Ever since the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight 17 (MH17) in 2014, the Dutch position on Russia has hardened significantly. And since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Netherlands has been one of the most vocal supporters of Ukraine and advocates for a tough stance on Moscow. But NATO as a whole has not yet succeeded to agree on a shared strategic approach to Russia. This is disappointing at best and dangerous at worst.
As NATO’s leaders gather in The Hague for the summit on June 24-25 to debate the Alliance’s future, one question looms large: what threat does the Russian Federation really pose to NATO, and how should the Alliance respond? Despite NATO being founded primarily to deter Soviet (and subsequently Russian) aggression, opinions on how to deal with Russia have diverged widely within the alliance for decades. Despite the intention of the 2024 Washington summit, NATO has not yet succeeded to agree on a shared strategic approach to Russia – not least due to disagreements over the nature of the Russian threat and the broader question of the European security order.
Shifting perceptions
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has resulted in a significant reality check on hitherto naïve threat perceptions of the Russian Federation as a benign trading partner that existed in the Alliance prior to 2022. The Netherlands, the host country of this year’s NATO Summit, exemplifies this shift. Dutch attitudes towards Russia began to change markedly in 2014 following the Russian annexation of Crimea and particularly the downing of MH17by Russian-supported rebels in eastern Ukraine which killed 193 Dutch citizens. Even so, according to the Clingendael Institute’s Foreign Policy Barometer, by 2020 only 35% of Dutch citizens saw Russia as a threat to Europe. Two years later, following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, over 71% of Dutch citizens saw Russia as a threat to the Netherlands itself. Dutch foreign policy has also shifted significantly, and the Netherlands is now one of the most forward-leaning supporters of Ukraine and advocates for a tough stance on Russia – in particular compared to other countries not located on NATO’s eastern flank.
Not only in the Netherlands but across Europe, Russia’s full-scale invasion has also empowered hardline interpretations that hold that Russia is an inherently aggressive country, that it is primarily driven by a nostalgic imperialist impulse to expand territorially and thereby resurrect the Russian/Soviet Empire. Territorial revisionism is only one aspect of Russia’s geopolitical ambitions, and not as central as commonly understood. Oversimplifying Russia’s intentions can prompt us to prepare for the wrong scenarios and potentially even to precipitate, rather than avoid, a large-scale military conflict with Russia. Moreover, misrepresenting the threat that Russia poses can also undermine societal trust in political leadership, which is vital for strengthening Europe’s resilience and for securing the domestic political support that is crucial for significantly increased defence expenditure.
Russia’s motives
As papers that aim to help understand Russia’s motives often get misinterpreted as sympathising with them, let us be clear about this from the outset: the Russian Federation does indeed pose a serious threat to European security, and that threat needs to be countered. Russia has shown itself willing and capable of using military aggression to adjust the geopolitical landscape with gross violations of international law. Russian political and security elites reject the liberal rules-based order and want Russia to be a strategically autonomous great power with a sphere of influence that extends beyond the country’s borders into its geographical neighbourhood. The very existence of NATO is deemed antithetical to Moscow’s geopolitical interests. The Alliance is not only seen as a threat to Russia’s security, but also as limiting the influence that Russia can project into its Eastern European neighbourhood.
The European drive to rearm is thus fully justified and, indeed, long overdue. By extension, helping Ukraine to build and maintain a strong army will strengthen the security of NATO’s eastern flank. But contrary to sometimes overly alarmist rhetoric by hawkish politicians, it is not just a matter of time before Russia will attack NATO. Russia does not exist in a vacuum. It may violate the international rules-based order through malign activities, but it is not mindlessly bent on conquest regardless of context. The Kremlin responds to threats and opportunities, makes cost-benefit analyses, and assesses risks, however flawed these assessments may at times be – as they clearly were in February 2022.
As a result, Russia may indeed seize opportunities if these present themselves due to lack of NATO strength or unity. But it can also be – and, so far, has been – effectively deterred from direct military strikes against NATO allies. The current sense of urgency within NATO is linked to the fear that deterrence will become less credible the more the United States withdraws from Europe. After all, the threat of a direct military conflict with the US, has always been the primary deterrent for the Soviet Union/Russia to using its military power more widely in Europe.
