In Putin’s consideration, there is no Ukrainian nation in Europe. The Ukrainians and Russians are nothing but one people under neo-Muscovy, as are the unlucky Belarusians. Russian writings, notably, consider the war in Ukraine a quarrel between NATO—“the collective West” in their very own parlance, to be precise—and Russia. Ukraine, therefore, just happens to be the battlefield within this holy war of the Russian military renaissance. In essence, however, the Russian campaign is an overall effort to eradicate the Ukrainian identity. A detailed revisit of the Russian regime in occupied areas, as well as the case of abducted Ukrainian children, reveals a genocidal intention toward the Ukrainians as a people.
In reality, the geopolitical roots of the unfolding conflict in Ukraine hail from the Cold War showdown between Soviet expansionism into Europe and NATO efforts to defend the free world. The war, unchecked, will not likely end in Kyiv. The Kremlin’s imperialist views apply to any former Eastern bloc nation with a historical background of being oppressed or colonized by the Russian military, be it in imperial times or the Soviet era. This article offers three chief lessons to prepare for and win a potential war between NATO and Russia.
1. The West cannot contain Russian aggression with mere diplomatic naiveté
Reciting simple and major facts offers a practical way to explain complex political-military agendas. Any scenario involving a Russia-NATO escalation demands such an approach to clear the dust that keeps the core problem area murky and hard to grasp.
The contemporary Russian Federation, ruled by the last generation of the Soviet intelligence elite, dubbed the siloviki, is a highly militarized and expansionist state. At present, Russian defense economics is on a pronounced war footing. The nation’s defense spending as a portion of its gross domestic product exceeds 6 percent and remains sustainable. Production rates for principal warfighting equipment, such as heavy armor and artillery ammunition, dwarf those of many NATO member states. Moreover, in each conscription round, which occurs twice a year, Moscow drafts massive manpower into its military ranks, outnumbering most standing NATO armed forces.
The ruling elite has reclaimed their traditional grip on power following the Second Russo-Chechen War in the late 1990s, which massacred thousands of Chechens to keep the Russian foothold in the Caucasus following the Soviet collapse. Since then, the Kremlin invaded Georgia and Ukraine and used its military capabilities overseas to keep the Baathist dictatorship of Syria in power. The Syrian campaign unfolded against the backdrop of Bashar al-Assad’s war crimes and involved systematic use of chemical warfare in combat operations.
On the heels of the invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has fielded a robust tactical nuclear deterrent in Europe. The Belarusian Iskander missile-system crews have been trained for nuclear delivery. With Russian help, Minsk has refurbished the Su-25 attack aircraft and Su-24 frontline bombers in the Belarusian Air Force’s arsenal for nuclear certifications. Moreover, Belarus has been hosting Russian MiG-31K interceptor aircraft, certified to carry nuclear-capable Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, which could pound Ukrainian civilians. Overall, Russia has turned Belarus into a garrison satellite state at NATO’s east.
President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, a career KGB officer himself, publicly depicted the collapse of the Soviet empire as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” During the late Cold War years, Putin was a liaison to the notorious East German secret police, the Stasi, which strongly shaped his worldview. Given that, diplomatic outreach is of minimal use in reasoning with Moscow. The seventy-one-year-old former spy does not accept sovereign nations in the former Soviet space.
The Obama administration’s failed “reset” of relations with Russia, which came after the invasion of Georgia in 2008, speaks volumes. Five years after receiving a reset button as a symbolic diplomatic move, Russia invaded Crimea and illegally annexed Crimea. Less than fifteen years after the reset, Russian tanks rolled in and troops committed atrocities in Bucha and Irpin. Had it not been for the Ukrainian resistance at the Hostomel Airport at the overture of the war, as well as President Volodymyr Zelensky’s famous “I need ammunition, not a ride” rhetoric shunning evacuation plans, this paper would have probably discussed Putin’s Ukraine. Thanks to the Ukrainian defensive grit that bought time for the Western military assistance to arrive while Kyiv stabilized the front, “Ukraine Rus” has never materialized. Nonetheless, a stumbled invasion has not altered the geopolitical calculus ruling Russia. The threat has never been that imminent since the fiercest days of the Cold War.
