The editor says:¡°This is the closest moment to a public conflict since World War II.¡± Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk described the two-week fermentation of drone incidents. Since September 9, Poland, Romania and Estonia, three Eastern European NATO member states have previously declared that ¡°their airspace has been violated by Russian drones or military aircraft.¡± In this regard, the Russian side has clearly denied the launch of so-called ¡°attacks.¡± After the incident, NATO Article 4 was triggered, the military operation called ¡°Eastern Guards¡± opened on September 12 and currently has 10 countries involved. There are Russian experts analyzing that ¡°Eastern Guards¡± operations in the future could turn into NATO¡¯s regular air and sea patrol programs, the risks of which are not underestimated.

¡°How long can such consumption last?¡±

According to several Western media reports, the drone incident was one of the most dangerous confrontations between NATO countries and Russia on territorial security issues since the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine.On September 9, Poland said it shot down a Russian drone that violated its airspace, and foreign media said that "this marks the first time NATO members have opened fire on Russia since the outbreak of the conflict in Russia in February 2022".

According to reporters from the Global Times in Poland, the drone wave has caused deep unrest in Polish society.Since the end of the Cold War, Poland has regarded NATO and the United States as a security barrier.After the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Poland has become the frontline country to receive arms aid and resettle refugees.Therefore, many Poles are concerned that this incident means that the shadow of war is approaching their country.

On September 20, Polish Prime Minister Tusk announced on social platforms that the number of NATO member states participating in the "Eastern Sentinel" operation has increased to 10 countries, including France, the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, the Czech Republic, Portugal and Italy. According to NATO Secretary General Rutte, Operation "Eastern Sentinel" is to further strengthen NATO's defense capabilities, flexibility and strength on the eastern flank of the alliance on the basis of NATO's existing eight forward multinational battle groups.

On September 19, NATO updated its article ¡°NATO¡¯s military presence in the eastern part of the alliance¡±, which recalls how NATO has seen Russia over the past eight years as ¡°the most important and immediate threat to the security of its allies and to the peace and stability of the Europe-Atlantic region¡± and steadily strengthened its military deployment on the eastern edge of the alliance. Since 2017, NATO has established four combat groups in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, respectively, led by the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany and the United States. Since the outbreak of the conflict in Russia-Ukraine, NATO has strengthened its existing combat groups and has established four additional combat groups in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia, bringing the total number of combat groups to eight, and the number of ground troops has

On this basis, Russia Today TV quoted the analysis of Russian military experts as saying that although the "Eastern Sentinel" operation is currently more of a "performance nature", NATO's future military plans should not be underestimated. Russia's TASS news agency quoted Alexander Stepanov, a military expert at the Institute of National Security and Law, as warning that this form of operation of "Eastern Sentinel" may be transformed into a permanent NATO air and maritime patrol project in the future, which means that NATO may station air forces in eastern Poland.

However, some analysts believe that the long-term operation of the "Eastern Sentinel" program is costly. Alexei Mukhin, director of the Russian Political Information Center, analyzed that the "Eastern Sentinel" operation not only involves the transfer of aircraft to European countries close to the Russian border, but also involves the entry of troops from other NATO member states into NATO military facilities in Poland. This is a very expensive plan. Mukhin believes that this is not good news for Ukraine, because the huge amount of money will be mainly used for NATO's own protracted operations and will not flow into Ukraine.

In addition, the French newspaper The World that the drone incident exposed NATO¡¯s major weaknesses in counteracting drones, ¡°NATO has used large amounts of air force to intercept Russian drones, including fighters, early warning aircraft and tankers, which just highlights the disparity between its capabilities and the risks it faces.¡± One aviation expert asked, ¡°One night, NATO light missiles cost millions of euros to shoot down drones worth just 100,000 euros.

How to deal with unconventional military threats remains ambiguous.

Within NATO, the drone incident has raised a question again: What tools do alliance members have at hand to deal with such attacks? Countries on the eastern flank of the alliance advocate the establishment of a "drone wall" to make up for low-altitude gaps with distributed, low-cost, and scalable sensing and interception systems. Some experts have previously proposed extending NATO's "air shield" over Ukraine. However, Ukrainian President Zelensky said bluntly: "We have been discussing it for a long time, but (the proposal) has never really landed."

This crisis has also caused people to re-examine NATO's institutional design. According to the North Atlantic Treaty, Article 4 allows member states to request consultations when they feel that their security is threatened, which is a political and diplomatic mechanism; Clause 5 is NATO's most binding collective defense clause: when a member state suffers an "armed attack" in Europe or North America, it will be regarded as an attack against all members, and other countries must take assistance actions, including the use of force. Historically, the fourth clause has been triggered eight times, the most recent of which was launched at the request of Poland on the 10th of this month. In contrast, Article 5 has only been activated once since 1949, that is, after the "9.11" terrorist attacks in 2001. This gap shows that there is a huge threshold between Article 4 and Article 5.

