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In his 2022 article, “Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine and NATO’s Nuclear Credibility Crisis,” Tyler Bowen argued that NATO should embrace what he called “moderate brinksmanship tactics” to deter Russia. Three years later, we asked him to reevaluate his analysis.Image: 1st Lt. Johnathan Carkhuff, Air Combat Command Public AffairsIn your 2022 article, “Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine and NATO’s Nuclear Credibility Crisis,” you argued that NATO should embrace “moderate brinkmanship” tactics to deter Russian expansion. Nearly three years later, how do you assess the effectiveness of NATO’s deterrence strategy? In the Biden administration, NATO’s deterrent strategy towards Russia was based on two pillars. The first was making it as difficult as possible for Russia to gain territory in Ukraine. This would constrain Russia’s ability to act elsewhere. The second pillar was the threat of U.S. intervention should Russia cross some sort of “red line,” whether that be tactical nuclear use in Ukraine or a conventional attack against a member state. For example, Biden said early on in the Russo-Ukrainian war that “so long as the United States or our allies are not attacked, we will not be directly engaged in this conflict.” I think by eating up lots of Russian materiel and manpower, this strategy reduced Russia’s capability to conduct a ground attack in the Baltic states, like I feared could happen. This contributed to a type of “deterrence by denial.” Bob Woodward, in his recent book, shows how U.S. officials thought that Putin was quite fearful of direct U.S. involvement in the war in Ukraine and wanted to avoid it. While the Biden administration eschewed nuclear threats, this deterrent strategy still implicitly relied on the possibility of nuclear escalation to restrain Russia, as a direct conflict between the United States, supported by NATO allies, and Russia would increase the risk of nuclear