How to fix NATO’s fatal flaw

For longer than I can remember, pleading with NATO to address what has been and is now a more obvious fatal flaw has not yielded a single action. That flaw is that its bedrock Article Five commitment that “an armed attack against one NATO member shall be considered an attack against them all,” presumes the attack will be a military assault by the Soviet Union on one or more members of the alliance.

But what if the attack is not military? The only precedent is when Article Five was invoked 25 years ago after al Qaeda’s strike on New York’s Twin Towers — when the alliance went to war in Afghanistan.

Vladimir Putin is using what Lenin termed “ active measures ” and what the West calls “ hybrid warfare ” in attacking NATO and Western countries. Russia is using active measures, including spreading as much chaos as possible short of an armed attack, in its plan to divide and fracture the alliance. And much like Lenin, who recruited useful idiots to his service, Putin has done the same with President Trump. Trump has gone out of his way to strain America’s links with NATO by demanding that NATO Europe take more responsibility for its defense — but “more” means “all” in Trump talk.

From 2003 to 2016 I served on the advisory board for a series of NATO’s Supreme allied commanders in Europe. During the years since, trying to get NATO to respond and react to these active measures has proved to be Sisyphean. NATO, to its credit, has created 30 wide-ranging Centers of Excellence that cover cyber, counterintelligence and strategic communications. But none focuses on dealing with active measures.

NATO has not confronted determining when active measures or hybrid warfare attacks trigger Article Five. Russia’s use of drones is an example. Sixteen NATO members have reported Russian drones penetrating national air space. Romania has cited 26 such violations, and this past August, shot down four Russian drones . On Aug. 4, a Russian drone attack took place at Leipzig/Halle Airport in Germany. Fortunately it failed to explode.

The cyber realm is another area that Russia exploits regularly. The exact number of cyber attacks Russia is making against NATO is difficult to determine, but it is a very large number. The most infamous of these was the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg, which founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, who also headed the Wagner Group until his killing in 2023.

Russia has a number of these so-called troll offices that deal with the disinformation aspects of war and have been highly effective in spreading dissent among NATO and Western states. Yet so far, NATO has not taken collective action to counter these propaganda machines, leaving it up to individual member states to react.

What then should NATO do to protect and defend against Russian and possibly Chinese active measures and hybrid war? This question can raise intractable issues as to what might invoke Article Five, so it has been deferred. Since cyber responses involve highly classified national capabilities that can be shared, for example among the Five Eyes coalition of the U.S., United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, they usually do not apply across all of NATO’s 32 members.

First, NATO should state that any Russian drones penetrating its nations’ territorial air or waters will be destroyed. NATO can expand its air policing to that end. Expanding cybersecurity and infrastructure protection must be a high priority. And expanding strategic communications to counter Russian propaganda and disinformation must take place.

Second, NATO should use its exercises and deployments as part of influence operations against the Russians to match or expose active measures. As a further example, Putin is reportedly upset when a Tomahawk shooter is in range of him. That might be an interesting pressure point to exploit.

Third, under the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, NATO should create what Churchill called in World War II, a “ dirty tricks ” organization. Best described under a benign name such as special services, this organization would be tasked to take on and blunt Russian active measures and hybrid war.

Having offered these proposals before, perhaps this time round, someone may listen.

Harlan Ullman is senior adviser at Washington’s Atlantic Council, chairman of a private company and principal author of the doctrine of shock and awe. His next book, co-written with Field Marshal The Lord David Richards, former UK chief of defense and due out this fall, is “Who Thinks Best Wins: How Decisive Strategic Thinking Will Prevent Global Chaos. “