Russia Thinks it Can Attack NATO and Win. Here's Why.

If you like us have made the questionable decision to submit yourself to the constant fire hose of global news then you probably know what we're talking about when we say that sometimes it almost seems as if there are two russians in this world one of them is little more than a laughing stock a fading overhyped regional power with a failing economy a tin pot

Dictator and a complete inability to conquer its far weaker next door neighbor but the other russia is dangerous formidable capable of posing an existential threat to the entire nato alliance channels like ours will explain in detail how and why russia's got practically no shot at capturing the rest of the donbass this year but then just days later we'll be

Warning that unless europe gets its act together the continent could face defeat and vladimir putin's cold and probably very clammy hands but make sure you're sitting down when i say this two things can be true at once outlets like warfronts well we're not lying when we explain that russia spent the better part of a half decade squandering its chances in

Ukraine and we also aren't lying when we point out that russia has the capability to destroy nato in the near future so it's time that we take an entire episode and explain how those two realities can co-exist explain why russia thinks it can attack nato and win and why nato seems to believe it if you've been following affairs in europe for the last few days

Then you know that european leaders seem really spooked right now but if you don't believe it then i'll tell you why don't you don't believe it if you don't believe it but if you don't believe it then you know that european leaders seem really spooked right now but if you don't believe it then you know that european leaders seem really spooked right now but

If you don't believe it then you know that european leaders seem really spooked right now even more so than usual in 2026 so it's vitally important that we understand the complex reality of the russian threat as soon as possible because we might end up needing that knowledge sooner than we think a false dichotomy at once russia has failed completely in its

Invasion of ukraine and at the same time it's an existential imminent threat to the nato alliance as we will explain today there are many reasons that those two conclusions are not contradictory but there's an answer to these questions when we say the words russia's ability to destroy the nato alliance we don't mean russia's ability to destroy nato nations

In a full-scale war in fact we don't even mean russia's ability to conquer europe not even eastern europe what we mean is exactly the thing we said that russia can destroy the alliance the north atlantic treaty organization that binds the us canada and 30 european nations into a mutual defensive posture under nato's collective defense clause article 5 any

Nato member state could choose to invoke the principle of collective defense in response to an attack and once it does every nato country is expected to do whatever it can to help the alliance member that's been attacked for modern day russia under vladimir putin that's a serious problem not because putin has any expectation that russian tanks would one day

Roll down the streets of london or paris or that russia in its current state could ever defeat the us in a contest of global superpowers nato is a problem for putin because putin has geopolitical ambitions that would place him at odds with individual nato countries according to an analysis published last week by the institute for the study of war quoting the

Kremlin's aims include preserving putin's regime re-establishing russia as a great power which presupposes subjugating ukraine and belarus regaining control over the former soviet states specifically including the baltic states and establishing a world order in which u.s influence is diminished nato's unity is broken and russia has decisive influence on the

United states right now nato acts as a kind of electric fence wrapped around many of putin's ambitions he can't seek to regain control over the baltic states estonia latvia and lithuania because they're members of nato and attacking them would trigger collective defense he can't try and assert dominance over the substantially weaker but fiercely independent

Powers on his doorstep like finland or poland or even turkey because they're all part of nato and attacking them would trigger collective defense but on their own countries like estonia or latvia or lithuania would be no match for russia even for countries like poland or finland while they could hold their own against a russian offensive by themselves it

Would be an incredibly costly and ruinous proposition and if they couldn't count on the support of their allies then they'd have to let russia get away with all sorts of bullying and coercion just to avoid the destruction of a full-scale war from russia's perspective it would be much more convenient if the nations that comprise nato today were instead 32

Nations that each had to assume they were going it alone russia cannot win a full-scale head-to-head confrontation against a fully mobilized nato alliance but it can win a string of much smaller scale one-on-one conflicts conquering or defeating the european nations that putin's actually set his sights on so although it would certainly be a bad thing if

