NATO commander outlines response to an attack on an ally, as drone defences take shape

NATO’s top military commander, Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, described in Warsaw on Monday, October 12, how the alliance would respond to an attack on an ally: stop the initial assault, prevent an advance and, if necessary, break the attacking forces. The warning matters because some of the systems intended to detect and counter drones are still being established, according to the Associated Press.

Speaking at the Warsaw Security Forum, Grynkewich said an attack on any ally should prove ‘utterly futile’. His account was a description of how NATO intends to respond to a hypothetical attack, not an announcement that fighting has begun or that every capability he described is already in place.

How Grynkewich said NATO would stop an attack

The first stage would be to block an initial attack. NATO would then blunt the assault so an adversary could not advance. If those measures were insufficient, Grynkewich said the alliance would break both the attacking forces and the operational system that enables them to fight.

That final stage would reach beyond forces at the point of attack. Grynkewich said NATO would target what supports, sustains and controls an attacking force. AP reported that he described using combined land, sea and air forces to stop an adversary from seizing territory and deny it the ability to hold ground.

Grynkewich said he did not believe conflict was imminent or inevitable, AP reported. He described preparing for war while keeping communication open to resolve misunderstandings as a means of preserving peace. The distinction matters for allies and their residents: the commander was setting out a deterrent response, not forecasting a date for a conflict.

Where NATO’s counter-drone capability stands

The commander’s description of a response does not establish how much of the required capability is ready across the alliance. AP reported that a system linking sensors and other technology to detect and counter drones is still being established. Grynkewich’s spokesperson, Col. Martin O’Donnell, told AP that the system had not yet taken down any drones.

AP also reported that some NATO countries have struggled in drone-warfare exercises and in responding to drones that entered their airspace. Those examples identify a practical challenge alongside the commander’s warning, but they do not provide a measure of the alliance’s overall readiness or show how it would perform in the hypothetical attack he described.

Grynkewich told Reuters he spoke publicly in part to reassure alliance citizens made nervous by sabotage and arson incidents. AP reported that he urged allies to coordinate a coherent response and continue supporting Ukraine. He also said no one should question the United States’ commitment to NATO, while acknowledging that decisions on troop deployments are ultimately political.

The threat assessment and what remains unclear

AP reported that Denmark’s Defense Intelligence Agency assessed a ‘low but growing risk’ of a limited military attack against one or more NATO members bordering Russia. The agency said such an attack could seek to pull European resources away from Ukraine and divide the alliance. AP said both the Danish service and O’Donnell assessed that an outright attack would be difficult for Russia while it is fighting in Ukraine.

The tension also extends below the threshold of open war. AP said Western officials blamed Russia for at least 211 incidents since its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, using a tally AP tracked. That is an attribution by officials, not a finding establishing responsibility for every incident. Reuters reported that Russia has repeatedly denied involvement in sabotage and other hybrid operations.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said this month that Russia had no plans to attack a European country and wanted peaceful coexistence, Reuters reported. Grynkewich’s remarks therefore sit alongside differing public accounts of the threat: his description of NATO’s intended response, Denmark’s limited-risk assessment and Moscow’s denial of plans to attack.

The reports give no operational breakdown of which forces or locations would be involved in the three stages Grynkewich described. They also provide no timetable for completing the counter-drone links AP identified and document no formal alliance decision adopting a new plan. For now, the established development is the commander’s public account of NATO’s intended response, with a visible gap between that message and demonstrated drone-defence capability.