COMMENTARY: Testing Article 5 — why a Baltic state could trigger everything

COMMENTARY: Testing Article 5 — why a Baltic state could trigger everything

Introduction: The scenario nobody wanted to imagine

Naming the unspeakable

There are questions that diplomats avoid raising publicly, because asking them amounts to admitting a fragility one would prefer not to exhibit. Here is one: if Russia deliberately attacked a NATO member state in the Baltic states, would the Alliance truly mobilize to defend that ally, at the risk of open war with a nuclear power? Or would it find legal, political, and strategic reasons to prevaricate until the window for action closed?

This is no longer a rhetorical question. Western officials, according to The Guardian of June 27, 2026, are expressing real concerns about the Alliance's capacity to respond to a Russian attack without American support, whose reliability is increasingly questioned under the Trump administration. And on June 26, the same newspaper reveals that Russia is possibly preparing a provocation in the Baltics or Poland. Will the Alliance's Article 5 — an attack on one is an attack on all — live up to what it was designed to do?

Article 5: what does it actually say?

Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty is often presented as an absolute guarantee of collective defense. In reality, its text is more nuanced. It stipulates that each party shall assist the attacked state "by such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area." The use of force is an option, not an automatic obligation. And it is precisely this wording that leaves a margin for interpretation which Russia seeks to exploit with a carefully calibrated provocation.

History has shown that Article 5 has been invoked only once in the Alliance's history: after the September 11, 2001 attacks. It has never been tested in the context of direct armed conflict with a state. Nobody knows with certainty how the Alliance's 32 members would react to an ambiguous Russian attack on a Baltic state. And it is precisely this uncertainty that constitutes the most serious risk.

How Russia would test Article 5 without directly triggering it

The strategy of the partial fait accompli

Russian military doctrine has theorized and practiced the strategy of the fait accompli: act quickly to create an irreversible situation before the adversary can respond, then negotiate from that position. This is what happened in Crimea in 2014: soldiers without insignia took control of the island within hours, before NATO and the EU had time to consult on a response. Transposed to the Baltic states, this scenario could resemble a rapid seizure of the Suwalki Corridor, cutting the Baltic states off from the rest of the Alliance.

The objective is not necessarily to retain the captured territory — though that would be the ideal starting position for Putin. The objective is to create a situation where NATO must choose between an escalatory military response and a negotiated capitulation. In either case, Moscow demonstrates that Article 5 does not protect as absolutely as advertised, and that Russia can impose real costs on the Alliance without paying the ultimate price.

The ambiguous hybrid attack: the most likely scenario

More probable than a direct military attack are scenarios of deliberately ambiguous hybrid aggression. A massive cyberattack that paralyzes the power grid of Estonia or Latvia for several days, whose attribution to Russia is technically established but legally contested. Groups of saboteurs who destroy critical infrastructure in a remote area with an obscure claim. Drones of uncertain origin that crash near NATO military installations.

Each of these scenarios creates a dilemma for the Alliance: responding militarily to an attack that cannot be attributed with certainty risks appearing aggressive. Not responding signals that Article 5 has a blind spot. Russia wins in either case, at least partially. That is the sinister elegance of hybrid strategy.

The American question: the wavering pillar

Hegseth and the review of American presence in Europe

The solidity of Article 5 depends, in the minds of many European allies, on American presence and commitment. The United States accounts for approximately 70% of NATO defense spending. Their nuclear arsenal is the primary guarantor of strategic deterrence. Their weapons systems, intelligence, and command structures irrigate Alliance capabilities. Without Washington, European NATO lacks the means for its policy.

Yet, according to The Guardian of June 27, 2026, Pete Hegseth is conducting a review of American military presence in Europe whose conclusions are expected before the Ankara summit. And Alliance leaders openly fear they can no longer count on American assistance if Russia attacks. This is not an abstract fear: under the Trump administration, the signals sent to allies have been sufficiently contradictory to create real uncertainty about American guarantees.

Europe without an American guarantee: a scenario in preparation

The uncertainty about American commitment is pushing Europeans into accelerated thinking about their strategic autonomy. The Ankara summit will be, according to the European Parliament briefing of June 26, 2026, an opportunity to address this question frontally: if the United States reduces its contribution to collective defense, what do Europeans do? The honest answer, today, is: not much, because the capabilities are not there.

This is precisely why the Eastern Flank's demands — 5% of GDP, permanent brigades, autonomous defense capabilities — are fundamental. Not as an alternative to American commitment, but as a complement that would allow European NATO to hold alone for the time necessary for American reinforcements to arrive — or to function without them if those reinforcements do not come.

What triggering Article 5 would mean

Decision mechanisms: institutional slowness versus military urgency

In the event of an attack against a member state, triggering Article 5 goes through a consultation process within the North Atlantic Council. This process, in clear-cut cases of direct armed aggression, can be relatively rapid. In cases of deliberately ambiguous hybrid aggression, it can stretch over hours, even days — during which damage on the ground continues to accumulate.