Russia and nato entered into a full-scale war in the near future that's actually not the threat that keeps nato leaders tossing and turning at night and it's also not what analysts like ourselves are talking about when we discuss russia's intent to destroy nato the real fear is that putin would find a way to subvert the alliance force it into impossible

Situations and eventually manufacture a crisis where one or more nations would try and invoke article 5 only for the rest of the alliance to decide not to show up article 5 works because as far as nato and the rest of the world are concerned it is an absolute guarantee a nato member invokes article 5 because of a clear verifiable threat from the outside and

The entire alliance will show up no questions asked to date article 5 boasts a 100 success rate it's only ever been invoked once by the u.s after 9 11 and nato members really did show up for the war on terror the alliance guards that success rate very carefully turkey for instance has refused to invoke article 5 for any reason despite fighting in many

Conflicts over the years while today alliance members diligently declined to call for collective defense against russia and they refused to invoke article 5 for any reason despite fighting in many conflicts over the years while today alliance members diligently declined to call for collective defense against russia despite russia's long campaign of sabotage

Drone and aircraft incursions and other low-grade probing attacks against europe across the last few years nato is so diligent about preserving the sanctity of article 5 because it only takes one demonstration of nato countries failing to respond to a crisis for the entire collective security guarantee to fall apart right now the global assumption around

Article 5 is that nato members wouldn't question a request from one of their allies they wouldn't drag their feet they wouldn't try to get out of fighting and they certainly wouldn't decline to participate but once that assumption is proven false nato is left on an incredibly slippery slope let's say hypothetically that russia simply parked a few thousand

Troops on empty territory across its border with latvia didn't shoot anything didn't capture anything just claimed that the empty territory was russian now and when latvia invoked article 5 the us decided that it wasn't going to respond america's rationale would be entirely understandable those russian troops weren't hurting anyone and they weren't even

Threatening latvian sovereignty there's no need to escalate the conflict by attacking those troops and certainly not by putting american troops at risk over an empty little patch of forest with no strategic value but as soon as the us demonstrates that it won't show up when article 5 is invoked every other nato member now has to ask itself would the us

Really intervene if russia took over a single village what about a small town or a stretch of highway and if the us might not intervene then would it step in and defend a city if the us doesn't step in could the british or the french or the germans or the italians simply decide not to honor article 5 either after all the us is the strongest nation of the

Alliance by far so why would they show up if america didn't and most insidious of all even if america did lay out a clear rationale for why it didn't respond in this case but it would always respond to a case where let's say a population center were attacked well russia can annex any empty territory where it could place its troops and how can other countries

Trust that america will keep its word about its new commitments when it didn't keep its word about the old commitment to collective defense now that's a hypothetical scenario of course latvia could be any nato nation facing a different kind of threat from any outside adversary and the us could just as easily be britain or france or even a smaller nato nation

Like say belgium or the czech republic but the deeper reality is unchanged if in a moment of crisis nato's collective defense clause fails to meet the moment then nato's foundation of the united states is going to be broken and nothing about the future is guaranteed once that happens moscow can set off a runway chain reaction where former allies look for

Ways not to support each other russia adds new territory and resources to the strength of its war effort and moscow moves too quickly on offense for scared and disorientated european capitals to coordinate a strong defense the tools at putin's disposal so that's what nato fears russia might try in the near future to connect a well-calibrated attack that's

Undeniably an article 5 level threat to a member state but one that's politically very difficult to respond to as for how russia would go about that task well a few things will be true in every case first russia doesn't need a full army's worth of troops to try an attack like this in some cases russia might need 10 or 20 000 in other cases a few thousand or

Even a few hundred or other cases just zero troops on nato soil these are operations that russia can try and carry out even with the help of the russian government and the russian government even while it's fully committed and struggling in ukraine second russia will be looking to create an edge case for nato decision makers a situation where everybody knows

That the right answer would be to respond militarily but when none of nato's heavy hitters actually believe it would be worth the trouble third russia will try to dissuade nato nations from interfering by imposing costs if they do so right now russia is very confident in its ability to engage in frontline and long-range drone confrontations and gritty high

