A Preclusive Strategy to Defend the NATO Frontier

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Young cadets of the 'Donetsk People's Republic' © Getty Images

Published on: December 2, 2014

The Best Defense

A Preclusive Strategy to Defend the NATO Frontier Jakub Grygiel & A. Wess Mitchell

In light of Russia’s recent moves, NATO would do well to rethink its defense-in-depth strategy in favor of a more forward-leaning posture.

There are two basic ways to defend a frontier. One is through defense-in-depth: leaving the borderlands more or less undefended while concentrating military strength in the interior. This strategy accepts the cost of an enemy grabbing territory in exchange for time to mount a concerted counter-offensive in a place and moment of the defender’s choosing. Militarily, it works well against high-intensity threats (big armies) that the defender could never hope to repulse by spreading its forces across a lengthy periphery. It is also predicated on having the geographic depth necessary to allow a temporary retreat, followed by a regrouping...

Jakub Grygiel is the George H.W. Bush Senior Associate Professor of International Relations at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Wess Mitchell is president of the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), a Washington, DC-based policy institute specializing in the study of central and eastern Europe.

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