#^Drones in Europe: A Gray Zone War Comes WestThose of us who follow the war in Ukraine have been sounding alarm bells for years. Russian and other adversaries’ gray-zone tactics are getting bolder, more sophisticated, and far less concerned with pretense. What started as probing and harassing is now spilling directly into NATO airspace.
There have been several incursions since the war began. But in the past few weeks NATO skies have been busy. Romania continues to see drone incursions near where the Danube meets the Black Sea. Estonia just had three Russian MiGs loiter in its airspace for twelve minutes. And most brazen of all, nineteen Russian drones crossed into Poland. Denmark had to shut down an airport over multiple large drone sightings, with no clear answer as to who was responsible.
This is not random mischief. Russia is clearly sending a message: NATO has no deterrence. Moscow knows it can continue gray-zone attacks unimpeded, with little to no consequences. So far NATO’s response has been to hold meetings. Meetings seem to be Europe’s number one defense export.
The question is what can actually be done to spot these incursions sooner, and how to counter them in a way that restores credibility. Let’s look at the options.
Shoot it down—without bankrupting yourself
The first answer is obvious. Shoot them down. The problem is cost. You can’t keep using million-dollar interceptors against drones that cost $2,500. That exchange ratio is sustainable only for Russia, not for NATO.
The Ukrainians have already solved this problem. They’ve built systems designed for low-cost, high-volume interception. More importantly, they’ve built the industrial base and feedback loop to continually iterate those systems in weeks, not years. The real secret-sauce is not the Shahed interceptor itself, but the way Ukraine can scale and refine production.
NATO needs that capability immediately. Not just the drone systems, but the distributed manufacturing and iterative processes that go with them. This is the area where Europe’s procurement bureaucracy and risk-averse defense culture are weakest. Ukraine is the one ally with a proven solution.
Shoot down the MiGs
At some point, warnings have to mean something. A Russian fighter that spends twelve minutes in Estonian airspace is not confused. It’s probing. There should be one warning. Then shoot it down.
The usual objection is escalation. But Russia cannot afford a shooting war with NATO. Their war in Ukraine already consumes vast resources. A direct clash with NATO would be suicidal. The Kremlin will respond with threats, more gray-zone activity, and propaganda. But not with open war. The longer NATO hesitates, the bolder Moscow becomes.
Build a layered air defense
Air defense only works when it is layered. NATO has this in theory but not in practice.
- Top layer: THAAD batteries to deal with ballistic missile threats.
- Second layer: Patriot batteries for high-altitude threats like MiGs and slower ballistic missiles.
- Third layer: Cruise missile and drone defenses, combining kinetic interceptors with electronic warfare systems. Helicopters, who have been on the NATO/Pentagon chopping block, have received a stay of execution and are now a great platform for counter drone and cruise missile defense.
- Fourth layer: Theoretical. Satellite defense. The US has been working on this since the 80s. Nothing public yet. I don’t think this capability will help spot or track small to medium drones.
That middle and lower tier are where NATO is weakest. Systems exist, but coverage is thin, procurement is slow, and political will is softer than the technology requires. Europe has been able to free-ride on U.S. security guarantees for decades. That luxury ends when Russian drones and fighters can enter NATO skies without consequence.
Guard against the “Spider’s Web”
Large drones and planes are relatively easy to track. What NATO cannot reliably detect are small drones—the kind smaller than a Cessna 172, launched by Russian agents from inside NATO itself.
The problem comes with something Just like Ukraine’s operation Spider’s Web: a slow, patient build-up of drones hidden across Europe, assembled in garages, barns, or warehouses, and launched simultaneously to create chaos. These attacks don’t require crossing borders. They just require a few agents with time, equipment, and cover stories.
Defending against this requires two things. First, vigilance and intelligence inside NATO states themselves. Second, a credible deterrent. And deterrence always comes back to two points:
- Capability: You must have the means to strike back. NATO mostly has this, but it needs a comprehensive “drone wall” that blends sensors, interceptors, and rapid reaction forces.
- Will: You must be willing to employ it. That means shooting down drones immediately, but also striking the bases and factories in Russia where they originate. You cannot keep shooting arrows out of the sky forever. At some point, you have to shoot the archer.
Invest in modern sensing—ground, air, and space
The U.S. and NATO have not invested heavily in AWACS or surveillance aircraft for decades. Counterinsurgency campaigns didn’t require them, and satellites were good enough to track large, slow-moving threats. But drones are a different category. Current SBIRS satellites won’t pick up the heat of a small rotor or jet engine taking off. With AI support, though, if an area is already flagged for medium-size drone activity, constellations like Capella or ICEYE, using synthetic aperture radar (SAR), could in theory track movement patterns.
Small drones, however, are next to impossible to follow from space. Anything under 50 pounds can slip past traditional radar as well. They don’t appear like fighter jets or ballistic missiles. Detecting them requires a fusion of multiple sensor types working together:
- Optical tracking
- Radar tuned for very small signatures
- Acoustical detection of engine and propeller noise
- Full electromagnetic spectrum sensing to catch signals and control links
All of this data has to be fused by AI into real-time confidence scores of what is flying near and inside NATO’s borders.
The good news is that this is exactly what AI excels at—turning massive streams of raw data into usable information. But first, the models have to be trained on what to look for. And again, there is one ally who has already done this in real-world combat at scale: Ukraine.
Why Ukraine’s “cards” matter
Ukraine has lived the drone war in real time. Its survival depends on detecting, intercepting, and neutralizing drones at scale every day. It has developed cost-effective countermeasures, built the iteration culture NATO lacks, and fielded electronic warfare systems that degrade Russian drones effectively.
It also has something else NATO lacks enough of—HUMINT assets already in Russia. Knowing where drones are built, where they are stored, and where they are launched from makes the job of detection and deterrence far easier.
Yet instead of fully integrating Ukrainian expertise into its defense architecture, NATO still treats Ukraine as a dependent. That is a strategic mistake. NATO does not have to reinvent solutions Ukraine already has. It just has to stop hesitating.
The cost of hesitation
Every drone that crosses into Poland or Romania, every fighter that lingers in Estonian skies, every false alarm that shuts down a Danish airport chips away at NATO’s credibility. Russia is not trying to win a conventional war with these moves.
It is normalizing risk. It is teaching Europe to live with violation, to accept the unacceptable as routine.
To this end there is a role the public has to play as well. The NATO/EU public must expect intrusive counter measures. Loss of GPS, loss of mobile service, and more. The public must be made aware that near the border with Russia mobile signals and your GPS are subject to degradation and incorrect data. People living near Russian Kaliningrad already deal with this. But these are Russian gray zone attacks. Not NATO counter measures.
The playbook is familiar: drones, GPS jamming, spoofing, cyber intrusions. Each attack from Russia by itself looks manageable. Together, they form a constant pressure campaign. Gray-zone warfare is about eroding will.
If NATO’s answer is more meetings, the erosion will continue. The only response that matters is one that restores deterrence. Shoot down the drones. Shoot down the planes. Strike the bases that launch them. Build layered defenses. Invest in modern sensors. Fuse the data with AI.
And above all, use the one ally that already has all the “cards”—Ukraine.
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Drones in Europe: A Gray Zone War Comes West appeared first on
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