MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
OK, shifting our focus overseas now. You may be familiar with NATO's Article 5. It is the cornerstone of the alliance, a provision in the treaty committing NATO members to protect each other. It has been invoked just once in the history of the alliance, after the 9/11 terror attacks. Well, today, Poland invoked NATO's Article 4. This after more than a dozen Russian drones crossed into Poland overnight. NATO scrambled fighter jets to shoot them down. That marks the first time NATO planes have engaged enemy targets in NATO airspace.
So what is Article 4? And how might invoking it inform what comes next? We're going to put that to Rose Gottemoeller, former deputy secretary-general of NATO. Rose Gottemoeller, welcome.
ROSE GOTTEMOELLER: Thank you, Mary Louise.
KELLY: What does it mean to invoke...
GOTTEMOELLER: Yes, Article 4.
KELLY: ...Article 4? Yeah.
GOTTEMOELLER: Article 4, yes. It's very clear. It states, and I quote, "the parties will consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the parties is threatened."
KELLY: They will consult.
GOTTEMOELLER: So this is the step before - yes, this is the step before any invocation of Article 5, and I must stress that they are separate. This is just to consult together and to discuss the situation and exactly what happened and try to come to some conclusion. It is not necessarily, by any means, a prelude to invocation of Article 5.
KELLY: Is it right to see it almost as an intermediate step that might or might not lead to invoking Article 5 and collective defense?
GOTTEMOELLER: Traditionally, it has been a way for the allies, when they have run into a concerning security situation, to be able to gather together quickly. The message is one of urgency, and the message is one of the allies, with due regard to the potential for escalation, taking very careful stock, talking among themselves and deciding exactly what the situation was and what action, if any, is required. So I don't want to in any way indicate, again, that this is a prelude to Article 5. It is very much the allies showing that they can quickly come together to act if they must, but they are going to be very careful in figuring out what is required.
KELLY: How quickly? Like, how quickly would you expect a meeting to happen?
GOTTEMOELLER: Well, it's happened today, so that could happen very, very quickly. And it's important from that perspective that NATO does have regular presence at the headquarters of all its member states and - so everyone can be gathered together very quickly to meet and to consult in this way. So - but I think, you know, almost more important was the quick military response, which you reported on a moment ago, and the fact that all NATO countries were maybe not involved directly but certainly aware of what was going on, and then we had countries across the alliance. There were the Polish F-16s involved, but also Dutch F-35s, Italian AWACS planes, a refueling aircraft. So it was really a large-scale NATO operation, again, conveying that the NATO allies can come together quickly in order to respond to an urgent military threat.
KELLY: Rose Gottemoeller, you spoke a moment ago about the way this has traditionally worked, which prompts me to note there is precedent. I was reading that since NATO's creation, Article 4 has been invoked seven times, most recently, I gather, in 2022 - that was by members in Eastern Europe following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. For this current - today's invocation of Article 4 by Poland, what kind of message is it intended to send? I mean, NATO could just say, hey, we're going to meet, lets everybody get on the phone or gather in Brussels without invoking Article 4.
GOTTEMOELLER: Yeah. No, Article 4, because it is part of the Washington Treaty - the founding treaty of NATO - really conveys a seriousness of concern, first and foremost, and a seriousness of consideration of what the response should be. And so I think that that is the core message here, and that is what Article 4 is all about. NATO allies meet multiple times a week at NATO headquarters in Brussels, but getting together under the aegis of Article 4 conveys a grave concern and also a readiness to really develop whatever response measures are needed on an intensive...
KELLY: Right.
GOTTEMOELLER: ...And a quick basis.
KELLY: We've got about a minute left, but I want to flip the question around and ask what kind of message is Russia sending? Why is Russia sending drones...
GOTTEMOELLER: Well, that's...
KELLY: ...Into NATO airspace now?
GOTTEMOELLER: Yes. It's very interesting when you read the official response of the Russian Ministry of Defence. They said, kind of coyly, the destruction of targets in Poland was not planned. So there could be two reasons why these drones strayed into Polish airspace overnight. The first could be that it was a genuine mistake. And the Belarusians have said that electronic warfare was jamming these drones, and...
KELLY: Right.
GOTTEMOELLER: ...They strayed into the Polish airspace, and Belarus even warned Poland about that. So that's a possible explanation.
KELLY: OK.
GOTTEMOELLER: Another one is that Moscow indeed was probing, and probing air defenses and seeing how the allies would respond. So...
KELLY: Right.
GOTTEMOELLER: ...That's, I think, the decision that NATO's weighing now. What exactly was this? Was this intentional or was it an accident?
KELLY: Rose Gottemoeller, former deputy secretary-general of NATO, thank you.
GOTTEMOELLER: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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