The Western Bloc’s European allies have only an infinitesimal fraction of the air defense capabilities its Eastern European members would need to stave off Russia if the proxy conflict in Ukraine expanded into a direct Russia-NATO confrontation.
That’s the concern of officials familiar with the alliance’s internal calculations, as cited by the Financial Times. Officials told the UK-based business newspaper that NATO presently has “less than 5 percent” of the capacity necessary to defend its so-called eastern flank with Russia in the event of a “full-scale attack.”
“[Air and missile defense capabilities are] a major part of the plan to defend Eastern Europe from invasion. And right now, we don’t have that,” an anonymous senior NATO diplomat told the outlet.
“[Air defense] is one of the biggest holes we have. We can’t deny it,” a second NATO diplomat said.
One of the diplomats indicated that NATO’s latest defense plans call for measures to “significantly increase” air and missile defense systems’ quantity and readiness, confirming that sending existing equipment to Ukraine had “reduced” stockpiles in Europe itself.
The stunning admission echoes revelations in explosive testimony in the US Senate earlier this month that North America is essentially defenseless not only against Russian hypersonic missiles, but even to a conventional missile and drone attack like the one Iran carried out against Israel in mid-April in retaliation to Tel Aviv’s deadly April 1 attack on the Iranian Embassy compound in Damascus, Syria.
“But that’s your mission – your mission is missile defense,” a frustrated Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces chairman Angus King told top Pentagon officials trying to explain why the tens of billions of dollars the DoD gets every year has not translated into a working air and missile defense system. “I’ll look forward to some further response because right now, we don’t have much missile defense. Whether it’s to hypersonics, to drones, I’d like you guys to go back and really rethink what is your mission. If you mission is missile defense, we need to reorient what it is you do,” King said.
The revelations also beg the question as to why the alliance keeps escalating tensions with Moscow by threatening to untie Ukraine’s hands to strike targets deep inside Russia using Western long-range missiles.
The apparently shambolic state of NATO air defenses is also somewhat surprising when considering that the alliance spent $1.3 trillion – the equivalent of over 55 percent of global defense spending, in 2023 – more than 13 times what Russia did over the same period.
The reporting appears to corroborate statements made by officials and media from European countries including Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom over the past two years that they would have enough ammunition for just 24-48 hours of fighting if their nations were ever to come under direct, full-scale attack.