Peace through strength looks a lot like old-fashioned weakness
Under Donald Trump, Putin is dangerously escalating his war in Europe
‘Vladimir, Stop!’ begged Trump, in a social media post in April.
But since Trump’s plea — as it was clearly not an order — the Russian President has responded in only one way, escalation.
The most dramatic of these occurred overnight when a swarm of drones flew into Polish, and NATO, airspace on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.
NATO pilots from Italy and the Netherlands scrambled alongside the Poles and shot down at least three of the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which were a mix of Geran and Gerbera drones.
At least 19 drones entered NATO airspace, according to the Poles, although Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky put the figure closer to ‘two dozen’ and described them as Shaheds.
According to Fabian Hinz, who researches drones at the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank, Gerbera drones are cheaper decoy drones that can fly several hundred kilometres.
Ukrainian intelligence has previously identified Gebera drones as made in China, marking the clearest example yet of how Beijing is aiding Putin’s attempts to weaken Europe and the West.
The Gerbera drones, which have become more sophisticated since their first iteration, usually accompany Geran drones — an improved Russian version of the Iranian Shahed drones.
Russia did not deny the drones were Russian but claimed their target was Ukraine, not Poland.
But according to the Polish civil open source intelligence analyst Jaroslaw Wolski, who has mapped the drones across Poland, the flight path of the Shahad/Geran group of drones indicated a planned mission.
‘Executed according to a timed schedule to bypass Ukrainian air defences through Polish territory and... by the way, test our Polish defence and procedures,’ he said.
The Polish government triggered NATO’s Article 4, the clause that says: ‘Parties will consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the Parties is threatened.’
As NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte noted, the incursion into NATO airspace was not an aberration.
‘What is clear is that the violation last night is not an isolated incident,’ Rutte said.
And this is the point.
As the UK’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer observed, the intrusion into Poland’s airspace, ‘highlighted Russia’s increased recklessness in recent weeks, including their attacks on the Cabinet of Ministers building, British Council and EU Delegation buildings in Kyiv.’
Trump famously boasted that he would settle the war in one day if he were President. The war would never have started, had he been president, Trump continually complains.
But on his watch, Putin has not even been forced to negotiate, let alone stop the depraved killing and abduction of Ukrainians. Instead, he has done the opposite, ratcheted up his attacks on Ukraine and gone further to target EU and NATO targets.
This has also included the electronic warfare waged against the EU President Ursula von der Leyen, and the bombing of an American factory situated in what was one of the safest parts of Ukraine, in the country’s remote far west.
And he has been handsomely rewarded, scoring a red-carpet visit to Alaska, a quick limo ride with the leader of the United States, with little more than a scolding tweet in the way of punishment when he repeatedly mocks the ‘understandings’ that were supposedly agreed in Anchorage, to bring the war that he illegally started to an end.
In fact, as data compiled by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies shows, since Trump took office, and in particular over the last few months, Putin has been doubling, trebling and last weekend, quadrupling the number of drones and missiles he fires on Kyiv.
If Putin fears Trump’s retribution, he doesn’t show it. So far, Trump’s peace through strength mantra has involved imposing missed deadlines on Putin, combined with some occasionally scolding or begging tweets.
His response to the Polish incursion was breathtakingly trite.
‘What’s with Russia violating Poland’s airspace with drones? Here we go!’ the US President wrote on social media around 11 am Washington time.
Later, he held a phone call with Emmanuel Macron, which the French President described as ‘excellent.’
Behind the scenes, there is a more serious response involving the United States. NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, an American, is in Lithuania, one of the Baltic states bordering Russia.
It is little wonder that Putin is emboldened to escalate, as he did when he sent drones into Polish airspace, testing Western resolve and their responses.
Under Trump, Europe is moving closer and closer to the likelihood of the war in Ukraine spilling over due to Russia’s intensifying provocations.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the incident brought Europe closer to open conflict ‘than ever since World War II.’
‘I want to emphasise strongly that today there is no reason to say that we are in a state of war,’ Tusk said.
‘But there is no doubt that this provocation exceeds previous limits and is incomparably more dangerous from the point of view of Poland than all others, all previous ones.’
A line was crossed this week. NATO were successful in shooting down a handful of drones with hugely expensive fighter jets.
This response will not be viable should Putin choose to deploy more drones into NATO airspace at a more sustained pace and level than he did this week.
Trump may be right that the war would not have started if he were President.
But he is running out of time to show that he is capable of anything different to his predecessor, Joe Biden, in overseeing continued and unpunished Russian escalation, and that peace through strength is a decoy for plain, old-fashioned weakness.