In the early months of the war in Ukraine, Gen. Mark Milley, then chair of the joint chiefs of staff, carried a note card in his briefcase outlining what he saw as the main priorities when it came to the US and NATO approach to the war. As reported by the Washington Post, they were: No. 1: “Don’t have a kinetic conflict between the U.S. military and NATO with Russia.” No. 2: “Contain war inside the geographical boundaries of Ukraine.” No. 3: “Strengthen and maintain NATO unity.” No. 4: “Empower Ukraine and give them the means to fight.”
The order is telling. Supporting Ukraine has been a priority, but preventing escalation outside of Ukraine has often been a greater one, sometimes to the frustration of Ukrainian leaders who have at times felt that Western governments were too timid in supporting actions like long-range strikes into Russian territory. Milley is long gone from American leadership, but that attitude carried over with the return of President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly expressed concerns that the conflict could escalate to World War III.
So it’s been remarkable over the past week to see the degree to which NATO leaders appear to have come around to the view that NATO-Russia conflict — hopefully only limited conflict — may be inevitable.
The reason is a series of increasingly brazen incursions into NATO airspace. On September 8, 21 Russian drones entered Polish territory, where some of them were shot down by an unprecedented Polish-German-Italian-Dutch military operation.
It’s at least plausible, though somewhat hard to believe given the number of them, that those drones entered Polish airspace inadvertently while on their way to strike targets in Ukraine. Drones have periodically crossed into and crashed on the territory of several NATO countries bordering Ukraine since the start of the war. The fact that they were unmanned vehicles also made the situation easier to deescalate: that drones can be shot down without human casualties is one reason leaders are often willing to take more controversial or riskier actions with them. (In a notable 2023 incident, Russian jets collided with and downed an American MQ-9 Reaper drone over the Black Sea.)
The incident last Friday, in which three Russian fighter jets violated Estonia’s airspace for 12 minutes, where they were intercepted by NATO jets, had the potential to become something much more dangerous. Unlike Poland, Estonia does not border Ukraine; it’s hundreds of miles away. And in this case, the aircraft were manned. The Russian government has denied that it violated Estonian airspace.
On Monday, a series of drone sightings forced airports in Copenhagen and Oslo to close for several hours. On Thursday, drones shut down a second Danish airport, this one used for commercial and military flights. Norwegian and Danish authorities did not initially confirm widespread allegations — including from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — that these drones were Russian, but Danish authorities have concluded they were linked to a “state actor,” Reuters reported.
These incidents took center stage at the UN General Assembly meeting in New York City this week, with Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski explicitly threatening to shoot down any additional aircraft that entered his country’s airspace.
“If another missile or aircraft enters our space without permission, deliberately or by mistake, and gets shot down and the wreckage falls on NATO territory, please don’t come here to whine about it. You have been warned,” he said, addressing the Russian delegation.
“We stand ready to take all steps necessary to defend NATO’s skies and NATO’s territory against Russia’s imperialist warmongering,” UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said.
More surprisingly, President Donald Trump responded, “Yes, I do,” on Tuesday when asked by a reporter if he believed NATO countries should shoot down Russian aircraft that enter their territory. “Roger that,” Sikorski posted on X in response.
This comes amid this week’s hawkish turn in Trump’s frequently shifting views on the war in Ukraine, which also included a Truth Social post arguing that Ukraine will be able to retake all of its original territory, contradicting recent statements from many of his own senior officials.
None of this talk went over well with Russian officials. In a radio interview on Thursday, Russia’s ambassador to France warned that if a Russian jet were shot down over NATO territory, “it would mean war.”
Perhaps the warnings will be enough to deter future Russian provocations. History suggests they will not. And if Russia persists, we appear to be headed for the type of clash that not so long ago was viewed as the nightmare scenario. The question is whether it can be contained.
Sending signals; testing unity
“Putin wants to signal to us, to say, ‘You Lithuanians, you Poles, if you continue to support Ukraine, the war will come to you. You will feel this,’” Eitvydas Bajarūnas, a veteran Lithuanian diplomat and former ambassador to Russia, told Vox.
