Putin's NATO Poland Gamble
- Richard Murff
- Sep 12, 2025
- 5 min read
Will NATO and Why Poland
The spring and summer was supposed to be when Russia made to big territorial gains in Ukraine prior to sitting down with Trump to make them permanent with a lopsided peace deal. You could make a solid argument that Ukraine has made more advances than Russia this summer despite its minuscule territorial gains. As a wet muddy fall approaches the situation in Ukraine is still awful, but it hasn’t changed appreciably. Somehttps://4717.substack.com/p/too-much-noise-brings-the-house-downthing that you can’t say about Russia.
Since the Bolshevik revolution, the Kremlin has been a “black box” - a term systems analysts use for a component where inputs and process are unknowable and therefore unmanageable. The best you can do is manage the effect that the black box’s output and noise have on the greater system. Reliable information is hard to come by, but we can make some guesses. Despite his cool, shirtless exterior, Vladimir Putin is in a panic. The oligarchs that put him in power have lost a lot of money and are getting fussy and the leader sees this as a threat. This we can infer from the inordinate number of powerful men falling out of windows around the world and accidentally shooting themselves in the head. Stalin style purges are not the moves of a man who has had a good night’s sleep.
Putin knows that US president is a fixed asset: Trump isn’t going anywhere for three years, but his control over Congress might. So the clock is ticking. He needs to stress test the situation now.
So what, exactly is he testing?
NATO’s Defenses: The obvious place to do this is Poland as it is the launching point of arms aid to Ukraine, and its politics are divided East West. Or were until Moscow lobbed 19 drones at them on Tuesday. Poland has come together, and the NATO scramble against the Russian incursion included Polish and Dutch fighter sorties, German-run patriot missile banks, and Italian surveillance.
NATO’S will to fight it out: Poland evoked the NATO treaty’s Article 4, the “let’s talk about it” clause. Not the more famous article 5 “An attack on one is an attack on all.” So they aren’t swinging the battle axe just yet, but they need to do something. Which leads us to the 800 lbs orange gorilla…
America’s commitment to its NATO obligations: There’s been a vague presidential tweet, but Washington is another black box these days.
To wit: a few scenarios and their second order affects.
Scenario # 1: NATO Doesn’t Do a Damned Thing
Putin has his answer and can carry on as he pleases. This won’t do him much good on the battlefield but, not for nothing, it does remove that childhood boogeyman he can’t grow out of: NATO bent on Russia’s destruction.
Politically, on the other hand, it does Moscow - and Beijing - a world of good. Not only doe it fracture NATO – they only have one job and they aren’t doing it – and exposes it as a paper tiger and discredits the Western-led world order.
For Beijing, it means that the war can continue to distract the West while China sells itself as a stable global partner. Sure Big Panda is gonna pull your pants down in said partnership, but won’t be as obvious and demeaning as Washington is at the moment.
Scenario # 2: Right of Air Defense
NATO establishes the right to shoot down choose over Ukraine or in Belarus before entering NATO airspace. This isn’t a bad option: It is fuzzy enough to allow NATO to offer Ukraine air defense in the name of its own justified defense. In addition, it helps Ukraine continue to erode Russia’s military and oil production capacity ahead of a wider European conflict.
At this point Beijing will start to get nervous. It needs the war to continue in its never-ending, yet contained, way to keep the world from focusing on the Indo-Pacific. European air superiority over the skies of Ukraine will accelerate the draw down on Russian stockpiles, changing the calculus on the current war of attrition.. If Moscow goes nuclear, Beijing’s attempts at isolating the US evaporate. It needs the vigorous trade with the EU to build out its systemic counterweight to the US led order.
Scenario #3: European Boots on the Ground with US Backing
This is Putin’s real nightmare. This very well might would end the thing in the promised 24 hours. While heavy on US arms sales, it’s light on US boots on the ground. The second order effects will be felt quickly.
A concerted NATO effort will trigger an internal regime change in Moscow. But don’t celebrate just yet - the people that tend to fill these sort of power vacuums are the meanest around, not the most capable. There is a better than even chance that Russia will Balkanize into an archipelago of ethnic republics the size of US ZIP codes. This won’t do nuclear proliferation any favors, but it is likely manageable.
The benefits to the US should be obvious: Both Russia and Ukraine have developed how to make an automated air force for a fraction of the price of a traditional manned one. Ukraine is in the lead here and is freely offering to share everything they’ve learned under fire with anyone who can help them out of this mess.
Then the question of the Arctic and its mineral wealth is becomes America’s to lose. Beijing’s desperate lock on rare earths and minerals will start to break apart.
Scenario #4 European Boots on the Ground Without US Backing
Essentially, this poses the same nightmare for Russia and with a US back. Fresh opposing forces pour into his stalemate after he has shot his wad. Two of which are nuclear. Putin knows this, he’s just trying to bluff his way through it. Europe’s problem is one of confidence, not expertise or capacity. Once in the field this will get sorted out. It will still trigger an internal regime change, but not next week. This is very much like Scenario #3, but with some counter-intuitive, and negative, second order effects for the US.
Trump will consider that the US abandoning its NATO security guarantees a money-saving win, and play it that way. Yet it will also erode what leverage Washington has on the EU and the UK. If NATO fights on without the US, Europe will join the tribe of the resentful non-aligned, making it impossible for the US to contain China. A newly armed Europe, Canada and Greenland will start making noises in the Arctic. They won’t go head to head with the US over it, but they will be a headache.
That will, in turn, free the EU to resume the digital regulation it pursued before the Tariff foolishness. Understand, that part of Big Tech and AI’s outstanding growth is that it operates essentially above privacy and intellectual property laws. Digital privacy laws in Europe and Latin America will constrict US tech profits at the moment its spending cash like the dickens building wildly expensive data centers. With talk already simmering about a three trillion dollar tech bubble – a correction, when it comes, will send investors scrambling for the door.
These scenarios are all uncomfortable close, and only one is good. With Russia conducting its Zapad “West” military exercises this weekend in Belarus, it may be closer than we think. It officially involves 13,000 men, but the last Zaphadexercise included 200,000.
And five months later they invaded Ukraine.
For a deeper dive in the horrible political joke that is Ukraine, we’re offering a chapter of my upcoming book, World War Three Has Started…Dress Accordingly, for download.
