How NATO's Quest for Strength May Be Building the Road to War
The Line between Deterrence and Danger is Razor-Thin
It started like any other night in September 2025.
But within minutes, the air in Poland changed. What had ben quiet skies lit up with streaks on radar screens. Russian drones, nearly two dozen of them, breached Polish airspace without warning. The Polish military responded, intercepting several of them. Fighter jets were scrambled. Air-defense units roared to life.
And then, a phrase was spoken that hadn’t been used in years.
Article 4.
NATO’s emergency consultation clause.
For decades, that clause had lived inside a treaty. A sentence on paper. That night, it turned into helicopters, missile batteries, and reinforced naval patrols. It was no longer theoretical.
In the days that followed, Poland called the incident an attack. Others called it a provocation. Russia called NATO’s response a declaration of hostility. Some even began whispering something we thought we had left in the 20th century.
“World War III.”
And yet, no war began. At least not officially. But if you listened closely, you could hear the locks turning on a door that no one wants to open. The real question is this:
Are we building the very war machine we’re trying to prevent from ever starting?
The Trap Hiding Inside Deterrence
There’s an old Roman saying, often quoted by military planners: “If you want peace, prepare for war.”
But that phrase leaves something out.
What happens when the other side believes war has already begun?
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, NATO has undergone the most dramatic military ramp-up since the Cold War. Germany increased its defense spending by 28 percent in 2024. Poland went even higher at 31 percent.
The United States sent billions in aid to Ukraine while reinforcing its own troop presence across Europe. Fighter jets now crisscross the skies of NATO’s eastern flank, and Patriot missile systems are being stationed like dominoes across the region.
On the surface, this seems logical. If the threat rises, you raise your defenses. If the enemy is unpredictable, you prepare for the worst.
But here is the problem no one wants to talk about.
To the Kremlin, none of this looks like defense.
To Moscow, it looks like staging.
Every jet, every tank, every training exercise is interpreted as preparation for an attack. When Poland proposed a no-fly zone over Ukraine, Russia did not see that as a safety measure. It saw it as a dry run for NATO boots on Ukrainian soil.
So Russia responded in kind. It launched its largest joint military exercise with Belarus since the war began. That wasn’t just a show of strength. It was a statement.
It was Russia’s way of saying that every preparation invites a counter-preparation.
This is the paradox we now live inside. In trying to appear strong enough to prevent war, we may be confirming our enemy’s worst fear...that war is already underway.
The Lessons We Keep Forgetting
If you believe this moment is new, it is only because we’ve done such a poor job remembering the past.
In 1914, every major power in Europe was armed to the teeth. They were convinced their military strength would make war unthinkable. But when the Archduke was assassinated in Sarajevo, the machines they had built did exactly what they were designed to do. They mobilized. They launched. They escalated.
No one planned for the war to last four years or kill millions. But once the gears began to turn, they were impossible to stop. Everyone believed the other side was seconds from firing first. So they fired.
Not out of aggression, but out of fear.
And then came 1983.
NATO ran a military exercise called Able Archer. A drill. Just a simulation. But Soviet intelligence believed it was a cover for a real nuclear strike. For days, Soviet missile crews were on edge, waiting for an order that, thankfully, never came.
What most people never knew was that we were that close to ending the world by accident.
We survived because we talked.
We Had a Map. Then We Burned It.
The Cold War gave us many things. Fear. Paranoia. Arms races.
But it also gave us something rare: restraint.
Treaties like the INF agreement and the Conventional Forces in Europe pact were not perfect, but they kept the worst instincts in check. Open Skies allowed mutual surveillance flights. Hotlines between commanders helped prevent confusion from turning into catastrophe.
For decades, these agreements kept the war machine from turning on.
Now, one by one, they’ve disappeared.
The INF Treaty is gone. The Open Skies agreement is dead. Russia walked away from the Conventional Forces in Europe pact. The New START Treaty, the last surviving nuclear agreement between the U.S. and Russia, is hanging by a thread and set to expire in 2026.
In other words, we are flying blind with more weapons than ever.
And in a world where communication is dead, every action is interpreted through the lens of suspicion.
We’re Not Just Building Walls. We’re Locking the Doors.
Right now, the West is trapped in a cycle.
Every time Russia rattles its saber, we respond with more troops, more hardware, more visibility. And every time we respond, they see it as validation.
This cycle is not sustainable.
Without diplomacy, deterrence becomes distortion. It turns defensive moves into perceived threats. And it raises the risk that someone, somewhere, makes the wrong call at the wrong time.
The next drone that crosses a border may not just be an incident. It may be the spark.
What Strength Without Clarity Will Cost Us
The reality is simple.
You can have all the power in the world, but if the other side believes you're about to use it, they won’t wait to be attacked.
They’ll attack first.
And if they believe you are unwilling to negotiate, then nothing, not even the fear of mutual destruction, will stop them.
The more we silence communication, the louder the missiles start to sound.
This isn’t just about policy. It’s about psychology. The kind that has caused the most devastating wars in history.
When your enemy believes war is inevitable, then so is their decision to strike.
There Is Still a Way Out
This story does not have to end in fire.
We have seen what works. During the Cold War, the dual-track approach of strength and diplomacy brought the world back from the edge.
We can do it again.
Reopen military communication channels. Establish new arms control initiatives, even informal ones. Talk about cyber warfare boundaries before the next digital misfire shuts down a power grid or a nuclear early-warning system.
Invite observers to military exercises. Clarify that deployments are defensive. Limit the optics of escalation.
None of this requires surrender. It only requires common sense.
Strength is essential. But strength without trust is a loaded gun left on a table in a dark room.
What Happens Next Is Not About Missiles. It’s About Mindset.
The stakes are too high for bravado. The next war won’t leave room for second chances.
This moment, right now, is the hinge.
We can keep building arsenals, keep sending signals that look like threats, keep letting fear drive the narrative…
Or we can remember what worked.
Talk. Restrain. Rebuild guardrails. Give your adversary a reason to believe you do not want war, because only then will they believe that they don't need to start one.
We cannot afford to treat peace as the absence of war. It must be treated as an ongoing effort, a structure we maintain, not something we just hope for.
Because once hope is gone, all that’s left is force.
And we already know where that leads.
Stay Sharp,
Gideon Ashwood