Russia Is Waging Something Like War in Europe, and NATO Will Not Hit Back the Same Way

Bojan Pancevski, who covers European politics for the Journal, had just described a string of Russian attacks on European targets when he was asked how NATO allies planned to respond. His answer was blunt about the limits facing democracies. "This is not declared warfare, but the instruments are becoming frighteningly similar to that of a real war," he said.

By instruments, he meant drones and arson. He argues that Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a go-ahead in early summer to intensify a sabotage campaign on NATO soil, because Russian generals see Europe as the industrial hinterland behind Ukraine's war effort.

The warning shot, in his account, was a failed attack in early August on Leipzig/Halle airport, one of Europe's key cargo airports. Had it succeeded as designed, he said, "it would have destroyed large parts of the airport in Leipzig Halle" and caused human casualties, forcing Germany to consider invoking NATO's collective defense clause, known as Article 5.

Since then, he said, there have been arson attacks on factories in Estonia, Poland, and Slovakia that make drones and missile components used by Ukraine, plus strikes against merchant vessels near Romania and Bulgaria. The effects, he argues, are worsening almost by the day.

The bind, as he sees it, is that Germany and its neighbors will not copy the tactics. "Germany is not going to blow up a Russian airport or is not going to down a Russian cargo airliner," he said, because parliaments and the rule of law constrain what democracies can do. They need retaliation that deters, but they have not found how to do it.

That leaves Europeans feeling largely on their own as the United States grows more aloof, he believes. He cited recent conversations with top officials in Finland, a country that shares a long border with Russia, who told him that they treat NATO as an add-on to their defense posture, not the foundation.