Could Russian ‘hybrid warfare’ trigger NATO retaliation?
Al JazeeraGerman intelligence chief Bruno Kahl said this week that Russia’s extensive use of “hybrid” warfare measures “increases the risk that NATO will eventually consider invoking its Article 5 mutual defence clause”, under which an attack against one NATO member is considered an attack against them all. “Russia is conducting an intensifying campaign of hybrid attacks across our allied territories, interfering directly in our democracies, sabotaging industry and committing violence,” NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said on November 4. The ramping-up of these sorts of tactics “would have been unlikely if Russia was deterred by any countermeasures even as prosaic and basic as sanctions”, he added Furthermore, an analysis published on Tuesday by IISS said: “The West lacks a strategy and the ability to act quickly in response to Russian hybrid warfare.” “As long as NATO and European member states disagree on how to respond more assertively to the Kremlin’s hybrid warfare, Europe will remain vulnerable,” it added. According to Giles, while sanctions were imposed in response to Russia’s war on Ukraine, they “should have been placed earlier” in response to hybrid warfare tactics.
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