Phillips Payson O’Brien writes:

The small incursion of Russian drones into Poland overnight was a test of NATO’s capabilities—a test that the Western military alliance should have easily passed. Polish authorities say 19 unmanned aircraft traveled through Ukrainian territory to enter their country’s territory. The scale of the attack was modest compared with the barrage of hundreds of drones, plus cruise missiles and ballistic missiles, that Vladimir Putin’s forces unleash against Ukraine nearly every night. For NATO air defenses with little direct experience with the drone attacks now emerging as a dominant feature of modern warfare, the incident might even have been educational—like a child’s foray on training wheels—but some aircraft managed to penetrate deep into Poland.

Some of the world’s most advanced military systems—Polish and Dutch fighters, German air-defense equipment, and Italian surveillance aircraft—were activated to respond to the incursion, NATO officials said. But the episode is only the latest evidence of NATO states’ constant failure to accurately assess their security concerns and national interests.

Russian drones and missiles have strayed into Polish territory on previous occasions in the past few years—with no consequence. Alliance members have not bothered to prepare properly for immediate threats, much less future war. Their constant weakness to this point has emboldened Putin to flagrantly violate NATO airspace while reinforcing the idea that member states have no idea how to look after their own security.

The U.S. ambassador to NATO, Matthew Whitaker, offered a firm statement, declaring on X, “We stand by our @NATO Allies in the face of these airspace violations and will defend every inch of NATO territory.” Yet the leader of the most powerful NATO member reacted ambiguously. In a peculiar post on Truth Social, Donald Trump said, “What’s with Russia violating Poland’s airspace with drones? Here we go!” Unlike European officials, the U.S. president—who has been bizarrely solicitous of the Russian dictator in discussions of the invasion that he launched into Ukraine—did not immediately condemn the incursion. The U.S. has not announced any specific role in defeating the attack, nor has it promised any noteworthy action in response.

Perhaps confused by the lack of U.S. leadership, Europeans have struggled even to describe what happened. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who is normally clear-sighted in his analysis of Putin’s military actions, declared that Polish airspace had been “violated by a huge number of Russian drones.” To Ukrainians, an incursion of only 19 unmanned aircraft would be a quiet night.

Tusk also said that “those drones that posed a direct threat were shot down”—a statement that left open the possibility that NATO had engaged in a form of triage rather than simply shooting all of the drones down. NATO countries are relying on extremely expensive systems to counter drone warfare—a task that Ukrainians are undertaking on a larger scale at a fraction of the cost. The incursion into Poland gives little reason for confidence about how NATO forces would fare if faced with 600 drones and missiles on a single night. [Continue reading…]