NATO Is Getting Played—And the Bill Is Due

Iselin Group - Where Strategy Meets Results

In one week, Poland hauled NATO into Article 4 consultations over a swarm of Russian military drones, and three MiG-31s spent roughly twelve minutes inside Estonian airspace before being forced out by Italian F-35s. European ministers are now weighing a “drone wall” for the EU’s eastern flank. This is happening while Russia pushes military outlays to Cold War-era levels: draft budgets put national defence at 6.3% of GDP, with independent estimates of total military spending near 7.2%. The paradox is the tell.

The Kremlin pays for theatrics because the theatrics work.

If allied pilots ever take the shot inside NATO airspace, it must meet self-defence tests—imminence, necessity, proportionality—and we should publish those thresholds now. When they’re met, we act; when they aren’t, we intercept and compel.

The point here is plain. Our answer is rules, not rage: publish the shoot criteria, prove the breach, and make the cost automatic. These are psychological operations with policy effects. They test procedures, map seams, and make harassment feel normal. The payoff is prestige for Vladimir Putin at home and a durable grey zone around NATO where self-deterrence does most of his work.

The theatre of managed danger

Poland’s Article 4 move after the drone incursion wasn’t just a complaint about airspace. It forced a decision chain: scramble aircraft, close airspace, consult allies, debate thresholds. Moscow then denied intent. The alliance still paid in time, attention, and readiness.

Estonia’s case followed the same script: no flight plan, transponders off, non-responsive to air traffic control, a brief but undeniable breach near Vaindloo Island. NATO fighters intercepted; Russia rejected the accusation. For the Kremlin, each incident is a rehearsal and a probe—watch the response time, note the call signs, log which radars light up, and learn what rules of engagement actually trigger. Our own ROE should be just as clear: intercept, hail, escort, compel; fire only when the published thresholds—imminence, necessity, proportionality—are met.

Under the Baltic, cable and pipeline damage has become a seasonal hazard. Some incidents are bad seamanship. Others look like hybrid sabotage. Treat each incident as a lawfare opportunity: fast attribution timelines, evidence releases, and pre-voted penalties on named operators.

The message is constant: your critical links are fragile. Budget for outage. Investigate for months. Argue about attribution. Normalise the abnormal.

The operating system behind the stunts

You don’t need a clinical label to read the incentives. Political-psychology research shows a repeatable cluster that thrives in zero-sum contests: Machiavellian manipulation, psychopathic boldness and meanness, and narcissistic sensitivity to slights. The common denominator is antagonistic self-interest—the willingness to advance one’s goals despite harm to others, wrapped in just-so stories that justify the harm. Add a personal tale of status loss and a national story of “they refuse us our due,” and you get a leader who prefers coercive theatre to transparent bargaining.

Machiavellianism aligns with abusive supervision and divide-and-rule habits: keep rivals guessing, reward obedience, punish “disloyalty.”
The triarchic model of psychopathy explains the risk appetite: boldness sustains brinkmanship; meanness supports exemplary punishment; disinhibition green-lights norm-breaking when it pays.
Narcissism—grandiose and vulnerable—predicts aggression under provocation and a hair-trigger response to insults.
Collective narcissism scales grievance from the self to the nation, turning status restoration into policy.

Grey-zone coercion is the natural habitat for that cocktail. It maximises control, minimises cost, and keeps the spotlight on the strongman.

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What the pokes buy him

Domestic rank. In a patronal system, spectacle is a governance tool. A leader who stages “successful” standoffs looks indispensable to the siloviki and rent-takers who depend on him. Every NATO scramble becomes a highlight reel for the home audience.

Intelligence for free. Each drone wave or airspace nick is a live audit of allied responses: who launches, how fast, which sensors cue, which jammers show, where the lawyers draw the line. No open market sells that dataset. You manufacture it by creating nuisance problems your opponent must solve in public.

Normalisation. If cable breaks, transponder-off fly-bys, and “stray” drones become routine, outrage fades. The political cost of punishment rises. Debates about attribution and proportionality fill the airtime. That is reflexive control in practice: shape what your opponent thinks is feasible, then watch them narrow their own choices.

Bargaining chips. A steady beat of managed danger creates chips to cash later—lighter sanctions, slower aid to Ukraine, acceptance of a Russian veto over neighbours’ choices. The ask tends to arrive dressed as “de-escalation.”

NATO’s bad habit: self-deterrence

The alliance’s strength is also its weakness: consensus. That takes time. Time is the commodity these probes are designed to steal.

We discuss whether Article 4 is sufficient, whether the drones were “armed,” whether a cable failure was accidental. Caution is rational. Predictability is exploitable. The Kremlin banks on both.

Hardware helps but won’t save you by itself. A drone wall without rules is a stage set. The theatre continues unless the script changes.

The clean-sheet fix: shrink the grey zone

Publish triggers. Pre-commit a menu of automatic, pre-voted responses to common probes—intercept/compel for all breaches; lethal force only when hostile act/intent makes danger imminent and no lesser measure will work—paired with reinforced air policing, targeted sanctions, and joint attributions on a timetable.

Harden the story, not just the sky. Fund a standing, multinational attribution cell with guaranteed release windows for air, sea, and cyber incidents. Grey-zone tactics live on deniability windows. Close the window—fast, publicly, and repeatedly.

Price the pokes. Tie probe classes to real costs borne by the inner circle: logistics firms, front companies, financiers, and specific security bosses. Don’t telegraph threats. Announce executed consequences, then move on. Where thresholds for self-defence are met, force is on the table; where they aren’t, the costs are financial, hybrid, and diplomatic—still automatic.

Build the wall, wire the budget. If Europe builds a drone wall, it needs interoperability, lifecycle funding, and published playbooks. No orphaned national projects that fail at the seams. Integrate procurement and maintenance lines that survive elections.

Why this formula matches his psychology

A leader driven by grievance and status hunger seeks repeatable victories of perception. Short, deniable stunts deliver the hit: a nightly demonstration that the boss can raise risk and then dial it down. They also discipline insiders: only a strong patron keeps the danger “managed.” That is Machiavellian governance at home, masked as patriotic resolve.

Meet that style with clarity and the returns shrink. Fewer surprises. Fewer denials that stick. Fewer applause lines. The Kremlin must spend more to harvest the same domestic high. If the goal is a permanent grey buffer where NATO hesitates and neighbours feel a veto, then the counter-goal writes itself: make the grey costly, fast, and boring. Publish rules. Automate responses. Instrument the eastern air and sea picture so thoroughly that Moscow goes looking for softer stages.

References

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Defense News. (2025, September 19). EU ministers to ponder what a ‘drone wall’ for Europe could look like. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2025/09/19/eu-ministers-to-ponder-what-a-drone-wall-for-europe-could-look-like

Defence24. (2025, September 19). The EU is considering a “drone wall” on NATO’s eastern border. https://defence24.com/defence-policy/the-eu-is-considering-a-drone-wall-on-natos-eastern-border

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Reuters. (2025, September 20). Russian Defence Ministry: Russian fighters did not violate Estonian airspace. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-defence-ministry-russian-fighters-did-not-violate-estonian-airspace-2025-09-20

SIPRI. (2025, March 11). Preparing for a fourth year of war: Military spending in Russia’s budget for 2025 (SIPRI Insights on Peace and Security). https://www.sipri.org/publications/2025/sipri-insights-peace-and-security/preparing-fourth-year-war-military-spending-russias-budget-2025

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