doing the same with us. They want us to feel that the war is coming home to us and that we need to start spending our military resources on protecting our own countries instead of sending all that military help to Ukraine.

So we have to understand that all these hybrid attacks are information operations. The goal is not the hybrid attack in itself, but it is the effect that it can create in the information space where it can shape the narrative in the Western media and in the Western populations about the military help to Ukraine.

So when we see that the Western countries are not reacting to Russian provocations and to Russian hybrid warfare, then that's because they understand that that is exactly what the Russians are trying to make us do. And they refuse to give the Russians what they want. Because by not making a big deal out of these things, then the hybrid attacks are in fact reduced to the kinetic value that they have in blowing up this or that thing. And that kinetic value is usually not very big.

I actually think this Western strategy of more or less just ignoring hybrid attacks has been quite successful. It has meant that we don't see a huge demand to redirect resources from Ukraine to, for example, border protection inside of NATO countries. And Russia has not been able to get that wedge in between the Western countries and Ukraine by playing on this fear of hybrid attacks.

What we're seeing is actually a quite interesting approach to communication about these things in the Western countries. On the one hand, there is a lot of talk about the need for increased resilience in our societies and that we need to be prepared for emergencies and we must improve our ability to deal with hybrid threats. So there is a lot of talk about all these things on a general level. But whenever there is a specific case where these points could be illustrated, then the Western governments are playing it down communication wise.

So there is this interesting approach where the politicians are very happy to talk about how we need to invest more in this on a sort of general level and we need to be prepared that these things can happen. But they don't want to talk about the things that actually do happen. But I think it's smart because by refusing to give the Russians what they want in terms of tough rhetoric and dramatic announcements and those things, then they are essentially diminishing the effect that all these attacks have in the information space.

I'm not sure that it's going to be a viable strategy going forward in the long run. If the Russians keep pushing the limits and they keep sending more drones across the border to NATO countries, then eventually it's going to get hard to pretend that everything is an accident or just an unfortunate mistake. But for the time being, this is the strategy and I think it's actually making a lot of sense because it's about denying the Russians the effects that they want from the attacks. And we have to remember that these attacks are first and foremost designed to create effects in the information space. So the appropriate response is to consider them information operations and then to counter them as information operations. And the last thing we want to do is for these relatively minor events that where something is happened, there's been some kind of hybrid attack. We don't want that to get an outsized impact on the much more important effort to help Ukraine win the war.

Okay, I will end it here. If you found the video helpful or informative, then please give it a like. And also remember to subscribe to the channel and click the bell icon, then you will get notifications when I upload new videos. If you want to support the channel, you can subscribe to my newsletter on www.logicofwar.com. Thank you very much for watching and I will see you again next time.