Brent Scowcroft Center Nonresident Senior Fellow Matthew Kroenig writes for Survival, debating his critics over NATO strategy toward Russia:
In the most recent issue of this journal, Matthew Kroenig argued that ‘Russia’s annexation of Crimea, invasion of Donbas, and continued threats to Ukraine and other European countries not only menace the stability of the post-Cold War order in Europe, but also pose a fundamental challenge to the assumptions about the strategic environment that have undergirded the NATO alliance for the past quarter of a century’ (‘Facing Reality: Getting NATO Ready for a New Cold War’, Survival, vol. 57, no. 1, February–March 2015, p. 49).The article posed a troubling question: ‘If Russia were to rerun its playbook of hybrid warfare from Ukraine against a NATO member, how would the West respond?’ (p. 50). Kroenig’s answer was that Western strategy, as it currently stands, is inadequate. He argued that Russia could combine asymmetric tactics with the threat of early nuclear use, to deter NATO from defending a member of the Alliance under hybrid-warfare attack.
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