If Russia again encroaches in NATO-member airspace, officials say they now have set expectations about how that nation will respond—and the list includes options from tracking the Russian aircraft to shooting them down.
Over the past week, NATO leaders have been working to bring more “coherence [and] synchronization across all of the air policing activities,” one senior military official told Defense One Saturday at the NATO military committee meeting here. However, NATO members still have to work through issues around specific authorities and rules of engagement, the official said. “Some countries have some legal limits. Some countries have some administrative limits that they must get political approval for. But it’s all being smoothed out.”
Escalating Russian incursions have led to a variety of actions just this month, from shootdowns of Russian drones over Poland on September 10 to a NATO-led escort of fighter jets out of Estonia a little more than a week later. And top officials of NATO countries have promised swift responses. Poland, for instance, has said it will shoot down drones with or without NATO permission.
Adm. Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, chair of the NATO military committee, said the rules of engagement for how NATO members respond vary tremendously by the threat level of each incident, such as whether the drones or jets are known to be armed. The determination may come down to the pilot or reach all the way up to the NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe. Rules of engagement are a “tool that can evolve as far as the threat is changing,” he said.
Hellbound and Down 