Edward Luttwak
“Paper tiger”. That is how Donald Trump described Russia during his UN speech on Tuesday, but judging by their performance, that put-down could equally be applied to most of America’s own allies. That became clear enough earlier this month, when 21 Russian drones flew into Polish airspace, triggering a Nato air-intrusion alert, the closure of Polish airports, the scrambling of fighters to intercept them — and a hard look at combat readiness right across the alliance.
Dutch F-35 fighters bagged four of the drones, and the others went down by themselves: they were not bombardment drones, just plastic decoys without explosive warheads. Debris aside, in fact, the only damage was the destruction of a house near Lublin, caused not by the Russians, but by a sophisticated $1.9 million US air-to-air missile. It had been launched by a Polish F-16 fighter at a drone — and missed.
Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, was quick to use the Russian incursion to call for more defence spending, urging Nato members to spend 5% of their GDPs on defence. This week’s latest apparent drone incursion, this time over Denmark, has raised the pressure even further: especially now that Scott Bessent, the US Secretary of the Treasury, is warning that Trump has no plans to send more troops to help out his European allies.
No comments:
Post a Comment