Masala, a professor of security and defense policy at the Bundeswehr University in Munich and author of “If Russia Wins,” told Poland’s PAP news agency that the greatest risk to NATO could come after the war in Ukraine ends.
He said the Kremlin might test the alliance with a limited strike on a small or sparsely populated area, betting NATO would hesitate to invoke Article 5.
He sketched a scenario in which Russian forces seize Estonia’s border city of Narva under the pretext of protecting its Russian-speaking population, while Washington frames the move as a “limited act of aggression” to avoid escalation.
Such a provocation would aim to fracture NATO by exposing a lack of solidarity, he said.
“The smaller the country or the less significant the territory, the higher the risk the alliance fails to respond together,” Masala said, arguing Moscow’s objective would be the alliance’s unraveling and, ultimately, renewed dominance over the Baltics, Romania and Bulgaria. He said Poland is less likely to be targeted because of its size and economic strength.
Masala said Germany’s leadership would push to trigger Article 5 if Poland were attacked because a defeat for Warsaw would “significantly worsen” Germany’s security. But he cautioned that German public opinion could be divided, with a sizeable minority opposing sending the Bundeswehr to fight Russia.
“Politically we would help with what we have, even though we are not ready for this scenario,” he said.
He urged Europe to move fast to deter such risks. “We cannot count on U.S. protection any longer, and Poles should recognize this,” he said, adding that the current U.S. president’s statements do not reliably translate into action.
Europe should keep trying to retain American forces, he said, but must stop basing its security on them.
Masala called for a “coalition of the willing” at the core of a new European security architecture, including militarily strong non-EU states such as Norway, Turkey and the United Kingdom. “You cannot have it without Germany,” he said, arguing Berlin is the only European country with the money to invest at the needed scale, while acknowledging Polish concerns after Berlin’s past economic ties to Moscow.
Those times “are over,” he said, and Germany’s governing coalition agrees Russia is the top threat.
Deterrence, he said, is “tanks and soldiers, but even more psychology.” European societies must be inoculated against propaganda and prepared to accept the costs of defense.
“If our societies are not ready to bear the costs, we will fail,” he said.
Even a Ukraine peace deal may not halt Moscow’s ambitions, Masala warned. Russia could claim victory and press on to dominate what it sees as its neighborhood “not necessarily militarily, but politically and economically.”
(jh)
Source: PAP