Europe’s half-measures only invite Russian escalation

Over the last two weeks, Russian President Vladimir Putin tested NATO — and the alliance failed. The sequence of incidents tells the story.

First Moscow sent swarms of drones that forced NATO jets to scramble over Poland and Romania. Romania followed the drones instead of firing missiles costing hundreds of thousands of dollars each, of which a Russian Geran drone is worth only a fraction. The imbalance is obvious. Then three Russian MiG-31 fighters penetrated Estonian airspace over the Gulf of Finland for 12 minutes on Sept. 19.

These were deliberate moves, not isolated accidents. The Institute for the Study of War noted that “Russia is likely attempting to gauge both Poland’s and NATO’s capabilities and reactions in the hopes of applying lessons learned to future conflict scenarios wit