Nato vs. Russia: which side would win in a war?

Nato and the EU were quick to condemn a Russian drone attack on a block of flats in Romania last week which injured two people, and which the military alliance’s chief Mark Rutte called “reckless”.

It is still not known whether Friday’s attack in Galati was deliberate or an accident. Neighbouring Ukraine employs a large range of anti-drone and jamming technologies so “it is far from impossible that one of these capabilities could have sent a Russian drone off course”, said the BBC. But, “there are others who believe that what we are seeing is a deliberate provocation by Russia, probing Nato defences to see how they react to a drone attack – and the political fallout”.

While European leaders reacted with strong words about Russian aggression and their commitment to collective defence, the incident has “inevitably raised new questions about Nato’s ability to protect its own territory”, said The New York Times. These doubts “serve the interests” of Vladimir Putin, “which are to divide Nato, break up the trans-Atlantic alliance and encourage Washington to bring its troops and missiles home, leaving Europe more vulnerable”.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Latest Videos From

Watch full video here:

Nato’s military power

The last year has proved one of the most tumultuous for the world’s most successful military alliance, as Donald Trump had used the threat of US withdrawal from Nato as a tool to pressure other members to boost defence allocations.

America is by far Nato’s biggest player and spends almost as much on defence as the next 10 spenders in the world combined. Its total in 2024 was about $997 billion (£728 billion), according to Statista – nearly 40% of the total military spending worldwide that year. The UK sits in sixth place, with spending of $81.8 billion (£59.7 billion).

Amid fears the US could even pull out of the alliance, Nato members in June 2025 agreed to an ambitious 2035 target of spending 5% of GDP on defence. While the US commitment “should remain iron-clad,” said a Washington Post editorial at the time, it was only right Europe should take up more of the burden so that Washington can “make major investments” to confront the rise of China. This is still worth it to Europe: Nato is “worth fighting, and spending, to preserve”.

Recent violations of Polish, Romanian and Estonian airspace by Russian jets and drones have “thrust Nato’s collective defence principles into the spotlight”, said Al Jazeera. When multiple Russian drones entered Polish airspace last September, the Institute for the Study of War think tank said it was no navigational accident, but an “attempt to gauge both Poland’s and Nato’s capabilities and reactions”.

An attack on any neighbouring Nato member “could trigger Article 5 of the Nato treaty”, said Al Jazeera, meaning that all other Nato members, including the US, would be compelled, under the mutual assistance clause, to come to their aid. And, together, their substantial firepower could give Nato the edge in all-out war.

Nato’s resources have also been bolstered by the accession of two new member states since the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine: Finland, which joined in April 2023, and Sweden, which was admitted in March 2024 after a two-year struggle to overcome vetoes from Hungary and Turkey.

While both have large defence industries and advance military capabilities, the biggest contribution the two new members bring to the table is “geostrategic”, said the US Institute of Peace think-tank, their location shoring up the alliance’s exposed northeastern flank and shielding the Baltic states, regarded as most vulnerable to future Russian aggression.

But as well as how much governments spend, how they spend that money is also important. “Duplicate and incompatible capabilities” are a problem: there are 178 weapon systems types and 17 different makes of tank in the EU alone, said the BBC. Defence contracts tend to be negotiated years in advance and production takes a long time so untangling inefficiencies and pooling resources would not be quick or easy.

Collectively, the 32 members of Nato can field a “powerful, and modern fighting force”, said Kyiv Independent, “but – its European contingent at least – faces ammunition shortages, a fragmented defence industry, and insufficient air defence coverage”.

Western armies, with their artillery and armoured vehicles, are out of date whereas “it is Ukraine that today has perhaps the most combat-ready army in Europe”, wrote Oleg Dunda, a member of parliament for Ukraine, in The Spectator. The US has more weaponry but Ukraine’s army is unique in having adapted to the new, mostly electronic, unmanned systems that are the most successful elements of the Russian barrage. A potential invasion of the Baltic states might not involve a single tank.

“It will be unexpected: with communication blackouts, drone strikes on infrastructure and civilian convoys in uniform without identification marks,” said Dunda. “Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania may simply wake up as part of Russia. Without a single shot fired by Nato.” An invasion of the Baltics could happen at any time, including while Russia is still fighting in Ukraine. Europe does not necessarily have much time to prepare but it is not necessary to spend 5% of GDP, as Nato chief Mark Rutte is pushing for, because drones cost a lot less than nuclear submarines and are more effective for the war ahead.

Nato’s secretary general has previously said Ukraine will see an immediate military presence from allied forces as soon as a peace agreement with Russia is reached. Addressing Ukraine’s parliament in February, Mark Rutte vowed that ground, air and naval forces from countries in the “coalition of the willing” will be deployed to Ukraine “instantly”.

