NATO doubles down on its containment-plus Russia policy

At this week’s summit in Washington, NATO will celebrate 75 years of the most effective defensive alliance in modern history. Alliance leaders seem likely to recommit to what amounts to a “containment-plus” policy toward Russia. 

A containment-plus policy seeks to stop or limit some of Russia’s harmful activities, such as evading oil sanctions and preventing Russian sabotage in Europe, and to roll back others, such as its occupation of parts of Ukraine. 

Russia’s attempt to subjugate Ukraine is a direct threat to the security of Europe, and NATO members are confronting it. NATO and its members seek not just to hold aggression in check, but to roll back Moscow’s conquests in Ukraine and its expanding hybrid war in Europe.

This is the right policy, so long as Russia is ruled by a regime as aggressive and oppressive as President Vladimir Putin’s. As our colleague former U.S. ambassador to NATO Alexander Vershbow wrote last year, “Russia needs to understand that there can be no normalization of relations until it once again upholds the fundamental principles laid down in the 1975 Helsinki Final Act, the 1990 Paris Charter and the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act.”

Legendary career diplomat George Kennan, the intellectual father of post-World War II containment policy, wrote in 1947 that “the main element of any U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.” 

Sadly, this approach is needed again today to deal with Putin’s imperial and revanchist dreams. NATO and its members need again to bear the burden of what President John Kennedy called the “long, twilight struggle.” More is required now to help Ukraine roll back Russia’s military assault on its independence and territorial integrity.

Consider four decades ago, when the USSR invaded Afghanistan, threatened militarily to suppress a popular movement for more freedoms in Poland and secretly deployed a new intermediate-range missile against Europe and Japan. 

The Carter and Reagan administrations responded forcefully. The U.S. aided the Afghan resistance and supported the Solidarity free trade union in Poland. And NATO deployed missiles to counter Soviet SS-20s. These steps were more akin to a “roll back” than to trying to stem further aggression.

Today’s threats bear similarities, and so do the policies of NATO and its members. In response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. and its allies have steadily expanded the quantity and quality of military aid. Allies are acting despite persistent Russian warnings of adverse consequences, even irresponsible nuclear threats. 

In a June TIME interview, President Biden said “peace” meant making sure Russia never occupied Ukraine. In this spirit, Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks of “taking the fight as necessary to Russia.” 

Most recently, the U.S. has allowed Ukraine to fire U.S.-produced tactical missiles across the border into Russia at forces that are attacking or about to attack Ukraine. Yet, this still leaves a sanctuary beyond which Ukrainians are eager to strike.

In another containment-plus policy, the allies are making substantial use of sanctions. Russia’s economic output is over 5 percent smaller than foreseen before the full-scale war began. Underinvestment, slow productivity growth and labor shortages drag down the economy. The U.S. and the EU are rolling out new sanctions.

Russia is responding. Putin has put the country on a war footing; some one-third of Russia’s budget now goes to defense. Russia is having some success in sanctions evasion. A recent Kremlin reshuffle seems aimed at developing a more efficient military sector. 

Russia is engaging in stepped-up subterfuge against allies in Europe. Outgoing NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warns of a surge in hostile hybrid threats, including disinformation, sabotage, arson and cyberattacks. 

The Washington Post’s David Ignatius has written that the U.S. is working with allies to counter this shadowy surge. It is sharing more intelligence to prevent sabotage of supplies destined for Ukraine and countering disinformation through proactive and open public communications, to get ahead of its spread.

The summit might also consider how to respond to Russia’s heightened nuclear threats, movement of nuclear weapons into Belarus and secret deployment of intermediate-range missiles. Putin evidently thinks he can scare Ukraine and its Western supporters, but they cooperate and raise the ante against Russian aggression.

Finally, NATO and its members will have to deal with Putin’s cultivation of ties with Chinese Premier Xi Jinping and Russia’s growing dependence on Iran and North Korea. Of special concern are technologies and weapons that can help Russia’s war effort.

The summit will have a complex Russian agenda. The alliance is challenged to come up with new approaches to deal with Moscow’s rogue behavior and an international order that is becoming more complex and less stable.

John Tefft is a distinguished chair in diplomacy and security at RAND and former U.S. ambassador to Russia, Ukraine, Georgia and Lithuania. William Courtney is an adjunct senior fellow at RAND and a former U.S. ambassador to Kazakhstan and Georgia, and to a U.S.-Soviet nuclear testing commission.