A series of violations of NATO airspace by Russian crewed and uncrewed aircraft in September significantly escalated the rhetoric and potential for deadly violence between European adversaries beyond Ukraine. Ian Davis suggests four ways in which the alliance can deter Russia while reducing the risk of miscalculation and the dangers of escalation.
NATO member states are discussing easing rules for pilots to permit them to shoot down Russian aircraft, according to a report in the Financial Times. Citing four unidentified NATO officials, the report said a more forceful response to increasingly provocative Russian actions is under consideration, including easing restrictions on pilots to allow them to open fire on Russian aircraft and deploying armed drones along the border with Russia.
Similarly, in a recent Guardian comment, Sergey Radchenko warned of the dangers of escalation from the spike in alleged Russian incursions into NATO airspace. He argues that incursions will end only when the intruders, including the Russian fighter aircraft, are shot down. This backdrop of heightened concern about drone sightings and air incursions is leading to exaggerated claims about the impact of Russia’s ‘hybrid war’ and the risk of wrong-headed responses that are only likely to further inflame tensions.
The airspace incursions demand a calm and calibrated policy response that preserves deterrence (i.e. deterring Russia from launching any operation that meaningfully threatens lives, land and assets within NATO) while reducing the acute risk of miscalculation. There is a division in NATO between those allies who believe shooting down crewed as well as uncrewed Russian aircraft that violate NATO airspace would deter Moscow and those who fear such actions would exacerbate the dangers. However, shooting down a crewed Russian aircraft is much riskier than taking down a drone that has strayed into NATO airspace. The use of lethal force should only be a last resort.
Further, whether or not these recent incursions reflect deliberate Russian provocation or accidents is still being evaluated. On the one hand, they reflect a long-standing pattern of encroachment that has become ever riskier since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Analysts suspect some actions may be testing NATO’s resolve or seeking to divert attention from Ukraine.
On the other hand, technical causes—GPS jamming, decoy Gerbera drones with very limited guidance and control mechanisms, autopilot failures—and pilot inexperience could also explain some of the events, as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Alexus Grynkewich has conceded. Officials remain divided; some American and allied leaders have suggested some incidents might be accidental. Even then, Moscow denies any responsibility. Regardless of intent, however, Russia bears responsibility to prevent misunderstandings and reduce operational risk. But then, so does NATO.
In a recent NATO Watch policy brief I provide a practical roadmap for achieving this prevention of misunderstanding: prioritising operational safety, transparency where feasible, and narrowly targeted confidence- and security-building measures (CSBMs) that are reversible and verifiable.
1. Resist reflexive escalation
First, NATO should retain robust air policing and posture enhancements — sustained Baltic Air Policing operations and the more recent, extended Operation Eastern Sentry remain indispensable deterrents that reassure allies and complicate deliberate coercion. At the same time, the alliance must resist pressure to reflexively escalate (involving automatic shoot-down policies). Shoot-downs of crewed aircraft risk rapid strategic escalation with a nuclear-armed adversary. History shows they can deter—notably the Turkish downing of a Russian Su-24 bomber on the Turkish-Syrian border in 2015—but context matters. Current incidents are unfolding against the backdrop of the Russia-Ukraine war, which has already raised the stakes between Moscow and NATO. NATO’s established escalation ladder—radio warnings, visual signals, escort, lethal force as a last resort—should remain the operational baseline, with political leaders signalling clear restraint unless an imminent threat is evident.
2. Clarify rules of engagement
Second, calibrated transparency can reduce dangerous ambiguity without fatally compromising operational security. Full declassification of NATO’s rules of engagement (ROE, contained in a classified document MC 362/2) is neither necessary nor prudent. Instead, NATO should consider selective measures: publishing an unclassified thresholds matrix for Baltic air policing, making Baltic-specific ROE more visible to civilian air traffic control (ATC) and partners, and allowing parliamentary in-camera scrutiny of the ROE to bolster democratic legitimacy while protecting tactics. These limited disclosures would reduce the chance that an incident is misread as an unprovoked attack and enable Russia to be publicly challenged to publish its own ‘rules for Baltic scrambles’.
3. Prioritise CSBMs
Third, a package of confidence and security-building mechanisms (CSBMs) between NATO and Russia should be implemented immediately and pragmatically. Low-cost, high-impact items—an encrypted 24/7 military-to-military air-incident hotline and a transponder mandate in sensitive corridors, such as between Estonia and Finland—should be negotiated urgently to enable real-time de-confliction and improved situational awareness. Voluntary pre-notification for high-risk flights and a joint, neutral review board for incidents (with the Organisation for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) or Switzerland as arbiter) would help distinguish accidents (GPS jamming, navigational errors, decoy drones) from deliberate provocation and reduce political friction.
Practical emergency-landing arrangements with humane escrow-like rules for returning both the aircraft and pilots could also be negotiated. This would reduce incentives for shoot-downs when mechanical failure rather than hostile intent is the cause of the incursion. Any such forced landing in a rival’s territory could potentially trigger an international crisis, either because of the host country confiscating the aircraft to study its technology or by detaining the crew for an indeterminate period. An escrow agreement, however, would replace these volatile and unpredictable outcomes with a predictable, rules-based process managed by a neutral intermediary, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross.
4. Create specific protocols for uncrewed systems
Fourth, NATO should address the asymmetric risks of uncrewed systems. Drone-specific protocols might include a geo-fencing agreement (whereby Russia programmes drones to auto-abort if they cross NATO airspace), reciprocal no-deployment zones near chokepoints (i.e. NATO agrees not to deploy its surveillance drones within, say, 50km of Kaliningrad), and civilian-data verification, so that a Russian incursion if it does occur is rendered more obvious and ‘plausible deniability’ incidents are reduced.
In sum, NATO’s objective should be to make incidents more costly politically for the provocateur, more predictable operationally for defenders, and less likely to spiral into unintended conflict. Combining a firm defence posture with measured transparency and the proposed CSBM package offers a realistic route to manage risks now—without ceding deterrence or courting needless escalation.
Dr Ian Davis is the founder and director of NATO Watch, a not-for-profit, independent information service, which works to promote public awareness and foster debate on the role of NATO in public life. He is the Executive Editor of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Yearbook and an Associate Senior Fellow within the Conflict and Peace programme at SIPRI. He was formerly Executive Director of the British American Security Information Council (BASIC) from 2001 to 2007.
The views and opinions expressed in posts on the Rethinking Security blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of the network and its broader membership.
Image Credit: Crop of image from MonitorWar via Wikipedia. Visualization of the flight path of Russian drones which entered Polish airspace, 09-10 September 2025.
