Vladimir Putin is becoming “more creative” in the way he launches so-called ‘hybrid attacks’, the former envoy to NATO warned. Vladimir Putin’s hybrid war tactics against European NATO countries create a dilemma for the bloc over where the threshold lies for a response, former US Ambassador to the alliance Julianne Smith has told TVP World. Speaking after the Warsaw Security Forum on Wednesday, Ambassador Smith told the On the Record program she would go home “feeling rejuvenated about the transatlantic relationship.” She said she believed a forceful speech about NATO readiness by the alliance’s supreme allied commander for Europe, Alexus Grynkewich, must have had the full endorsement of both the White House and the Pentagon. The former ambassador, who represented Washington at NATO between 2021 and 2024 under the Biden administration, said she welcomed the content of Grynkewich’s speech, which emphasized NATO’s readiness to respond to an attack by Russia and win. But she expressed surprise that the general had stressed NATO would not escalate in the event of conflict. “Normally the alliance maintains strategic ambiguity about that question,” she said. “We don't tell Russia whether we would escalate or not. We let them guess.” Article 5 and hybrid war In terms of the alliance’s Article 5 mutual defense clause, Ambassador Smith said the bloc potentially faces a dilemma. She pointed out that Vladimir Putin is becoming “more creative” in the way he launches so-called ‘hybrid attacks’ below the level of open conflict, and suggested an act of sabotage, for example on a train line, could cause civilian casualties. “That puts NATO in a difficult position, because at that point, you're really not talking about hybrid; you're talking about a kinetic attack on NATO territory,” she said. “That then raises the question of Article 5. Does this justify an Article 5 response on the part of the allies?” Smith continued. “And I think that's going to be a difficult moment for the alliance if that were to happen.” But she also argued that Moscow’s hybrid tactics have been “a strategic failure for the Russians in many ways.” “NATO is united around this common project,” she said. “And it is focused on territorial defense in ways that it hasn't been for 20 years.”
