After Polish and Dutch fighter jets shot down over — the first time ever that “NATO aircraft have engaged potential threats in allied airspace,” as the alliance’s military headquarters ambiguously notes — there was broad condemnation of the Kremlin and from leaders.
“Unacceptable,” fumed Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof, whose F-35s had just downed some of the intruders.
“Intolerable,” insisted French President Emmanuel Macron.
“Reckless,” added German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
But, over 24 hours later, there is no such response from US President Donald Trump.
Where’s Washington?
While his ambassador to , Matthew Whitaker, wrote on X that the United States stands with its allies against “airspace violations and will defend every inch of NATO territory,” Trump’s only public comment on the incident is a cryptic Truth Social post: “What’s with Russia violating Poland’s airspace with drones? Here we go!”
The assassination just hours later of one of Trump’s political allies, Charlie Kirk, will understandably preoccupy the president now, but the lack of any criticism of Moscow or positive message for Poland has left allies wondering whether any is forthcoming.
Among those most eagerly awaiting is surely Polish President Karel Nawrocki, who said he’d spoken by phone with Trump about the attack (and after the social media post). “Today’s talks confirmed allied unity,” Nawrocki wrote on X. But there has been nothing more from Trump.
Drones’ real target: Allied division
Which actually says a lot, concludes Jan Techau, Europe editor for the Eurasia Group. “This silence is what tells the Europeans the chilling story that they kind of knew before: that the US is no longer naturally and unconditionally there,” he told DW. “It feeds into the existing doubts about the US commitment to Article 5,” NATO’s fundamental commitment to collectively defend any ally that comes under attack.
“This is precisely what Putin had in mind when he ordered the drone incursion into Poland,” Techau said: to “feed those doubts, increase fear levels, driving the wedge deeper between the US and Europe.” Techau doubts that almost 20 unmanned aerial vehicles could have accidentally strayed into Polish airspace.
Michał Kobosko, a Polish member of the European Parliament, said the incursion was a probe by the Kremlin, not just of Europe but of the US response, as well. “Day by day, they are testing our ability to defend ourselves,” he told DW at the European Parliament session in Strasbourg. “So this is like a red alert sent to all of us in Europe, not only the eastern flank, not only Poland, Baltic States, Romania or Finland: The whole of Europe is under direct attack. And we must face it, we must understand it, and we must adapt by doing much more to prepare us to be able to defend ourselves, with or without Americans.”
Poland very much hopes that will be “with Americans.” Though US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has described the country as a “model ally,” with the biggest defense budget in NATO as a percentage of GDP, “there’s a mix of frustration and a bit of nervousness” in Poland about what to expect, said Philip Bednarczyk, director of the Warsaw Office of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. He said Poland’s government had invested in its own defense and in its role in NATO “very much as an ally, hoping and believing that the alliance will have their backs. But they’re still nervous about that, and they need to hear it fairly regularly.”
What’s next for NATO?
It’s not as if the threat from the sky comes as a surprise. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said in early June that the alliance needs a “quantum leap” of 400% more investment in air and missile defense. “We see in Ukraine how Russia delivers terror from above, so we will strengthen the shield that protects our skies,” he said in a speech at the Chatham House think tank in London.
Despite the success of the Polish F-16s and Dutch F-35s in downing the handful of drones this time, it’s not the most efficient nor cost-effective way to handle that particular threat. “F-35s can’t shoot down a swarm of these drones,” Bednarczyk said, “so it’s going to be a different sort of web of defenses that Poland has to build up.”
European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen picked up a longtime request from in her State of the Union speech on Wednesday, a theme that would have been drafted in even before the drones entered Poland’s airspace. “We must heed the call of our Baltic friends and build a drone wall,” she said, also announcing a €6 billion ($7 billion) joint project with Ukraine for the production of drones.
And, though NATO itself doesn’t make such purchases, Foreign Policy columnist Christian Caryl told DW that it is absolutely imperative for allies to “react decisively” to the incursion. “The first thing they can do is demonstratively dispatch a large shipment of long-range strike weapons to Ukraine, including Taurus and Storm Shadow cruise missiles,” Caryl said. “The US should approve long-range attacks [for Ukraine] with its ATACMS. There’s a lot more that NATO and the West can do in the medium to long term — sanctions, asset seizures, beefing up air defense and general readiness and so on. But that would be a good start.”
Meanwhile, NATO’s supreme allied commander Europe, Alexus Grynkewich, reassured eastern members that they wouldn’t need to worry even if Moscow were to scale up this type of threat to what could amount to an armed attack. “There’s absolutely more to be done. There are enhancements to weaponry that allow us to get to a lower cost per engagement that nations have been experimenting with,” Grynkewich said Thursday on a visit to . But, he underscored, “when you’re an operational commander and you have a capability, and there’s an attack or an incursion into your airspace, the cost of the weapon doesn’t matter at that moment in time: You’re going to use it to defend our population.”
DW Brussels correspondent Jack Parrock contributed to this report from Strasbourg.
Edited by: M Gagnon
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