NATO military planners have developed rapid response procedures — the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF), immediate response units — to reduce this delay. But the fundamental problem is not only technical. It is political: 32 governments must agree on a response, with different national interests, different public opinions, different risk assessments. Poland and the Balts want maximum immediate response. Germany and France may prefer de-escalation. America — this is now a real question — may not want to engage at all.

The precedent that does not yet exist

NATO has never had to respond to a direct armed attack against a member state since its creation in 1949. The only triggering of Article 5 — after the September 11, 2001 attacks — concerned a terrorist attack, not a state aggression. The precedent of a collective military response to a state attack does not exist. And the absence of precedent is a weakness, because it leaves all questions open about the modalities, intensity, and limits of the response.

This is the procedural void that Russia seeks to exploit. By forcing the creation of a precedent at a time and in conditions of its choosing, it can test not only the Alliance's military capabilities but also its political will and institutional cohesion. This is why, as the signatories of the Gdansk declaration perfectly understand, the best way to avoid having to test Article 5 is to make deterrence so credible that the temptation vanishes.

The Ankara summit as a credibility test

What Ankara must say about Article 5

The Ankara summit has a unique opportunity to reinforce the credibility of Article 5 without waiting for it to be tested. This requires concrete decisions: permanently increasing the Alliance's military presence in the Baltic states, deploying additional missile defense systems, adopting rapid hybrid incident attribution procedures and pre-approved automatic graduated responses accepted by all members.

It also requires a public clarification of the American position. If Pete Hegseth and the Trump administration maintain the American commitment under Article 5, they must say so clearly at Ankara, in front of the world's cameras. The current ambiguity is a premium on aggression. If on the other hand they plan to reduce American presence, Europeans need to know now in order to adapt their strategy accordingly.

The existential stake behind the technical question

Behind the apparently technical question of Article 5 lies an existential challenge to the international order. If Russia demonstrates that it can violate the sovereignty of a NATO member state without triggering an effective collective response, the entire system of collective security built since 1945 collapses. China is drawing lessons from everything happening around Taiwan. Iran is drawing lessons from the Western response to its regional aggressions. NATO's weakness today would be a global signal.

This is why testing Article 5 is not a question that only concerns the Baltic states or Eastern Europe. It is a question that determines the global balance of power for the coming decades. And this is why the decision to genuinely reinforce the defense of the Eastern Flank is a decision each Alliance member makes — or should make — with full awareness of its global implications.

Extended deterrence doctrine: nuclear and conventional

The American nuclear umbrella and its ambiguities

American extended deterrence — the guarantee that the United States would use nuclear weapons to defend its allies against a nuclear attack — is the ultimate foundation of NATO member states' security. During the Cold War, this guarantee was the cornerstone of the balance of terror. Today, under the Trump administration, the deliberate ambiguity the American president maintains about his allied commitments weakens this guarantee in the minds of Baltic state decision-makers.

This ambiguity is dangerous on two counts. On one side, it may encourage Russia to judge that the American response to a provocation in the Baltics will be hesitant, even nonexistent — thereby increasing the temptation to test the Alliance. On the other, it pushes European allies to consider partial nuclear autonomy — on the French model or via a Europeanization of French deterrence — which would have considerable political and strategic implications. Neither scenario is desirable.

What holding a nuclear commitment means

NATO's collective defense commitment implicitly includes the possibility of a nuclear response to a massive conventional attack on a member state. This is the "first use" doctrine that the Alliance maintains, unlike other nuclear powers. This doctrine is designed to compensate for the Soviet, then Russian, conventional superiority on Europe's Eastern Flank.

The credibility of this doctrine depends on Russia's conviction that NATO would actually honor this commitment. If Putin thinks the United States would hesitate to risk nuclear escalation to defend the Baltic states, deterrence loses part of its effectiveness. This is precisely the calculation that Trump, through his unpredictability, blurs — with potentially very serious consequences for strategic stability in Europe.

Ukrainian resistance as a model for the Baltics

What Kyiv has taught the world about national defense

Since 2022, Ukraine has given the world an extraordinary demonstration of what determined national resistance can achieve against a superior military power. The Russian army, possessing the world's second largest conventional forces, has been unable in four years to subdue a country that decided to defend itself. This lesson is not lost on the Baltic states, which have developed total defense doctrines inspired in part by the Ukrainian experience.

Ukrainian resistance has also demonstrated the importance of soldier training, tactical innovation, and combatant motivation. Soldiers defending their own territory, their own families, their own culture, fight differently from soldiers executing orders in a foreign country. This motivational asymmetry is a force multiplier that quantitative military calculations fail to capture, but which the Baltic states understand perfectly.

