There’s been a lot of saber-rattling lately. But this isn’t just bluster.
Because NATO issued a sobering threat to Russia that could reignite the Cold War.
NATO Weighs Shift from Defense to Offense Against Russian Hybrid Attacks
NATO’s highest-ranking military officer has ignited a heated debate by suggesting the alliance may need to abandon its traditionally reactive posture and adopt “more aggressive”—even preemptive—measures to counter Russia’s escalating campaign of sabotage, cyberattacks, and infrastructure assaults.
Top Admiral Floats “Proactive” Strikes While Acknowledging Western Constraints
Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, chairman of NATO’s military committee, told the Financial Times that alliance leaders are actively debating whether to move from reacting to Russian hybrid threats to striking first. He described potential preemptive cyber operations or sabotage countermeasures as still compatible with NATO’s defensive mandate, but admitted: “It is further away from our normal way of thinking or behavior.”
Citing the Baltic Sentry naval mission launched this year to deter undersea sabotage, Dragone noted that “from the beginning of Baltic Sentry, nothing has happened. So this means that this deterrence is working.”
Yet he was candid about the West’s self-imposed handcuffs: “Being more aggressive compared with the aggressivity of our counterpart could be an option,” he said, quickly adding that NATO operates under far stricter ethical, legal, and jurisdictional limits than Moscow. “I don’t want to say it’s a loser position, but it is a harder position than our counterpart’s.”
Moscow Fires Back—and the West Pushes the Hypocrisy Charge
The Kremlin wasted no time condemning the remarks. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova branded Dragone’s statements “an extremely irresponsible step” and claimed NATO was openly signaling readiness “to move toward escalation,” according to Russian state media.
U.S. experts swiftly dismissed Moscow’s outrage. Carrie Filipetti, executive director of the Vandenberg Coalition and a former senior State Department official, told Fox News Digital: “Given Russia’s unilateral invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the idea that Russia is warning about NATO being irresponsible is laughable. Putin has been given numerous opportunities to end the war peacefully and has refused them all because of his own expansionist goals. NATO is simply reacting to his aggression.”
On the question of American obligations, Filipetti stressed that even a more assertive NATO posture would not automatically drag the U.S. into offensive action. “Article 5 merely states that an attack on one is an attack on all,” she explained.
“NATO adopting a more assertive position does not obligate the U.S. to do the same. We are only required to take ‘such action as [we] deem necessary’ – and that, only in the case of an attack on a NATO state.”
Retired four-star General Bruce Carlson, former director of the National Reconnaissance Office, was blunter still: “Let’s not forget it’s Russia who is conducting preemptive military action in Europe with the sole intention of invading and occupying another sovereign nation’s territory by force.”
He added that “Putin only understands one thing and that’s power,” praising former President Trump for strengthening the alliance and urging the use of “every lever possible to push Russia to the negotiating table to achieve a lasting and sustainable peace deal that protects Ukraine’s sovereignty and defends U.S. national security interests.”
The controversy erupts against a backdrop of relentless Russian hybrid aggression—daily cyberattacks, weaponized migration, disinformation barrages, and physical sabotage of critical infrastructure across Europe.
Late-2024 incidents, including severed undersea cables and a Christmas Day power-link rupture, forced NATO into a top-to-bottom review. In one high-profile case, Finnish prosecutors accused a Cook Islands–flagged tanker of deliberately dragging its anchor for 50 miles to slice vital cables—only for a court to dismiss charges on jurisdictional grounds.
Most recently, roughly 20 drones violated Polish airspace in September, prompting Warsaw to invoke Article 4 consultations. Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned it marked “the closest we have been to open conflict since World War II.” Moscow, as usual, denied everything.
