WASHINGTON, September 16 (RIA Novosti) - NATO will be preparing partner nations with substantial Russian populations to counter “hybrid warfare,” or unattributed warfare, by enabling them to attribute fighters to an aggressor nation and thus invoke Article 5 collective defense, NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe Gen. Philip M. Breedlove said.
“What we now have to do is look at those forces and our border nations where there are substantial Russian populations and how we better prepare those nations to survive the initial onslaught of this hybrid war,” Breedlove said during an Atlantic Council speech on Monday.
The West has repeatedly accused Russia of sending fighters and armored vehicles across the border into Ukraine under a cloak of anonymity. Moscow rejected the allegations. The NATO Commander referred to this situation as “the little green men scenario.”
"Clearly we had great acceptance among the NATO allies that if you attribute this little green men issue to an aggressor nation, it was an Article 5 action, and it would mean all assets would come to bear,” Breedlove said, referring to the allies’ collective defense doctrine.
Article 5 requires member states of the alliance to help a fellow member country that becomes subject of an armed attack.
The unsuccessful attempts by the West to attribute Ukrainian fighters to Russia was addressed at the NATO summit in Wales at the beginning of the month.
Breedlove said that allies had to be prepared to “characterize, understand, and survive” hybrid warfare where the aggressor was unknown.
“What I think we all understand is that this hybrid war, if it kicks off and it is unattributable ... is not a NATO issue, it is an internal to the nation issue,” he said.