Russia’s military power

Despite international sanctions and its well-publicised recent struggles in Ukraine, Russia has “accelerated its military production”, said UK Defence Journal. Military spending surged to an estimated €120 billion (£103 billion) in 2025 – equivalent to over 6% of GDP – nearly quadrupling the country’s 2021 defence budget.

The German intelligence service and army “believe the Russian war economy is generating more output than is required solely for operations in Ukraine”, suggesting it could be preparing for a wider confrontation.

Last year, Putin launched Russia’s biggest conscription drive in over a decade, as he looks to boost the number of active servicemen to 1.5 million. While this would give Russia a bigger army than the US alone, it still falls well behind Nato’s collective might. According to Statista, Nato has 3,649,832 active soldiers, compared to Russia’s current 1,320,000. Russia has only about 4,237 military aircraft compared with Nato’s combined 20,375, and 747 military ships compared to Nato’s 2,818. Russia is decisively outnumbered by Nato for tanks (5,630 to 12,299), and in terms of armoured vehicles overall its stock of 126,512 is dwarfed by Nato’s 1,238,729. The two forces are evenly matched in terms of known nuclear capability, with the Nato nuclear powers – the US, UK and France – able to field 5,692 nuclear warheads to Russia’s 5,459. In October, Putin announced the successful test of the Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile – nicknamed the “Flying Chernobyl” because it emits radioactive exhaust from its unshielded reactor. It is capable of flying for 15 hours non-stop and covering a distance of 14,000km (8,700 miles), putting almost all Nato states in its range.

Russia’s war economy has so far remained remarkably resilient in the face of Western sanctions, and will have been further boosted by the Trump administration’s easing of restrictions on Russian oil in the face of the global energy crisis sparked by the war in Iran. This has allowed its “military-industrial complex to churn out tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, missiles, ammunition and artillery pieces”, said Al Jazeera.

The Kremlin’s ambitious production targets reveal preparations not only for its war against Ukraine but also for a potential large-scale confrontation with Nato as early as 2029 “if its armament efforts persist”, said Reuters.

A full-scale attack on a Nato member is not as far-fetched as it might seem, according to Germany’s chief of defence, General Carsten Breuer. Russia has been producing “hundreds of tanks a year”, he told the BBC – enough to attack a Nato Baltic state by the end of the decade.

And the ammunition supplies that Russia is also producing, such as drones, missiles and artillery shells, aren’t all going to the war in Ukraine; “there’s a build-up of the stocks”, too, the general said. He identified the Suwałki Gap, an area on the Russian border with Poland, Lithuania and Belarus as the most “vulnerable” area for an invasion that “could trigger a larger war between Russia and the US”.

“Under the most favourable conditions for Russia”, the Kremlin’s goal “would not be to defeat the alliance militarily, but to divide it through limited territorial gains, if necessary under threat of nuclear weapons use”, said Defense News.

The cost of war

The cost of destruction in the warzone, higher energy prices, and a sell-off in financial markets could total $1.5 trillion (£1.14 trillion) in the first year, roughly the same as the impact of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to Bloomberg Economics.

The human cost aside, Baltic states would naturally be the worst affected, suffering a 43% hit to their economies in the first year of fighting. Frontline Nato members such as Poland and Finland would take a “smaller but still significant hit as missiles fly” while GDP of the EU as a whole would fall by 1.2% “and debt would be put on a steeper upward trajectory”. Losses would be “much greater if the conflict spilled into other European countries”.

Who would win then?

“Putin has made confrontation with the West the guiding principle of Russia’s foreign policy and he is creating the option for a war against Nato in the future,” German foreign minister Johann Wadephul said on a visit to Latvia earlier this year.

Moscow has been accused of waging “hybrid warfare” against Europe, including damage to undersea data and energy cables in the Baltic Sea, drone incursions into European airspace, and disinformation campaigns targeting democratic elections.

Yet despite the easing of some US sanctions and the current focus on the war in the Middle East, “Russia is in no shape to take on Nato”, with the alliance having been “revitalised” by the invasion of Ukraine, said Al Jazeera.

Even without the US, the collective military capability of Nato members is “formidable”, said George Allison in The Telegraph.

“The technological sophistication and interoperability of Nato forces significantly amplify their combat effectiveness.” The alliance’s “strength resides in its ability to leverage cutting-edge technology and integrated command structures to conduct operations adaptable to the battlefield’s rapidly changing circumstances”.

With an integrated command structure developed over decades, better trained and equipped troops and the “notable difference in the quality of Western weapons, all this adds up to the conclusion that Nato would quickly prevail in any conventional war against Russia”, said Al Jazeera.

Yet herein lies the “danger”: that “a series of defeats might force Moscow to use tactical nuclear weapons or face total defeat”.