Executive Summary for NATO and EU Leadership: Article 4 Is Article 5
- john raymond
- Sep 11
- 2 min read
Over the past 48 hours, top analysts in the public domain—drawing on frameworks of minimax reasoning and game theory—have exposed the logic of Russia’s recent drone incursions into Poland. These are not accidental overshoots. They are deliberate gray-zone acts designed to exploit NATO’s political weakness in activating Article 5, and to create a prisoner’s dilemma within the alliance.
The mechanism is straightforward:
Each member state calculates whether to keep scarce air defense systems for its own security or to forward-deploy them to Ukraine.
While the collective interest lies in sending everything possible to Ukraine—the actual battlefield where deterrence is tested—individual states feel safer hoarding.
Russia wins by creating this divergence. It does not need to destroy NATO weapons if it can freeze them in warehouses through fear.
Three top analysts, Vlad Vexler, Paul Warburg and Jake Broe, all approaching from different angles, have now converged on the same conclusion: Moscow is deliberately red-teaming Article 5, inducing self-deterrence, and exploiting the political nature of activation to paralyze the alliance.
This analysis is correct, and the implications for leadership are urgent.
The Unified Message Must Be:
“We will not be held prisoner to dilemmas of Russian making. Therefore we are sending the following items, units, and systems to Ukraine so that they may better defend us and themselves against Russian aggression, which has already threatened to spill over into NATO territory. No more. No more... The items are as follows...”
Action Items:
Forward-deploy air defenses to Ukraine rather than stockpiling them inside NATO territory. Every Patriot or IRIS-T system in a Polish warehouse is a victory for Russia.
Treat Ukrainian defense as collective defense in practice. Article 5’s credibility depends on Ukraine not falling.
Lock in commitments through binding NATO/EU mechanisms so that no individual state can defect to hoarding without reputational and political cost.
Publicly coordinate messaging across NATO capitals, making it unmistakable that Russian gray-zone provocations will no longer induce hesitation.
Time for Some Good Old Consensus
The prisoner’s dilemma only persists if members calculate in isolation. The way out is through credible cooperation, made visible by both words and deeds.
NATO and EU leaders must seize this moment to demonstrate unity by action: surge weapons to Ukraine now. Every day of delay strengthens Russia’s hand and weakens the alliance’s deterrence posture.
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