cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/11402708
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The problem is that each attack is treated as a separate incident against a separate country. The evidence is investigated nationally, the condemnation is issued nationally and any response is left to the country attacked. The campaign against Europe is broken into isolated cases, making a collective response politically much harder.
And it is a collective response that is the best way to respond to these attacks and force Russia into some kind of restraint. Europe should treat every confidently attributed Russian operation as part of an attack on European security, then select a collective and proportionate response from an agreed ladder of measures.
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The term “hybrid” once described a useful fact. Russia mixes sabotage, cyberattacks, disinformation, political interference and deniable kinetic attacks. Sure, the mix is hybrid but the political effect of the label has changed.
It makes acts of violence sound ambiguous, manageable and somehow less real. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys put it plainly: “Russia’s attacks against us are no longer hybrid. They are very kinetic.”
Radosław Sikorski, the Polish foreign minister, spoke in a similar vein, saying on Thursday that “Russia’s hybrid war against Europe has already taken on a ‘kinetic’ dimension” and that these are “on the border between hybrid warfare and outright aggression."
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Donald Tusk has warned that Russia could strike NATO territory and then present the incident as “accidental”. The official story, he said, would be that there was no reason to consider a NATO response.
That's the point. Russia wants Article 5 to appear, in Tusk’s words, “more theoretical than practical”. The immediate target may be a train, factory, airport or undersea cable but the strategic target is the credibility of collective defense. The Kremlin also wants to break European unity and wear down support for Ukraine.
NATO already accepts that a hybrid operation could, in some circumstances, trigger Article 5. The obstacle is political. Allies examine each incident separately, so almost every operation appears too small to justify a collective response.
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Europe must reverse that calculation. An attack intended to divide European countries should bring them closer together. An operation designed to weaken Ukraine support should automatically produce more weapons, funding or air defense for Ukraine. Every Russian attempt to frighten one country should trigger a visible response from all.
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