Putin's real goal: Destroy NATO

In the opening months of the war in Ukraine, we warned about the strange case of Dr. Vladimir and Mr. Putin. Duality of purpose and multifaceted end states have always been central to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s calculus and decisionmaking.

Controlling Ukraine and its mineral riches is his immediate goal as the would-be Don of the Donbas. But Putin’s broader geostrategic goal also includes dismantling NATO.

Putin knows, conventionally-speaking, that his military cannot defeat NATO in Ukraine, much less Europe. But he can create enough division from within its ranks to divide the United States, old NATO and new NATO in order to fracture trust from within the 32-member defensive alliance.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko confirmed as much during a press conference with Putin on Thursday. Referring to President Trump’s proposed 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine, Lukashenko reminded the audience that he had observed early in the war that a deal between Washington and Moscow “would be the end of Europe.”

By "Europe," he also meant "NATO."

Putin seized on the point. He noted that if the U.S. and Russia cooperate on energy deals, Europe will then be able “to get cheap Russian gas.” Cheap, perhaps in terms of monetary cost, but as Putin knows, European independence — and by extension NATO — would again be undermined by its dependence on Russian sources of energy.

EU countries have spent more on Russian energy in the last three years than they have invested in Ukraine’s defense. This has, among other things, led to Hungary and Slovakia to veto NATO and EU measures to support Ukraine.

NATO’s viability is also heavily tied to a just outcome of the war in Ukraine. If Putin walks away from Ukraine enriched and emboldened, he will keep coming for more of Europe — specifically the Baltic States — and this will be easier if he can first destroy the transatlantic NATO alliance.

Putin’s script in this regard is not new if you understand that Russia’s citizens and economy are expendable to him, so long as he can achieve his desired national goals for Russia and himself. His illegal war against Ukraine is evidence enough. Since the beginning of his sputtering operation in Ukraine, he has willingly suffered more than 890,250 Russian casualties.

Putin’s dual-purpose playbook had its origins in St. Petersburg when he began his meteoric rise to power in Russia as a deputy mayor. In a paradigm since repeatedly replicated on a national and global scale, Putin worked in tandem with local mafia to create his powerbase and wealth.

He expanded this approach after becoming Russia’s prime minister in August 1999, but with a deadly global twist as he used foreign affairs and crises to increase his power. His bloody 10-year war in Chechnya devolved into an oft-repeated blueprint later used in the Middle East and Africa.

Organized crime melded with the FSB, the KGB's successor agency. Its agents became Putin’s shock troops on the frontlines, creating support for separatist movements in former Soviet regions illegally occupied by Russia today — Transnistria (in Moldova), Abkhazia and South Ossetia (in Georgia) and Crimea and the Donbas (in Ukraine).

Yevgeny Prigozhin took this to a new level by militarizing Russia’s mafia culture — the result being his Wagner Group. Putin’s mercenaries offer “plausible deniability” as they topple democratic regimes in Africa.

Now, as part of his ideological global war against the west, Putin is using this same playbook to create a wedge between Trump and his European allies. Trump is taking the bait, including threatening withdrawal from NATO, not coming to the defense of NATO countries failing to pay for their own defense, imposing tariffs on the EU and Canada, and repositioning 25,000 American troops from Germany to Hungary.

Putin’s Svengali-like effect on Washington is dangerous. Former President George W. Bush famously thought he could see into Putin’s soul. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton deceived herself into thinking that she and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov could improve relations by pushing a giant reset button. Lavrov is still standing and Clinton is not.

Team Trump would be wise to remember this as it negotiates an end to the war. Otherwise, Trump risks fumbling Europe to Russia, just as Russian President Boris Yeltsin suggested to President Bill Clinton in 1999: “Just give Europe to Russia, because Russia is in Europe and the United States is not.”

Putin’s war against NATO is in evidence across Europe. On Monday, the Russian captain of a container ship appeared to intentionally ram an oil tanker laden with U.S. military jet fuel 13 nautical miles off of the U.K. coastline. Coincidence? Not when you consider Russian plots to bomb DHL jet freighters in Germany and the U.K., and Russian interference in elections in Moldova, Georgia and Romania. Not when you consider the recent bloody assassination in Spain of Maxim Kuzminov, a Russian defector.

On Wednesday, X was hacked by a pro-Palestinian hacktivist collective known as Dark Storm, which is known to “use tactics that are very similar to a Russia-linked group called KillNet.” This, too, should serve as a reminder that the FSB excels in a Western legal world of plausible deniability and reasonable doubt. Nothing is done to challenge the actions — that would mean confronting Russia directly and risking further escalation. And so, each time, Russia pushes harder.

Having failed to win militarily in Ukraine, Putin is shifting targets. While Kursk, Donbas and Crimea remain the principal battlefields of this war, the aim of dividing the NATO alliance is now within reach.

If he can divide NATO, Putin can break the alliance and eventually move ahead with his plans to reestablish the Kievan Rus.

Europe must play a role in preventing NATO from being destroyed from within and without. Europe’s thin red line is in Ukraine. Brussels must secure Ukraine’s sovereignty and ensure that European peacekeepers deter future Russian military aggression.

Europe must also dramatically increase its own defense spending. The "ReArm Europe Plan" was a good start. But it is not enough to match a Russian economy that is on a full war footing.

Saving NATO is the only way to save Europe, and this begins with closing the gap on member-nations' GDP contributions.

Mark Toth writes on national security and foreign policy. Col. (Ret.) Jonathan E. Sweet served 30 years as an Army intelligence officer.

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