2. Avoiding a catastrophe: Recapturing the Baltic states is a nonstarter
If the war plagued Europe, the most critical question would boil down to where the belligerents would fight. If the tiny Baltic states were to be invaded by Russia, even as briefly as for a few weeks, they might be wiped off the face of the Earth. NATO cannot afford to pursue a military policy centered on recapturing territory following a Russian coup de mainin allied territory. NATO needs to cement forward defense that aims to repel, not expel, Russian military presence.
Occupied Ukraine showcased that even a brief exposure to Russian invasion leads to mass ethnic cleansing. The massacres in Bucha and Irpin took place within the first two months of the 2022 campaign. Worse, the case of abducted Ukrainian children still haunts the Ukrainian civilian population. A typical Russian combat operation ends up with population centers decimated into rubble due to heavy missile and drone salvos.
In a Baltic scenario, a NATO counteroffensive effort to liberate Baltic territory would prove more demanding compared to defensive combat operations to deny a potential Russian incursion. This is why the NATO Force Model, planned to take thirty to 180 days to mobilize a 500,000-strong warfighting deterrent in Europe, could not save the day for Baltic members.
Moreover, NATO’s strategic command structure cannot today effectively verify the combat readiness of the allied militaries to levy a 500,000-strong war machine within 180 days from the start of hostilities. Most allied nations’ standing armed forces lack the combat readiness and warfighting experience that would be so valuable in an Article V showdown. Finally, the ability of NATO’s existing operational-level command structure to run large-scale combat operations, especially in the changing context, is highly debatable.
3. NATO would not face a stand-alone Russia but an authoritarian axis
The most important geopolitical lesson from the Russo-Ukrainian War is the visible rise of a hostile axis. In the ongoing Russian aggression against Ukraine, the Kremlin has help. The Islamic Republic of Iran, China under communist party rule, and North Korea ruled by the iron-fist of Kim Jong Un generously provided the Kremlin with military aid.
Pyongyang recently sent thousands of combat troops to augment Russian manpower. Moreover, North Korea is the prime artillery ammunition supplier of Russia, overtaking the entire Western artillery transfers to Ukraine.
The Islamic Republic is the chief source of low-cost kamikaze drones employed by the Russian military. The Revolutionary Guards have established a drone warfare plant in Alabuga, Tatarstan. Open-source intelligence suggests very high production rates for its joint arms production with Russia. Ukraine witnessed a growing number of Shahed loitering munitions each month. Worse, the Shahed baseline is getting more capable with different variants entering into play, ranging from thermobaric warhead configurations to stealthy coatings.
Last but not least, China is a critical enabler of the Russian war effort. With sanctions getting tougher, China looms large as it provides machine tools, ball bearings, and semiconductors—crucial inputs for Russia’s war effort. According to the United Nations COMTRADE database, Beijing’s exports to Russia was around US$110.94 billion in 2023. Open-source intelligence data showcases the exponential growth of China’s average monthly export to Russia of high-priority dual-use items, which can be used in various weapons manufacturing processes. In 2023 alone, Beijing exported some 90 percent of the Russian imports of goods falling under the Group of Seven’s high-priority export control list for the Russian Federation. For decades, Russia’s defense technological and industrial base, like the rest of the country’s industries, has been dependent on foreign supplies to operate machine tools. Since the invasion, machine tools alone accounted for almost 40 percent of the annual rise in Chinese dual-use exports—if not more.
Chinese nitrocellulose exports to Russia remain another very critical issue to monitor. Since Putin’s Ukraine campaign, China’s nitrocellulose transfers to Russia have drastically grown. While Beijing exported slightly more than 700 tons of nitrocellulose to Russia in 2023, the amount nearly doubled to more than 1,300 tons in 2024.
Conclusion: Skip the si vis pacem part—NATO needs to foster para bellum
Political-military trends suggest that the probability of war between NATO and Russia now towers over the prospects of peace in the coming years. In particular, should the Russian war machine succeed in Ukraine via its ongoing war of attrition, the Kremlin’s anticipated next step would be tearing and wearing the Article V guarantees of the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty, which form the casus foederis backbone of NATO.
Without a counterbalancing military alliance in Europe, one that is thoroughly backed by the United States, there is almost nothing standing between Putin’s Russia and Europe.
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