However, contrary to some alarmist voices claiming that ‘Putin won’t stop at Ukraine’, Russia is not about to launch wars of conquest with the aim of restoring a Russian empire. Russia’s political and security elites want their country to have a sphere of influence with strategic depth in Russia’s Eurasian neighbourhoods, but the latter is not primarily a matter of territorial aggrandisement. Vladimir Putin’s rhetoric and actions indicate that he regards (parts of) Ukraine – and possibly Belarus as well – as potential parts of an enlarged Russian nation-state. There is an obvious – though not necessarily direct – connection between Putin’s statements about Russians and Ukrainians (and Belarusians) belonging to ‘a single large nation’ and Russia’s annexation of Ukrainian territories, especially regions with relatively high shares of Russian speakers. But the same attitude does not seem to apply to other regions that were at some point in history part of the Soviet Union or the Russian Empire such as the Caucasus, Central Asia, Finland, or even the Baltic states and Poland.
Challenging NATO
In addition, a country whose military has struggled in three years’ time to subdue the Ukrainian armed forces and has failed to make substantial territorial gains in Ukraine since 2022, currently seems hardly capable of launching a successful all-out ground assault to seize the territory of a well-armed European NATO ally like Poland or Finland.
As such, the primary driver of potential Russian military aggression against NATO would likely not be territorial conquest.
The types of military conflict that are more likely to erupt between NATO and Russia would have a different rationale, and therefore a different character, than the current war in Ukraine. An often-discussed scenario that could prompt a conventional military conflict is a more limited Russian incursion into the Baltic states. Either directly or through proxies Russia could try to seize, for instance, the overwhelmingly Russian-speaking Estonian city of Narva. The main aim of such an operation would not necessarily be to unify the ‘Russian world’ and restore imperial Russian lands, but rather to challenge NATO’s resolve in the hope of causing its disintegration. The Baltic states are a prime candidate for such an operation since they remain notoriously difficult to defend for NATO – especially without US military support. Given this risk, the alliance should have robust plans to swiftly push back a Russian military incursion into the Baltics or other regions bordering Russia and Belarus. Europe’s primary challenge therefore is to ensure that NATO’s deterrent continues to function even if the US reduces its military presence on the European continent.
NATO’s security dilemma
However, Russia’s military aggression is not just a function of perceived opportunities to enlarge its influence or territory, but also a response to national security concerns. Given the somewhat paranoid geopolitical worldview of Russia’s political and security elites, Russia is more prone than most NATO Allies to the ‘security dilemma’, in which attempts by other countries to strengthen their defence posture are perceived as a potential threat to Russia’s own security. Regardless of the objective threat that NATO may or may not pose to Russia’s security, it is clear that Moscow subjectively sees NATO as a major security threat. Moscow’s fears of NATO enlargement played an important role in triggering Russia’s military aggression against Georgia and Ukraine, especially after NATO’s Bucharest Summit in April 2008. This fear is likely to be further aggravated both by a rapid European military build-up close to Russia’s borders and by European support to a heavily armed and effective Ukrainian military.
To manage this security dilemma, NATO needs to be careful that a new arms race with Russia does not turn Europe’s own fear of war with Russia into a self-fulfilling prophecy by incentivising a defensive Russian first-strike. In a perverse mirroring of Eastern European threat perceptions, a paranoid Russia might conclude that a rearming Europe will eventually want to attack it, and might therefore decide to move first while it still has an advantage. This could happen, for instance, in response to European NATO allies building up sizable conventional land and air forces on NATO’s eastern flank that could be seen by Moscow as preparation for a NATO first strike, or through the deployment of certain hypersonic and/or nuclear missiles that could threaten Russia’s retaliation capabilities.
A position of strength
This leads to an uncomfortable conclusion. European rearmament and military support to Ukraine is needed to make Europe and Ukraine more secure, but they simultaneously create a security dilemma that Russia will respond to. Despite its bluster, Russia will also have incentives to avoid an indefinite and costly arms race that it cannot win in the long run. Therefore, European NATO allies should combine rearmament and building credible deterrence with a vision for restarting conventional arms control negotiations and military risk reduction communication with Russia, drawing on the lessons of the Cold War and making use of instruments that still exist within the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
These two approaches are not mutually exclusive but rather mutually reinforcing, as rearmament and credible deterrence would enable NATO to negotiate arms control arrangements with Russia from a position of strength rather than weakness. The primary focus at NATO’s The Hague Summit will understandably lie on increased defence expenditure and a common Russia strategy is unlikely to be agreed upon. The alliance’s leaders nonetheless should strive to soon formulate a strategic approach to Russia. Once they do, they would do well not only to highlight the threat of a direct war with Moscow, but also articulate a more comprehensive vision on how to prevent it.
About the Authors
Kaspar Pucek is a Research Fellow within the Security Unit and the Russia & Eastern Europe Centre (CREEC) at the Clingendael Institute.
Bob Deen is Head of the Security Unit and Senior Research Fellow at the Clingendael Institute. He is the Coordinator of the Russia and Eastern Europe Centre.