Russia breaches NATO airspace

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LINDSAY MAST, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 16th of September.

This is WORLD Radio and we’re so glad you’ve joined us today. Good morning, I’m Lindsay Mast..

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

Up first, Russia tests NATO.

Last week, Dutch fighter jets shot down Russian drones deep inside Poland. This marks the first time since the Ukraine war began that NATO forces have directly engaged with Russian drones.

Since then, NATO has moved forces closer to the east in an operation called Eastern Sentry. Here’s NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.

RUTTE: Eastern Sentry will add strength and flexibility to our posture, and make clear that, as a defensive alliance, we are always ready to defend.

MAST: Is Russia picking a fight Europe is ready to resist?

Joining us now is Brad Bowman. He previously advised Congress on National Security issues. He now leads the Center for Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

REICHARD: Brad, good morning.

BRAD BOWMAN, GUEST: Good morning. Thank you.

REICHARD: Well, what do we know about the Russian drones that flew into Poland? Just lost, or testing the defenses? Were they armed or reconnaissance?

BOWMAN: It's a great question, and details are still emerging, even though we're this is several days in the rear view mirror. But what appears to have happened? We've had at least 19 Russian drones violate Polish airspace, some of them flying deep into Poland. Many of them were near the border with Ukraine. Some flew deeper in. The ones that were retrieved were what we call decoy drones, and that is, drones that didn't have explosives on them, that are used to either collect intelligence or information for targeting purposes for others, or just are used to consume finite air defense assets of the Ukrainians or others. So these are Shahed-style drones. Shahed, referring to the types of drones that Iran produced and provided to Vladimir Putin early in the war that Russia now has replicated with Iran's help and started to build within Russia. And then we saw a similar Shahed style, Geran-2 style drone violate Romania's airspace, and that one was not shot down, whereas some of the ones that violated Poland's airspace were shot down.

REICHARD: You know, I'm wondering about NATO's response to the drones using multi million dollar jets and weapons to shoot down relatively cheap drones? Is that a sustainable thing to do if Russia were to keep doing it?

BOWMAN: It's a great question. It's something I've dealt with through the years. And I talked to two US Air Force F-15 pilots about this on a podcast who were in the air on the night of April 13 last year, shooting down Iranian drones, very similar to these type of drones and cruise missiles that were headed toward Israel and and we got into this question, and they said, you know, that's not really something I need to be worrying about when I'm in the cockpit. Because, you know, if I don't shoot those things down, it's you're gonna, you're gonna have people dying. And so the you know, what you save by shooting these things down, in terms of not only lives saved, but also a property damage is well worth the even if the costs of the interception are quite expensive. But I take the point behind your question, and that is, when you look at the type of air launched munitions that were used to shoot down some of these drones in Poland, it's roughly a 10 to one cost ratio when you look at the cost of the drone versus the cost of the interceptor. So if we're going to have more, not fewer, of these in the future, we need to make sure that the United States and our allies have effective means to shoot them down. That's the most important thing, but also things that are where we're not wasting money when they can be shot down more economically. And there's individual systems like the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System. There's ground based systems that are less expensive that should be employed, because, unfortunately, Russia is building these in large quantities. And if you look at the attacks that we've seen in Ukraine over the last year, we're not talking about a few dozen drones. We're starting to see hundreds of drones per attack, and the NATO alliance needs to be ready for that, both in terms of capability, what you can do and capacity, how much you can do of it.

REICHARD: Let's talk about NATO's charter now. After all the dust settled, Poland invoked Article Four of NATO's charter to call allies to consider their response. So tell us, if you would, what is Article Four and what does it require of members such as the US?

BOWMAN: A lot of people have heard the term Article Five, but they're not quite sure about the larger context. Let's be clear what we're talking about. We're talking about the North Atlantic Treaty, which was signed in 1949 right there on Constitution Avenue in Washington, DC. And Article Five of that treaty is really the heart of the Alliance. And Article Five says that the parties agree that an armed attack against one or more dot, dot, dot, shall be considered an attack against all. And Article Four is really simple. It's one sentence. It says basically what the 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. That's article Four. That's it. And so that's what's happened here. Poland has obviously asked for article Four proceedings. Those consultations have occurred, and that's all within the context of a potential Article Five determination.

REICHARD: The only time Article Five of the NATO Treaty was invoked was after 911 when NATO did come to the aid of the US during the war on terror. So what level of Russian action would need to happen to trigger Article Five in a country like Romania or Poland?

BOWMAN: Some people treat Article Five like it's this automatically self implementing mechanism. It's not, if you actually read it, everyone you know, everyone starts with the attack against one is. Attack against all but they don't read the rest of that same paragraph and where it says they will determine how to respond, as each member quote deems necessary, including the use of armed force. So that's why discussions about whether these particular drone attacks were deliberate or an accident is relevant, right? Because it's if it was an accident that's not an armed attack. And even if it is right, each nation is going to decide how to respond. And so the supreme allied commander would say, well, we respond very effectively. We shot a lot of them down, and we're and we're starting this new Eastern century where Denmark, France, UK, Germany and others are going to be beef up the tenses along the defenses along the eastern flank, but Article Five, in the end, comes down to a political decision in each capital about how they're going to respond. And that's why the statements of the president United States are are so important. Because even if Article Five is invoked, how we respond can be everything from a harshly worded communique out of, out of the State Department. It can be a vote at the UN Security Council, or it can be sending the United States military to war against Russia, something we avoided during the entire Cold War, and Article Five doesn't implement itself.

REICHARD: Is there anything else you're seeing in the region? You think we should note?

BOWMAN: Well, my main point would be that this is the worst invasion. What we're seeing in Ukraine. This is the worst invasion of Europe since World War Two. This is a brazen, naked aggression, a war of conquest by Vladimir Putin. And the longer the war goes, the more we're going to see stuff like this happening. And we, it's in our interest to help Ukraine defend itself, and if we don't do that, we're going to see more problems, I predict, along NATO's eastern flank. And if we want to avoid a war between NATO and Russia, we better help Ukraine, and we better make clear to Vladimir Putin that we're prepared to defend every inch of the Alliance, just as the leaders of NATO have been saying.

REICHARD: Brad Bowman researches military strategy for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Thanks so much!

BOWMAN: Thank you.

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