NATO drafts scenario for direct conflict with Russia

NATO is already planning a war with Russia on paper

Bild has revealed what until now was a theoretical exercise: NATO has drawn up a detailed operational scenario for a direct military conflict with Russia. The plan, under the Alliance's "land war" concept, lists airfields, bridges, railway stations and industrial facilities on Russian territory among its targets, and in its first phase prioritises neutralising the adversary's aviation, missiles and drones. According to the published information, the focus is on the Kaliningrad region, with plans to also create a security zone along the border perimeter with Russia and Belarus.

The leak has peine two opposing readings. The first sees behind the planning the appetite of the major oil companies for Russia's mineral, oil and gas resources: the analysis points to ExxonMobil, Shell, Total, Chevron and BP as last-minute beneficiaries of a conflict that would condemn Russia to never knowing peace. The second, more sceptical, reminds us that no military calculation can guarantee that Moscow will not respond with long-range missiles against US soil, and that if nuclear deterrence were a mere gesture, North Korea would not exist.

Some hope that the bulk of the Russian army remains bogged down in Ukraine and that NATO's air superiority will suffice to repeat the Libya playbook. Between those two poles, the document cited by Bild is not a declaration of war, but its very existence is already a gesture: someone, in some barracks, has decided that this scenario must be ready. What is not clear is what happens when the adversary calculates it has nothing left to lose. Meanwhile, the internet is amusing itself with the only possible answer: waiting for Fallout season 3 with Brussels in flames.