At a NATO summit in July, the United States and Germany agreed to what the U.S. calls an “intermittent missile deployment” starting in 2026.
This includes Tomahawk cruise missiles, SM-6 ballistic missiles, and a new generation of hypersonic systems currently under development. A key condition of the agreement is that none of these missiles will be equipped with nuclear warheads.
Russia responded by condemning the plan and suggesting it would consider placing nuclear warheads within range of Western Europe.
The Financial Times, which has seen classified Russian military documents, has also revealed that the Russian navy is training targets in Europe “as far away as the west coast of France and Barrow-in-Furness in the UK”.
This indicates that military tensions were building even before the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Washington announced the agreement with Germany on July 10, saying: “The use of these advanced capabilities demonstrates U.S. commitment to NATO and its contribution to Europe's integrated deterrent.”
This sends a strong message to both Russia and its NATO allies that NATO is significantly strengthening its already formidable conventional forces to counter what it sees as growing Russian militarism.
According to current NATO military doctrine, Russia's defense strategy relies on launching massive ballistic and cruise missile attacks to keep NATO forces from coming within range of Russian forces. This concept, known as anti-access/area denial (A2/AD), dates back to the early Cold War, but the thinking has been refined over the years.
Currently, NATO’s arsenal of air- and sea-launched missiles is incapable of penetrating Russian A2/AD defenses because the longest-range missile NATO has deployed in Europe is the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), which is already in use in Ukraine. Its maximum range is 300 kilometers, which would make it ineffective in an all-out war with Russia.
NATO military strategists therefore agree that Europe needs to be outfitted with aggressive long-range strike systems. NATO has a range of weapons with ranges of up to 3,000 km.
These can be used for both defensive and offensive purposes to strike high-value targets deep inside Russia. Hypersonic missiles currently under development are capable of firing warheads at speeds five times faster than the speed of sound.
And while the majority of NATO's weapons systems are configured to carry conventional warheads, the BGM-109A Tomahawk land attack missile has been fitted with a nuclear warhead in the past, and other missiles could certainly be similarly modified.
Currently, NATO does not have ground-based missile systems in Europe that would be sufficient to deter Russian aggression against NATO member states in Europe, and since Russian A2/AD systems are sufficient to prevent NATO from getting within striking range, NATO plans to field weapons systems with longer attack ranges.
The idea is that strengthening NATO's capabilities to counter aggressive Russian moves will itself act as a deterrent.
Intensifying arms race
Predictably, Vladimir Putin responded by recalling a new “missile crisis.” He warned that if the U.S. were to deploy missiles in Germany that could strike Russian targets in “about 10 minutes,” Russia would do the same. But he went further, declaring that Russia “must take similar steps in its deployment” because NATO weapons “may in the future be equipped with nuclear warheads.”
The INF Treaty, signed in 1987 between then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, bans nuclear and conventional missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometers. U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the treaty in 2019, citing evidence of Russian non-compliance. Putin has denied that Russia has deployed weapons in violation of the treaty but has said Russia is no longer bound by its treaty obligations.
This has raised new fears in Europe of an arms race between a newly aggressive Russia and an increasingly fragmented Western alliance. There is now a significant disparity in intermediate-range weapons, with Russia having a significant advantage.
And despite strong opposition from some quarters (notably in Germany, where Rolf Mützenich, leader of the ruling Social Democrats, said the decision posed a serious risk of arms expansion), Russia's aggression has made European governments aware of the imbalance in strategic offensive capabilities in Europe.
The initial focus was on strengthening defense capabilities. The European Skyshield Initiative (ESSI) was proposed by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in 2022 and signed by ten NATO allies in October 2023.
ESSI is a joint initiative to procure an integrated air defense system that can operate in tandem. The initiative has since been expanded to 21 countries, including traditionally neutral Switzerland.
But at the NATO summit in July, France, Germany, Italy and Poland went further, signing the European Long-Range Strike Approach (ELSA), which is intended to enable the development, production and supply of a European long-range strike capability that complements the U.S.-German agreement.
Given the general increase in defense budgets among NATO member states, the NATO summit in July demonstrated how Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine and shift to a war economy has completely shifted NATO’s focus.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a leading US think tank, says the alliance's motto needs to be changed: “Animus in consulendo liber” (free spirit in debate) in Latin, but CSIS says a better phrase would be “Si vis pacem, para bellum” (if you desire peace, prepare for war).
There is now broad agreement that NATO needs to commit troops to deter war, and the hope is that this will provide the basis for more constructive engagement with Russia in the future.
Christophe Bruce is Professor of International Relations and Security at the University of Bradford.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
