Securitizing Russia is good—Putin invaded Ukraine—he is expansionist.

NATO’s adaptation effort will likely focus on the justification given by the Russian President Vladimir Putin on 21 February for extending military support to the Donbas breakaway republics, which preceded his invasion of Ukraine three days later. Putin in his speech lamented the allegedly artificial land drawings during and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, which, according to him, had bereaved Russia of its rightful lands from when it was a tsarist empire. Although Putin mostly referred to Ukraine, his speech gives reason enough to suspect that he may have territorial ambitions in other parts of the former Russian Empire, particularly in Estonia and Latvia, which both have sizeable Russian-speaking minorities. Russia’s pre-invasion demand that NATO withdraws its forces stationed in Eastern Europe after 1997 gives suspicion that it could also threaten Lithuania and Poland on the border with the Kaliningrad exclave. Russia poses a military threat that cannot be defended against with the current NATO forward presence in Poland and the Baltic States (multi-national battlegroups), which is meant as a tripwire for war with the alliance but not to deny Russian land grabs. Not only are the costs much higher of having to liberate than to defend territory, but there will also be doubt about NATO’s resolve to do so if Russia would threaten to use nuclear weapons after its successful seizure of territory. One should not deduct from Russia’s poor military performance in Ukraine that it would perform similarly in a conflict with NATO and that it would not be able to improve. To eliminate doubts about NATO’s ability to defend against a Russian attack without risking significant territorial loss, the alliance needs to balance out its current personnel and equipment understrength. The alliance needs to do so based on the traditional 1:3 ratio relative to the Russian forces in its Western Military District as well as in Belarus, whose participation cannot be excluded in the case of a NATO-Russia war. At its current force levels, it is urgent that NATO redress its understrength in tanks and artillery units. All this will likely require NATO to permanently station substantial forces in Poland and the Baltic States, thus in practice abandoning the NATO-Russia Founding Act, which was agreed in 1997 to prevent the re-emergence of post-Cold War tension but whose word Russia has now definitively broken. Some allies may wish not to formally abandon the Act to maintain hope in the revival of the post-Cold War spirit with a different leadership in Moscow. Given that Russia seems unlikely to conquer all of Ukraine, NATO may perhaps keep its recent battlegroup deployments in Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria, which share no land border with Russia, until there is more clarity about how the Ukraine war could end. NATO will also consider its naval presence in the Black Sea depending on how much coastal territory Russia will be able to take and hold in Ukraine. The likelihood of Finnish and Swedish NATO memberships poses additional questions about the alliance’s deterrence capability. The uncertainty about possible Russian reactions in the time between the two countries’ membership application submissions and ratification by 30 allies relies on bilateral security assurances from strong NATO allies, the United States or the United Kingdom. If NATO wishes to treat its exposed eastern allies equally, it must eliminate doubt about its willingness to defend Finland and Sweden in the eventuality of a Russian attack. Nowhere is the challenge bigger than on the 1300-long Finnish border. Finland has a strong army and strategic depth by comparison to the Baltic States, which may not require the alliance to station substantial permanent forces on its soil but perhaps a tripwire similar to what currently exists in the Baltic States and Poland. NATO will also have to decide whether to station ground and air forces in Sweden, for instance in Gotland as part of the enhancement of its overall presence in the Baltic Sea.