Casualty operations with far greater competence than the nations of nato and to russia's credit they're exactly right about that nato isn't ready to fight those kinds of battles right now and win them so russia can assume that if nato did send troops to try and respond russia could impose heavy losses on nato troops at a moment when nato capitals have

Demonstrated that they aren't willing to accept even limited casualties russia needs only look as far as iran where the acknowledged deaths of the russian army and the russian military have been described as one of the biggest threats to the russian government in the history of russia and the russian government in the history of europe and the russian

Government in the history of europe and the russian government in the history of europe and the russian government in the history of europe if the u.s and europe struggle to accept those costs then they are not ready for russia to flood the internet with drone video feeds where hundreds of millions of shocked civilians can watch spanish or dutch or slovak or

Greek troops be hunted down by quadcopters on the front lines because as russian bots will surely remind them their government governments didn't have the backbone to resist nato and keep their own people safe of course we can't identify the tactics that russia would use for an attack like this with absolute certainty but we can spotlight a few relatively

Common examples that outside analysts have offered as ways that russia could go about its task perhaps the lowest risk option for russia would be an attack that polish prime minister donald tusk explicitly warned about last thursday in an address to his nation's parliament in that address tusk suggested that quote drones or other types of missiles could

Enter the territory of one or several nato countries on the eastern flank and cause damage that is to say during the course of russia's ukraine war russia might launch a strike that seems to target western ukraine only for its missiles or drones to change course overfly or otherwise hit a nato country as for how russia could get away with that tusk explained

Quoting again and the official narrative will be that it was an accident and that there is no reason for anyone to consider any kind of nato response now if that seems like a ludicrous proposition then let us present a few scenarios and you could ask yourself each time would every nato nation agree unanimously that it was potentially worth thousands of

Soldiers dying in response option a barrage of russian drones and missiles strike noted territory but the territory is empty option b a handful of russian drones act as if they're flying off course and strike a combination of cities villages and open areas across a couple of nato member states c one missile hits a city but it hits an abandoned building with

Only a small handful of casualties reported and perhaps one or two deaths then there are the options that we'd describe as an empty incursion russian troops moving across the nato border and occupying a stretch of territory but it's empty territory similar to the scenario we presented a little while ago let's say that a thousand russian troops make their way

Into the finnish wilderness and occupy a pocket of about 10 square kilometers behind them but positioned squarely on russian territory there are 5 000 russian troops with heavy artillery and ungodly amounts of drones preparing to respond to a nato defense of finnish territory by turning that territory into a meat grinder from across the border nato can try

And take that territory back but many of its soldiers will die and they probably won't be allowed to fight into russia meaning that those other soldiers in the russian rear will be safe to keep picking them off and again all of this death and destruction is for 10 square kilometers of empty territory but if nato fails to defend that territory against a

Blatant russian occupation then article 5 is toast similarly russia could direct its troops to seize an unoccupied island that's globally recognized as the territory of a nato member maybe very close to the russian coast or maybe in the high arctic where nato forces will struggle to respond or russia could take a population center it could capture a village

Perceived down or even annex a city but here's how russia gets away with it in this option russia chooses a city with a high proportion of russian speakers very close to the russian border perhaps in an area where russia's maintained territorial claims for some time that city has practically zero strategic value to nato and it's probably been identified as a

Spot where russia could consider an operation like this similar to its 2014 operations in crimea and the russian donbass moscow claims that pro-russian separatists are taking their fates into their own hands using non-uniformed russian troops and denying that they're russian at all but then when nato forces come calling russia moves its troops right up to

The border and says that it will resolve to defend these pro-russian separatists by force if necessary population centers like this do exist most famously the city of narva in eastern estonia and if russia were to repeat the tactics it used in 2014 that it would put nato in a hell of a bind nato could fight to take back a city that really is majority russian

With more than a third of people already being russian citizens and that's not the only reason why russia would decide to take back a city that really is majority russian with more than a third of people already being russian citizens and in doing so nato would sacrifice its own troops and destroy a population center that it doesn't actually need in a

