The Return of Great Powers: Russia, China, and the Next World War

by Jim Sciutto

The two sides play by very different rules in these delicate encounters. NATO ships and aircraft operate under strict rules of engagement, maintaining at least five nautical miles’ distance from Russian ships and aircraft. Russian pilots operate under different rules, or no rules at all. “They don’t care,” one pilot told me. While NATO aircraft fly with their transponders on—deliberately visible to the other side—many Russian aircraft do not. For René, the chopper squadron commander, the dangers of these behaviors and this new threat environment are very real. “I have to be quicker in the air, more vigilant. We fly armed more often—always capable to defend ourselves and our force,” René said. The threat environment means a whole new mission for NATO forces in the Baltic. Before the Ukraine invasion, they told me they operated more like a coast guard. Now they are again a true navy. “We changed back to our main missions: anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare,” René told me. “So we do multi-role missions for the frigate. We are the ‘eagle-eye’ view, and we extend the range of the maritime picture for the frigate. And we have to be capable to switch every hour from an anti-submarine mission to an anti-surface mission to passenger transport to deployment of special forces.”