Dealing with NATO’s Security Challenges—Where the East Merges with the South

As the challenges will be coming mainly from areas to the south of the NATO zone, the southern Allies will most probably be their first victims. That will happen in circumstances of NATO’s diminished ability to make friends to solve its problems, brought about by Moscow’s current divisive tactics. One could doubt whether those politicians among NATO’s southern allies, currently opposing the idea that Putin should be deterred, will feel more secure in a world based on the Putinesque principle of coercive actions instead of compromise-seeking and negotiations as the cornerstone of international relations. It will be too late by then to quarrel about whether or not it was necessary to allocate resources to reinforce NATO’s eastern flank and who bears the greater responsibility for that change in the way in which world works. It seems much wiser to prevent that change from happening, and concerted efforts to deter Moscow and prove its tactics unsuccessful can achieve this. That is how deterrence of threats existing on the eastern flank of NATO contributes to the security of the Alliance’s southern members.