NATO fighter jets have been scrambled nearly 700 times over the past two years to intercept Russian aircraft approaching or behaving erratically near Alliance airspace, NATO Military Committee Chairman Adm. Giuseppe Cavo Dragone said Monday.
Speaking at the Taranto Naval Base in southern Italy, Dragone said the figure showed that the security threats facing NATO are not hypothetical.
“The threats are real, and there are many,” Dragone said, citing Russia and terrorist groups as well as less visible threats such as disinformation, hybrid attacks and authoritarian states challenging the international order.
Over two years, NATO aircraft have been forced to take off on emergency missions “about 700 times” to intercept Russian aircraft or aircraft-like objects approaching Alliance airspace, he said.
“Seven hundred takeoffs in two years. Do the math: almost one a day,” Dragone said.
NATO’s ‘3.0’ Era
Dragone also outlined his vision of “NATO 3.0” – a rebalanced Alliance in which European members take on a larger role alongside the United States.
He said NATO was returning to its core mission of collective defense while facing threats from all directions, including conventional and hybrid attacks, as well as physical and digital threats from the east, south and Arctic.
In earlier remarks on X, Dragone said NATO must become better at adapting to pressure rather than simply absorbing it.
“Antifragility is the strategic advantage of the 21st century,” he wrote, comparing a fragile glass that shatters under stress with a muscle that grows stronger because of it.
He argued that future strategic superiority would not necessarily belong to those with the most advanced weapons, but to those able to “learn faster, decide faster, produce faster, innovate faster, and recover faster” in peacetime, during crises and in war.