While senior European military officials are naming specific dates for a possible Russian attack on Alliance members (German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius points to 2029, while Estonian intelligence rules out the scenario only for the next year or two) Politico asks a more uncomfortable question: is NATO ready to go to war right now? The answer, judging by the lessons of the recent war waged by the United States and Israel against Iran, is no. The outlet spoke with diplomats, military officials, and experts, and identified five major flaws within the Alliance.
1. A Critical Shortage of Ammunition
The war against Iran exposed NATO’s critical dependence on limited stocks of expensive missiles. The United States used up half of its Patriot air defense missile reserves. France warned that its Aster and Mica missiles began running low within the first two weeks of fighting in the Middle East. Defense groups Rheinmetall and MBDA are reporting a sharp surge in demand amid an impending shortage.
The Russian threat makes this particularly alarming: Moscow produces between six and seven thousand drones per month. If NATO does not change its tactics, allies will exhaust their costly air defense missiles within a matter of weeks. Experts are calling for cheaper alternatives, such as AGR-20 laser-guided rockets, and greater investment in passive defense, including hardened concrete aircraft shelters.
2. Overestimated Air Power
Despite an intensive US air campaign, Iran managed to fire more than five thousand missiles and drones at Gulf countries. Experts say this clearly demonstrates that air bombardment alone cannot force an adversary into submission. NATO should, according to analysts, rethink its air supremacy doctrine and invest more heavily in long-range precision weapons, in particular the American AGM-88G missiles, capable of striking targets up to 300 kilometers away.
3. Neglected Fleets
The limited involvement of European countries in operations in the Persian Gulf revealed years of chronic underfunding of naval forces. The most telling example: the United Kingdom took three weeks to deploy the destroyer Dragon to the Mediterranean, only to be forced to send it back to port due to a technical fault. Royal Navy Commander-in-Chief Gwyn Jenkins acknowledged in March that the British fleet is simply not ready for war and allies are not faring any better. Canada reported that fewer than half of its vessels are combat-ready. Yet in any conflict with Russia, naval forces will play a decisive role, hunting submarines off the Kola Peninsula and neutralizing ships carrying Kalibr cruise missiles.
4. Cracks Within the Alliance
The Middle East war deepened internal tensions within NATO. Europe did not support the United States to the degree Donald Trump demanded, giving him fresh grounds to criticize the Alliance. Against this backdrop, allies are increasingly wondering whether the US president would honor Article 5 obligations in the event of a Russian invasion. Former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen argues that Europe should take a firmer stance and explicitly link its support for keeping the Strait of Hormuz open to American security guarantees. In his view, the time for flattery is over.
5. Ukraine as an Asset
Within the first days of the war in the Middle East, Ukraine dispatched specialists to the region to help counter Iranian Shahed attack drones and this did not go unnoticed. Kyiv signed ten-year defense partnership agreements with Gulf states. Experts advise NATO to build on this experience: establishing a “belt” of anti-drone systems along the border with Russia and more generously funding the UNITE — Brave NATO program, through which Ukraine transfers its combat technologies to allies. One European diplomat described Ukraine outright as a security guarantor and the war against Iran proved it.
