Seeking ways to deter U.S. support for Ukraine, Russia is pursuing a strategy of dangled escalation. Russia does not want a major confrontation with the United States, but it does want to encourage the Biden administration and Americans to believe that continued U.S. support for Ukraine is far riskier than it is beneficial.
In that context, influential Russian propagandists and military bloggers are now hinting that Russian President Vladimir Putin might order the downing of a U.S. drone over the Black Sea. They claim a U.S. drone was recently forced to return to its base after its flight path was intercepted by a Russian jet. And while Putin makes decisions without great regard for his hot air propagandists, recent events likely make a drone downing more appealing to Putin.
Namely, last Sunday’s incident in which Russia accused Ukraine and the U.S. of coordinating to launch a U.S.-provided ATACMS ballistic missile at Crimean beachgoers. Four civilians were reported killed in that incident. While it’s unclear whether an ATACMS missile or Russian air defense munition was responsible for the Crimean deaths, that answer doesn’t particularly matter to Putin. What matters is that Putin has seized on the civilian deaths and video of screaming beachgoers to boost his narrative that the U.S. is risking direct confrontation with Russia by its military support for Ukraine.
Again, Putin wants Americans to believe their government is taking too many risks in Ukraine and thus to put pressure on President Joe Biden and, prospectively, former President Donald Trump to reduce support for Ukraine. Of note: The Kremlin has promised direct “consequences” against the U.S. for the Crimea incident. Of equal note, the Kremlin accuses U.S. drones operating over the Black Sea of coordinating Ukrainian strikes on Crimea. This is untrue. While these drones are actually providing targeting intelligence on Russian force movements, positions, and intentions, they are not supporting the so-called “kill chain” to effect an attack.
Still, the risk is that Putin might believe downing a U.S. RQ-4 Global Hawk or MQ-4C Triton drone would be tolerated by the Biden administration in a hat-tip to Russian anger over the Crimea incident. Russia has already shown it is willing to endanger U.S. aircraft. Russian jets downed a U.S. drone over the Black Sea in March 2023. While apparently accidental, that incident showed the aggressive unprofessionalism of Russian forces but did not meet any consequences from the Biden administration. Last July, Russian forces also damaged a U.S. drone operating over Syria. More ominous was a Russian fighter pilot’s misconstruing of orders in September 2022, which led him to fire two missiles at a British reconnaissance aircraft with approximately 20 crew members. One missile missed, and the other malfunctioned. Since then, the United Kingdom has deployed fighter jets to escort manned surveillance flights.
The question for the Biden administration is how to respond to this growing threat.
Many in the administration would likely wish to broadly tolerate a Russian attack on a U.S. drone as a price to pay to avoid further conflagration. But that approach would come with two problems. First, it would greatly undermine both the U.S. and NATO’s deterrent credibility, encouraging Russia to test the margins of that credibility in other areas, such as the Baltic Sea and Estonian airspace. Second, it would afford Putin the sense that he has the strategic initiative in his confrontational relations with the West. It would encourage him to test further in different areas, undermining Western and Ukrainian security. These outcomes are intolerable to the U.S.
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In turn, the Biden administration should warn Moscow it will not tolerate either a direct Russian attack on a U.S. drone or a deliberate attack veiled as an accidental one. It should pledge that any attack will result in U.S. military retaliation against those Russian forces involved.
Taking that stance and sticking to it, Putin can be restrained, NATO deterrence maintained, and the imperfect but tolerable status quo secured.