Over the last two weeks, Russian President Vladimir Putin tested NATO — and the alliance failed. The sequence of incidents tells the story.

First Moscow sent swarms of drones that forced NATO jets to scramble over Poland and Romania. Romania followed the drones instead of firing missiles costing hundreds of thousands of dollars each, of which a Russian Geran drone is worth only a fraction. The imbalance is obvious. Then three Russian MiG-31 fighters penetrated Estonian airspace over the Gulf of Finland for 12 minutes on Sept. 19.

These were deliberate moves, not isolated accidents. The Institute for the Study of War noted that “Russia is likely attempting to gauge both Poland’s and NATO’s capabilities and reactions in the hopes of applying lessons learned to future conflict scenarios with the NATO alliance.”

President Trump’s response on Truth Social was a strange remark: “What’s with Russia violating Poland’s airspace with drones? Here we go!” Europe shouldn’t be betting on the U.S. to rescue them. Adding to the uncertainty for Europe, on Sept. 15, the Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, "NATO is at war with Russia; this is obvious and needs no proof.”

But this points to a deeper problem. From Crimea in 2014 to the West’s initial reluctance in 2022, a pattern of delay has repeated itself — with predictable consequences. This could have been prevented........

© The Hill