The incursions have spurred calls for increased NATO investment in air defense and drone detection. They have also highlighted how Russia’s cheap, replaceable kamikaze drones can provide a strategic advantage. One Estonian official described them to the Associated Press as a “lottery ticket that always wins” — either they hit their target or the enemy has to down them with a missile that costs far more than the drone. European diplomats are planning for a meeting Friday to discuss planned investments in a so-called drone wall: a system of sensors, electronic warfare systems, and weapons to prevent further violations.
In the shorter term, the countries along NATO’s eastern border are planning for more Russian provocations. Lithuania’s parliament, to take one example, has authorized the country’s military to shoot down any drones that enter its airspace.
“If the Europeans are repeatedly warning Russia not to violate its airspace over and over and over again, and nothing happens, then what kind of message does that send?”
— Rachel Rizzo, senior fellow and NATO analyst at the Atlantic Council
But Bajarūnas, now a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, acknowledged that a violation by manned aircraft, as happened in nearby Estonia last week, would pose tougher decisions for NATO leaders. “There will be no automaticity,” he said of the decision on whether to shoot down an aircraft. “Each case will be weighed and discussed among allies as much as possible, but sometimes you need to make decisions in minutes.”
The Russian government may also be looking to test whether all those allies are on the same page. Western European countries have traditionally been thought of as less hawkish on Russia than Poland and the Baltic states, given those countries’ fraught history with Russia and the Soviet Union. In a meeting on Tuesday, CNN reports, representatives of NATO governments were divided on whether to make it a policy to meet any additional incursions by force, including manned aircraft, with Germany and some southern European countries opposed. They settled on a policy that countries should take whatever steps they feel are necessary.
The even bigger question mark may be whether Washington is on board, says Liana Fix, senior fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations. While Trump, this week anyway, is standing behind Eastern Europe’s right to defend its airspace, “I don’t believe this is the view of the vice presidency or the Pentagon, who want to prevent, above being drawn into a conflict with Russia and have viewed the Baltics with suspicion in that regard,” Fix said.
Indeed, the Financial Times’s Gideon Rachman reported this week that Trump administration officials have complained about the “Estonization” of European defense policy, referring to former Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, who is now the EU’s foreign policy chief. The Baltic countries are viewed by some in power in Washington as dangerously “ideological” in their opposition to Putin. During this week’s meeting, the top US general for Europe, Alexus Grynkewich, reportedly ruffled some feathers by suggesting the Estonian incursion was likely accidental.
Not the end of the world?
Tensions are high as a war that has raged for years threatens to spill across international borders. Russia’s military is accused of war crimes as it targets civilians and bombs cities to rubble. As the blistering air campaign continues, Russian aircraft repeatedly fly — if only briefly — into NATO airspace, prompting fears that a shooting war could erupt between Russia and the Western military alliance, both armed with thousands of nuclear weapons. After repeated incursions, a Russian fighter jet that ignored multiple warnings from the ground is shot down over NATO territory — one of the two airmen is killed. #WorldWar3 trends on Twitter.
The year is 2015, and the Russian jet was shot down over NATO member Turkey after bombing nearby rebel targets in Syria on behalf of Bashar al-Assad’s government. World War III, suffice to say, did not break out. Turkey and Russia restored relations in 2016 when Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, apologized for the incident.
The 2015 precedent is likely one on the minds of NATO policymakers as they contemplate a response to the recent air incursions. The growing consensus appears to be that the risks of allowing these provocations to continue outweigh the risks of responding to them. The Russian government has warned NATO countries of the prospect of all-out war in the past, without following through on those threats.
“If the Europeans are repeatedly warning Russia not to violate its airspace over and over and over again, and nothing happens, then what kind of message does that send?” Rachel Rizzo, a senior fellow and NATO analyst at the Atlantic Council told Vox, summarizing this emerging thought.
Still, it is notable that the sustained efforts by NATO governments and militaries to keep this raging war within Ukraine’s borders appear to be failing already. They may hope that a decisive show of force — perhaps even including NATO defenses downing a Russian jet or killing a pilot — is a necessary response to Russia’s latest escalation. But that doesn’t mean the escalation will end.
Update, September 25, 5:50 pm ET: This story was originally published September 25, and has been updated to include additional statements and public reports.
