Swedish Media: NATO's "Victory Plan" Actually Masks Strategic Fatigue

Reference News Network reported on October 25 The Swiss newspaper "Neue Zürcher Zeitung" published an article titled "NATO's 'Victory Plan' Masks a Defeat" on October 17, authored by Georg Häsler. The full text is excerpted as follows:

General Alexis Gremkiewicz, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe and Commander of U.S. European Command, introduced NATO's "Victory Plan" at the Warsaw Security Forum.

"Deter, degrade, defeat" is his brief expression of NATO's operational concept for the eastern flank. This tripartite approach is simple to remember and sounds full of deterrence and decisiveness: once an ally is attacked, the alliance will deter the adversary, wear down its strength, and defeat it.

The premise is that an attack actually occurs. Currently, NATO's attitude towards Russia is clearly becoming calm and restrained. Gremkiewicz stated in Warsaw that armed conflict is neither imminent nor inevitable. Although Moscow is almost daily strengthening its covert attacks against the West, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has suddenly stopped viewing Russia as a "direct military threat."

Gremkiewicz discusses this "Victory Plan" in a style reminiscent of "Make America Great Again," but in reality, he is merely reciting the standard procedures for resisting a full-scale attack.

Deter: Ground heavy armored forces will immediately impede Russia's offensive once combat operations begin. Fortifications built along the Russian border will prevent the enemy from advancing rapidly into depth. This operational principle is known as "area denial." With superior reconnaissance and communication capabilities in space, NATO possesses an information advantage, monitoring every move of the Russian military.

Degrade: At this stage, NATO should compress the adversary's actions to the point where it becomes difficult to continue fighting while implementing ground defenses, thereby seizing the initiative. To this end, NATO can blockade key areas such as the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad from the air and sea. NATO will also cut off Russian communications through electronic warfare, satellite jamming, and cyberattacks, preventing Russia from launching long-range weapons at targets located within NATO territory.

Defeat: If the adversary refuses to back down and commits reserves, Gremkiewicz threatens to destroy their will to fight. On the operational level, various strike capabilities will be simultaneously unleashed: long-range firepower will destroy Russian troop assembly areas, deep logistics warehouses, and air defense systems. The goal is to "disintegrate" and "destroy" the enemy's combat power. However, the plan explicitly abandons the idea of mechanized forces launching assaults across the contact line into Russian territory.

Gremkiewicz does not intend to implement a proactive defense that includes offensive elements but rather strictly maintains a defensive posture. The reason for military restraint is that the United States simply does not have the capacity to fight two large-scale wars simultaneously.

Gremkiewicz's statements in Warsaw are quite straightforward: "When we are simultaneously dealing with the Ukraine conflict and the Middle East conflict, we have made useful observations, clearly seeing what kind of pressure our war system will endure and how we should adjust it." In other words, the offensive against the Tehran regime in the first half of this year forced the United States into a defensive posture.

However, if NATO continues to raise the threshold for triggering collective defense clauses, it will lose credibility in the medium term. Even in extreme circumstances, the alliance can block Russia, but it no longer possesses the overwhelming advantage it once had. Ultimately, NATO's "Victory Plan" aims to mask the strategic failures encountered by Trump in the Middle East. (Translated by Nie Litiao)