New U.S. intelligence has found that Russian President Vladimir Putin could launch a limited attack on a NATO member country sometime between this fall and 2029, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.
The assessment marks a shift from previous U.S. intelligence conclusions, which held that Putin would not strike a NATO country while still engaged in the war in Ukraine. With Ukraine making battlefield gains, U.S. and European officials have seen increasing signs that Russia is probing the alliance's boundaries and testing its resolve.
Evidence of that probing has already appeared in physical incidents. A Russian drone struck a Romanian apartment building in May. Cruise missiles landed in Poland late last month, both of which are NATO member states. Those incidents have added urgency to the new intelligence assessment.
The assessment concludes that any attack would likely be limited in scope. Options could include a cyberattack, sabotage, or a small-scale land incursion. The Baltics and Poland are identified as the most likely targets. A full land incursion was considered the least probable option because it would most clearly trigger Article 5, NATO's collective defense clause, which states that an attack on one member is an attack on all members. The uncertainty around how the United States would respond to something below that threshold, such as a cyberattack, is a central concern.
Heather Conley, a senior fellow with the American Enterprise Institute, spoke to the Journal about the strategic logic behind such a move. "The question mark is how the United States would respond in that case," she said. "It has always been a goal [of Russia's] to challenge the credibility of NATO and to separate the United States from its allies."
Conley also noted the difficulty NATO faces when the attack falls below the level that clearly requires a collective military response. "This has always been NATO's challenge to respond to a sub-Article 5 attack, and it's been very true that to this point, NATO allies have preferred not to escalate," she told the Journal.
The assessment also comes alongside claims that U.S. munitions stockpiles have been drawn down by weapons sent to Ukraine and by the war in Iran. Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell pushed back on that claim directly.
"We have everything required to strike at the time and place of the president's choosing," Parnell told the Journal. "Across multiple combatant commands, we have already executed successful operations while maintaining a deep, ready arsenal to defend our people and our interests. Any adversary who confuses media noise with American weakness will discover the truth the hard way."
NATO did respond when contacted by the Journal. Col. Martin O'Donnell, a NATO spokesman, said, "We are always thinking through and preparing for any number of scenarios. NATO is watching, and we are ready to deter and defend as necessary, which we continue to demonstrate."
Fox News Digital reported it reached out to NATO separately for additional comment. The alliance has not publicly released any formal response beyond O'Donnell's statement to the Journal.
The window identified in the assessment, from this fall through 2029, gives the alliance a defined but not distant timeline. How NATO members, and particularly the United States, would respond to an attack that falls short of a clear Article 5 trigger remains the central unresolved question.