The limits of the Ukrainian model for the Baltics

The comparison between Ukraine and the Baltic states has its limits. Ukraine has strategic depth — a vast territory that allows it to yield ground to better resist later. The Baltic states, with surface areas comparable to small French regions, do not have this luxury. A rapid fait accompli-style invasion could place the entire territory of a Baltic state under Russian control before reinforcements could arrive — making subsequent resistance far more difficult than in the Ukrainian case.

It is precisely for this reason that the permanent presence of NATO forces in the Baltic states — not symbolic tripwires, but brigades capable of fighting and holding — is a sine qua non of these countries' defense. Without this preventive presence, the Ukrainian total defense doctrine cannot be transposed wholesale into the Baltic context. Allies must be on the ground before a crisis begins, not only after.

Western public opinion: the internal flank to consolidate

Public support for NATO and its fragilities

The entire solidity of the Atlantic Alliance ultimately rests on the support of public opinion in member countries. Democratic governments cannot maintain costly military commitments — financially and potentially in human terms — without sufficient public support. And that support, in some Western European countries, is not as solid as one might think.

Regular polls in several NATO countries show troubling results on the question of whether citizens would support a military intervention to defend an ally. In Germany, in Italy, in some Central European countries, significant percentages answer in the negative. This is not immutable data — opinions can change, as they changed in Finland after the Ukrainian invasion — but it is a reality that decision-makers must factor into their communication strategy.

The role of media and information in collective defense

Russian disinformation targets precisely these fractures in Western public opinion. Narratives amplified via social media — "this war does not concern us," "it is Western provocation," "Russia has legitimate grievances" — seek to erode support for Ukraine and NATO. These narratives have found resonance in segments of both left-wing and right-wing opinion in Western Europe and the United States.

Countering this disinformation is a form of Alliance defense as important as deploying weapons systems. It is about defending the "internal flank" of the Alliance — the cohesion of member societies, their trust in institutions, their willingness for collective solidarity. Transparency about the threat — such as the decision to make the Latvian alerts public — is one way of mobilizing public opinion by informing citizens about the real stakes. This is an investment that governments are not yet making sufficiently.

Conclusion: The Alliance put to the test of its own promise

Honoring what was signed

Article 5 is a promise. Not a vague statement of benevolent intent, but a solemn commitment, signed by 32 sovereign states, to collectively defend each of their members against any aggression. Keeping this promise when it costs little — when the threat is distant, when deterrence works — is easy. Keeping it when it is costly, when a nuclear power directly attacks, when public opinion hesitates, when allies doubt: that is where the true value of an alliance is measured.

Russia is betting that NATO will not go that far. That fear of nuclear escalation will paralyze decision-makers. That public opinions will not accept the necessary sacrifices. That American hesitation will fracture the Alliance before it can respond. These bets are not unreasonable. But they can and must be proved wrong by clear political decisions and real military investments.

The moment of truth lies ahead

Zelensky was right in 2021: the threat was real, and nobody truly believed him in time. Today, alerts are multiplying, signals are accumulating, experts are converging on a scenario of possible provocation in the Baltics. The Alliance has a unique opportunity: to act preventively to make this scenario unimaginable for Moscow. That is not an absolute guarantee. But it is infinitely preferable to discovering, in the urgency of a crisis, whether Article 5 keeps its promises.

The answer to the question that titles this commentary — why a Baltic state could trigger everything — is simple: because we promised it would not have to do so alone. Keeping that promise is the fundamental test of the Atlantic Alliance in the twenty-first century. Ankara can, and must, begin to meet it.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

Nature of this commentary

This text is an opinion commentary, not a neutral news article. I express clear positions on the need to reinforce the credibility of Article 5 and on the risks linked to American uncertainty. These positions reflect my deep convictions about collective security and the defense of liberal democracy. They are assumed and do not claim journalistic neutrality.

The facts I invoke — intelligence alerts, Russian exercises, official statements — are drawn from public sources with dates, cited in the Sources section. The interpretation I make of them is my own.

What I cannot know

I do not know whether Russia is genuinely planning a provocation against the Baltic states in the short term. I do not know the actual position of the Trump administration on Article 5 — public statements are often contradictory. I also do not know what NATO allies will actually decide at Ankara, nor how they would react to a real attack. My commentary poses questions that events alone can resolve.

I acknowledge a fundamental uncertainty about the outcome of the period we are going through. I remain nonetheless convinced that clarity and firmness are preferable to ambiguity and temporizing. That is a value judgment, and I own it.

Sources

Primary sources

The Guardian: NATO leaders fear they can no longer count on the United States — June 27, 2026

The Guardian: Russia preparing a possible provocation in the Baltic states — June 26, 2026

Army Recognition: Russia rehearses Baltic strike operations from Kaliningrad — June 21, 2026

Fox News: Russian hybrid attacks on NATO's Eastern Flank — June 22, 2026

Secondary sources

Swedish Government: Gdansk Declaration — June 25, 2026

European Parliament EPRS: Briefing on the NATO Ankara Summit — June 26, 2026

NATO/Atlantic Council: Transcript of conversation with Rutte — June 25, 2026