German political scientist and military expert Carlo Masala argued that NATO would only invoke Article 5 in the event of a systematic attack. But under international law, drone invasion is not an ¡°armed attack¡± and Article 5 would not take effect. He said that it would only take effect in the event of a systematic and repeated attack, such as dozens of enemy drones entering NATO¡¯s airspace every night.

The British "Guardian" analyzed that Poland's drone invasion was a "gray area conflict"-it has not yet reached the threshold of Article 5, but it is enough to test NATO's political cohesion and defense preparedness, and this incident reveals NATO's dilemma in the face of non-traditional military threats. According to the analysis of the Financial Times, when NATO faces "gray area" threats such as drones and cyber attacks, how to define the scope of "armed attacks" is still vague, which may lead to a gap between expectations and actual actions among allies. Former Lithuanian Foreign Minister Landsbergis told the French newspaper Le Monde that it is necessary for NATO to draw a clear "red line"-once it crosses the line, it will no longer be regarded as an "accident", but will be characterized as "aggression" and authorized direct shooting down to restore the credibility of deterrence; If it fails to act, the alliance will bear more accidents and risks.

A test for NATO cohesion?

In view of some NATO member states, the drone invasion is not only objectively a test for NATO¡¯s defence capabilities, but also a test for NATO¡¯s cohesion. The French FIGARO newspaper explains that the EU¡¯s financial and political crisis, the UK¡¯s conflict between immigration and military spending and the U.S. political turmoil constitute the background conditions for Russia¡¯s attempt at NATO. France has long been in financial and political trouble, the German Prime Minister Murts and his Social Democratic Party partners are still clashing, Germany¡¯s party has chosen to openly challenge the Berlin line; as another pillar in support of Ukraine, the British government is under public pressure on the issue of immigration, while fiscal space is limited, national defence spending is difficult to fulfill; and the United States under Trump¡¯s rule is

And in the opinion of some Russian public opinion, the essence of the incident was the incitement by the West to conflict between Russia and Poland. Russian "military affairs" network that in the context of the "progressive collapse" of the Ukrainian front, Europe was trying to establish a new group in Poland. But if Poland did not get the support of the United States or other European countries, it would awake to realize that it did not want to be a "second Ukraine". Today Russian TV channel analyzed that "Eastern Guards" operations were European countries in "creating an atmosphere of fear", ultimately aimed at weakening European citizens' dissatisfaction with the growth of national defense spending.

After the drone incident, the U.S. attitude was concerned. U.S. Permanent Representative at NATO Whitaker clearly reiterated that he would defend "every inch of NATO territory", but U.S. President Trump suggested on social platforms that the incident "may be a misunderstanding" was rejected by Europe. Several commentators in the Polish TV channel Polsat News show mentioned that the ambiguous statements of the U.S. President "may be interpreted in Moscow as a division of NATO", a signal very dangerous. German Bavarian broadcasterly criticized Trump's response "weakly" and said that "American credibility" could restore doubts. The German Business Journal also criticized Trump's ambiguity, saying he debilitated the promise of Article 5, exacerbating people

Reuters on September 20 that the Trump administration experienced a tense ¡°diplomatic summer¡±, including June supporting Israel¡¯s attacks on Iran¡¯s nuclear facilities, July threatening to increase sanctions on Russia over the ceasefire negotiations with Russia, August meeting with Putin in Alaska, and this fall, Trump returned to the previous state of caution over major conflicts. At the end of August, Pentagon officials met with several European diplomats and delivered a message that the US would cut some of its security assistance to Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Pentagon officials said Europe needed to reduce its reliance on the United States, and under Trump¡¯s leadership, the US military would shift its attention to other priorities, especially domestic affairs.

The United States has partially suspended its arms sales to European countries, including the "Patriot" air defense system repeatedly mentioned in the "Eastern Guards" operation, due to the need to prioritize its arms inventory, according to the Atlantic Month website. The report, citing informed people, said that the Pentagon "suddenly" lost interest in the sale of "Patriot" air defense systems to Denmark after several weeks of promoting related procurement, because the United States has confirmed a shortage of some weapons equipment, and therefore suspended acceptance of parts of orders from European countries.

(Global Times Special Representative in Poland, France, Wuliamine Shankeyeon, Global Times Special Representative in Germany, Rain Mountain, Global Times Special Representative Liu Yuanping)