If Europe shoots little green men — what then?

On October 5th, masked men drove a group of migrants from Belarus towards the Latvian border. After that attempt to cross the border was thwarted, armed saboteurs crossed into Latvia, stole cameras, damaged the electrical distribution panel and retreated to Belarus.

How many times have we been reassured that if the “little green men” appeared on NATO territory we would be ready to deal with them, no questions asked? But these saboteurs, at least from the reports we have seen, look very much like the little green men we said we would be ready for. And yet they were not dealt with. 

This is not even the first time such incidents have happened. A few months ago a group of men emerged from a migrant tunnel on the Lithuanian border and tried to abduct a border patrol guard. Luckily, the guard managed to free himself and return to safety, but the little green men escaped. 

If we examine acts of so-called “hybrid war” in general — we see that the response to them is quite consistent. Russians, or their affiliates, attempt to perform an act of terrorism, which stimulates mere expressions of concern from the countries targeted. And we are already in the fifth year of that. Surely the victims have had enough time to start questioning the system that generates this lack of response by the collective West?

Got a cigarette?

As a teenager I grew up in a district largely inhabited by those whose mother tongue was Russian, their kids would go to a different school, and would traditionally prey on those at my school. Every trip back home would require careful preparation — remembering which areas to avoid, knowing how much money to keep in one’s pocket with which to pay off the bullies. Putin reminds me of those bullies. He waits in dark alleys for a Westerner to pass by, asking first for a cigarette, later for a few coins, after that — a banknote, and so on. Every time the victim makes it back home safely they promise themselves that they will be brave, next time, definitely next time, they will stand firm and fight back. But the next day comes, and the sad story repeats itself. Another ask, another payout. Despite the previous day’s thoughts of defiance —  back in that dark alley the victim thinks twice. What if the thug carries a knife, or even a gun? What kind of fool would risk injury for a couple of euros?

Defending nearly every inch 

“We are not going to fight Russia over a burned garage”, a well-known US expert told an audience recently gathered in DC to discuss the ongoing Shadow War. This is a similar question to that which the border guards might have asked themselves. “Do we open fire if they only went a few meters over the border?”

And so, like a victim of bullying, we are waiting anxiously for tomorrow, telling ourselves that next time we will surely fight. But alas — tomorrow comes and we find ourselves again handing out whatever lunch money we have left in our pockets. 

It is worth remembering the shadow attack that the United States was subjected to in May 2021 — a major pipeline (the “Colonial”) carrying refined fuel from the Gulf Coast to the north was shut down. It was soon discovered that a group of Russian ransomware hackers called “DarkSide” was behind it. Knowing that such events never happen without the nod from the Russian government, President Biden swiftly and ominously announced that there would be a response, at a time and in a manner of his choosing. It has been said that the response was that some time later Moscow had to endure 24 hours in a blackout. Whether this is true or not, one thing was clear — there were no more attacks on US pipelines. And this increase in deterrence didn’t require conferences or lengthy deliberations. 

The issue is not our ability, it is only willingness which we lack. That expert at that DC conference was right — the US is not going to fight Russia over a burned garage. The bigger issue is that the rest of us don’t know when, or over what, or how, or even if, the US would choose to fight Russia. We still imagine that the trigger would be columns of tanks rolling over NATO’s borders, like they did when Russia tried to take Kyiv in February 2022. But as my Ukrainian friends are saying — the Russians are evil but not stupid. They will not repeat the tactics that failed in 2022. They will not give the US clear-cut justification for intervention. But at the same time the Russians are not shying away from causing loss of life or damage to critical infrastructure on NATO territory. And why are they so bold? Because the reaction to the events that took place so far has reassured them that even if the target of an “increasingly kinetic hybrid attack” is bigger than a garage — the damage caused will still not trigger a US response. 

The Second Phony War

That leaves Europeans and the “hybrid” victims of the “hybrid” attacks to figure out how to react in the absence of certainty of US backup. Europe remains unwilling to respond to the outbreak of shadow war because Europe never before held responsibility for escalation management on its own. Conventional and nuclear escalation was in the US domain. It was in the American interest to keep the Soviets deterred and contained. Now with the emergence of NATO 3.0 — Europe has to manage the conventional deterrence on its own, leaving only the nuclear part to the US. But what does this mean when the interests of Europe and the US are starting to diverge? Would the US have Europe’s back if the Europeans decided to escalate conventionally, and Russians again started threatening a nuclear response? Or would the US try to intervene and stop the European escalation? After all, there are known instances when the US has asked European countries not to go ahead with an Article 4 invocation. 

We can say that Europe’s self-inflicted paralysis has two mutually reinforcing causes — Europe’s inexperience in acting independently, together with the fear that independent actions come with no guarantee of US support in the event that the escalations increase to fully kinetic or even — heaven forbid — nuclear.

Furthermore, Eastern Flankers are facing this dark alley dilemma on a regional scale — we are telling ourselves and our friends that we will shoot if our borders are violated, but at the same time we are asking ourselves the question — do other Europeans, our neighbours, have our back? And if we cannot answer that question with confidence — we end up “monitoring the situation” and letting the “hybrid” attacks continue. 

The (increasingly desperate) hope in Europe is that the war in Ukraine will be resolved before the situation gets too dangerous for us. But in this lies one of the greatest weaknesses of European thinking: Without a plan to start building real deterrence, Europeans are left utterly reliant on Ukraine, hoping that the Ukrainians can figure out a plan to win, while also leaving themselves at the mercy of the Russians — hoping that it will be possible to continue pretending that Europe is not already sucked into a real war. 

The notion of hybrid war is reminiscent of the “Phony War” — the period after Britain and France officially declared war  when Poland was invaded, but were not inclined to actually fight it. Instead of attacking Nazi Germany, the two allies were dropping leaflets. I am pretty sure that our choices in the current “Hybrid War” leave us deserving of the same shame felt when we look back on that time. 

How much enough is enough?

So what does the future hold? There is no doubt that the Russians are going to escalate further. This is not merely a guess based on an analysis of the developments of recent years, we now have intelligence indicating Russia’s actual intentions. It is very possible that people will die, it is very likely that critical infrastructure will be damaged. And it seems almost certain that when all this happens it will still be called “hybrid”, because the underlying reasons for shrinking from calling it “war” are not about to change — American indifference and European trepidation appear to be stubbornly persistent. 

The solution is simple, because Europe is not a petrified, unarmed child in a dark alley, Europe has the muscle and the weapons to make Russia pay for transgressions and halt their repetition. We could choose to realise that any attack against Ukraine is an attack against Europe — and for better or worse — that Europeans need to defend their whole continent.  

The clear resolve to respond would force Putin to start recalibrating his actions. Bullies are bullies because they are risk-averse, they stop when stopped, and this fact has been repeatedly shown to be true in the case of Putin’s Russia. But the fifth year of surrendering our lunch money has shown that we still find this truth easier to say than to act on. 

An open question remains - will there come a breaking point at which, let’s say the Baltics, despite the unwillingness of our allies to offer assistance, would anyway start shooting the little green men that are breaching our borders? What would our allies do then?