Strategic sense but if it fails to act then russia has quite literally annexed a city away from a nato member state and article 5 is again toast the coming storm now to the nations of the nato alliance a russian attempt to fracture their unity is far from an abstract conflict in early august the wall street journal reported that according to u.s intelligence

Assessments russia could conduct a direct attack or a small-scale incursion against nato as early as this month european intelligence agencies have broadly echoed the assessment that a russian challenged the alliance might be imminent even despite its ongoing war in ukraine remember we still aren't talking about the idea of russia fighting a two-front

Full-scale war somehow taking on nato while still bogged down in ukraine we're talking about the limited options we've already laid out from missile strikes to a land grab to an attempt to annex a relatively pro russian city on that threat native members have reached a consensus that there is a serious risk that russia isn't just planning an attack of that

Kind but planning it imminently and over the last several days european leaders have seemed especially jumpy even more so than usual we've already mentioned last thursday's address by polish prime minister donald tusk the man behind the single biggest national rearmament across europe right now tusk described the idea that russia would step up its attacks

Against both ukraine and its allies as the quote most likely scenario for the next few months tusk even explained outright that russia would want to demonstrate that quote article 5 is more theoretical than practical end quote now tusk's telling there are political forces active in many european nations just waiting for an excuse to declare quote we are not

Going to die for poland we are not going to die for poland we are not going to die for latvia or lithuania then on friday french president emmanuel macron gathered the leaders of all of france's major political parties as well as other top officials for an emergency security meeting according to reports from the meeting macron ordered french leaders to

Protect their critical infrastructure and their defense industry from cyber attacks and drone strikes in a conversation where macron explicitly discussed the threat of a direct attack against polish territory one party leader the center-left guillaume lacroix extremely which is the most french name i've ever heard by the way i wrote online after the meeting

Quote at the age of 50 i've rarely felt such vertigo vertigo at the gravity of the situations in the middle east and ukraine at the predatory madness driving the world toward chaos end quote after the meeting macron held a press conference where he confirmed that his government would be drawing up new plans to protect against hybrid attacks explaining that

Quote in recent weeks the threat particularly the russian hybrid threat facing europeans and france has intensified macron like tusk explicitly pointed out that moscow wants to break europe's resolve and its commitment to collective defense knowing that if europe is not united then european support for ukraine will not last long and tusk and macron were far

From the only european figures to signal their unease also last week german chancellor friedrich maz warned that the freedom of europe may be decided within quote decisive months if not weeks britain's chief of defense staff said that the threat from russia constitutes the most dangerous period he's ever seen in 35 years serving with the british armed forces

Just days later the bbc was running the story war may be coming are we psychologically ready a new report from bloomberg revealed that the german government has been modeling to try and figure out how well its healthcare infrastructure would do under a state of martial law according to those reports germany estimates that it could have to treat up to a

Thousand newly wounded service members every day vastly overstretching germany's existing capacity to treat such serious injuries last wednesday a new report reveals that lithuania is preparing evacuation routes to empty out the capital city of vilnius in the event of an active bombardment estonia's prime minister meanwhile warned that the country is ready

To close its border with russia immediately if russia declares a general mobilization of its population to fuel the ukraine war finland's president warned the country to prepare for hybrid and drone attacks as his armed forces practiced seaboardings even switzerland a non-nato country and a famously neutral government issued an acknowledgement on friday that

It must enhance its defensive capabilities amidst a quote deteriorating security situation also on friday several italian outlets reported that italian eurofighter jets were forced to escort a pair of russian aircraft out of lithuanian airspace and late that night u.s president donald trump made the rather uncharacteristic decision to finally sign a

Sanctions bill against russia so yes russia really does believe that it can keep fighting its war in ukraine while also destroying the unity of the nato alliance and the leaders of the nato member states clearly agree the danger in this critical and decisive moment isn't that russia would try to start a war against nato all at once but that russia can create

The conditions for nato to basically cease to exist we are headed into a very dicey few months thank you for watching and check out defense fronts our new channel why not you