When the news broke that three Russian MiG-31 fighter aircraft breached Estonia's airspace and spent twelve minutes violating it, messages wondering whether it was true that they had been circling above Tallinn (it was not – ed.) started pouring in. This was something new, I thought, as the first geographical name that crossed my mind, without even opening the news, was the island of Vaindloo in the Gulf of Finland, about a hundred kilometers to the east rather than the capital city itself.

The Russian air force has long made a habit of airspace violations, including by cutting across a bit of the Estonian airspace in that particular area and spending a few minutes in it on the way to the Königsberg (Kaliningrad) exclave, with the transponders off and under full radio silence. The spectacle surrounding each such breach had always been the same: scrambling of Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) interceptors based in Ämari base of the Estonian Defense Forces as part of NATO's Baltic Air Policing (BAP) operation, identification of the Russian aircraft and their escorting on the edge of NATO's airspace, followed by the diplomatic notes of protest from the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Russians.

Same old?

Thus, at first sight, nothing was uncommon in the pattern, except the duration and length of incursion, including close vicinity to Tallinn. NATO congratulated itself on an effective response, but this time, it was drowned in the storm of indignation from observers, condemnation of Russian behavior from a host of Allied officials and multiple calls for severe action in the future. Some referenced Türkiye's response to the chronic violations by the Russian military aircraft during the Syrian bombing campaign in 2015 that resulted in one of the jets being shot down. As the day drew to a close, Estonia announced it was invoking Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty, thereby calling for security consultations with the Allies, which is reserved for cases when individual members feel that their security, sovereignty and territorial integrity are being seriously and acutely threatened.

Obviously, this is no longer business as usual. The context of the breach has shifted from Russia manifesting its usual arrogant disregard for the international rules and borders of neighboring nations to ever more openly testing the Alliance's cohesion, effectiveness and stamina to confront such moves. This is happening at a time when the principal Ally and leading power, the U.S., is losing interest and becoming increasingly unreliable. Meanwhile, Russia has immensely escalated its missile and drone bombardment campaign in its war of aggression against Ukraine.

It also comes on the heels of a mass incursion of Russian drones into Polish territory, which has triggered the activation of Article 4 and the launch of Eastern Sentry activity by NATO, and a string of smaller-scale violations of the Romanian, Lithuanian and Latvian airspaces. This has, however, drawn criticism of the Alliance's unpreparedness and unwillingness to confront Russia's behavior with anything more than posturing. The Kremlin's gangster is clearly throwing a gauntlet at the Alliance, seeking to undermine its credibility and expose its lack of capability and resolve, while expecting to get away with it scot-free. Every under-reaction, show of restraint, display of capability gaps and absence of painful costs have only encouraged Russia to up the ante. Most worryingly, every time Russians do so, the occupant of the White House mutters out something unconvincing, indecisive or plainly inadequate.

Low costs and high stakes

A low-cost campaign to expose NATO as allegedly a paper tiger — in terms of both military capability and political will — is only expected to grow in intensity. It presents the Alliance with a sharp dilemma of choosing between restraint to avoid a direct clash of arms — a major policy principle it has abided by for the entire duration of the full-scale war of Russia against Ukraine — and escalation necessary to establish clear red lines and inflict pain for violating them. So far, the Alliance has been trying to strike a middle ground: generating "proportional" and "appropriate" responses that may seem reasonable in the high-stakes environment but appear as weak and inviting further brazen escalation by Moscow.

To be sure, this is not the first serious incident in the Baltic airspace that has tested the Alliance. As early as 2005 — about a year after the Baltic states had become NATO members and the BAP had been launched to compensate for the lack of fighter interceptors in their inventory — a Russian Sukhoi Su-27 fighter jet ventured into the Lithuanian airspace from the Königsberg exclave. Allegedly having got lost, it spent around 40 minutes in Lithuania, but eventually ran out of fuel and crashed in a field near Kaunas, the country's second largest city. NATO's QRA interceptors took off only when the remains of the Russian jet had already been smoldering on the ground. In addition to many jokes about German pilots drinking beer instead of being on high alert, the incident did prompt a hard look at the standard response times of air policing, relaxed after the end of the Cold War, but only after prodding from the Baltics.

When is the last resort?

However, as the context is very much different and the stakes are so much higher, the latest episode should not lead to minor tweaks or symbolic posturing. Russia, as usual, is targeting kinks and seams in the Alliance's capabilities, procedures and cognitive or political landscape. First, the BAP is a peacetime mission: the use of lethal force is the last resort for the most threatening type of behavior by the intruders and after the exhaustion of all other means. The Russians know it and are raising the temperature to keep the proverbial frog boiling, while it continues to believe it is in a tense but still peacetime environment. At what point will it become entirely unacceptable? Or as a character from "Yes, Prime Minister" would ask, "When would you press the button?" Only when the Russian fighter jets buzz Toompea Hill, the seat of Estonia's parliament and its government?

Second, even the most brazen and arrogant violators would have to think twice when contending with a multilayered and well-integrated air and missile defense system before pushing the envelope. The absence of such a system in the Baltics is a well-known fact. It should thus incentivize their governments to expedite procurement of its key pillars and acquire their own means to defend their sovereign airspace — and do so as soon as possible. While ad interim demanding, full throttle, that the Allies fill the gaps — Article 4 consultations and the evolution of Eastern Sentry are very likely to lead in that direction — we should always remember that Article 3 of the Washington Treaty comes first not only in a numerical sense. Why does it always take a sudden or gradually unfolding crisis rather than foresight for NATO and individual Allies to act?

Third, even if the Allies make a major move to address that gap, and also agree to transition the BAP into an air defense mission — something that the Baltic states have long been insisting upon — the entire arrangement of how the airspace is protected will have to undergo a thorough revision. Satisfaction that the current response was a textbook example of properly executed protocols is misplaced when the textbook itself is no longer relevant.  Currently, the ultimate decision-making authority on the use of lethal force against the intruders — be it under the current BAP or if some rotational ground-based air defense assets are deployed — continues to rest with the national capitals providing those assets. In this most recent instance, it would have been Rome, had the latest incident spiraled into something much more serious. Had it been Budapest — if the chips had fallen that way under some other BAP rotation — do we really think Viktor Orban would take that call?

Danger is in the eye of the beholder

Moscow is fully aware that the penchant for escalation to halt its shenanigans varies significantly from capital to capital. What is a matter of tough action necessary to prevent the ongoing slide into a NATO-Russia war in the eyes of Tallinn or Warsaw often appears as a dangerous escalation leading to such a war in the eyes of some other Allies, including those deploying their capabilities to the Baltic region. Unless we agree on an entirely revised common playbook, which reflects more adequately the patterns in Russian strategic behavior and principles of deterrence, as well as includes a hefty dose of offensive action in such domains as cyber or electromagnetic spectrum (if needed) and delegate full authority to execute that playbook to those Allies who are most exposed, NATO will continue to bleed its credibility — until one day, it is left with no good options.

In the end, however, the best remedy for NATO's headache has been the same since February 2022: with each onset, we must up our financial and material support to Ukraine. So as to Moscow not only runs out of aircraft, pilots, fuel, money and production lines to make those contemptuous excursions — which are a minor inconvenience compared to what the brave Ukrainians must deal with daily — but also is coerced into stopping its savage war against Ukraine.

So, I'll just make myself another cup of tea and another online donation to get more arms flowing to Ukraine. A drone that kills an aggressor in the battlefields of Donbas is as good MIGraine therapy as the Patriots on the Vaindloo.

This article was first published by the International Center for Defense and Security.

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