Three 'B' of General Grinkevich: How NATO is Rediscovering Military Science of the 1980s
Block, Blunt, Break. These three English words describe the logic of victory over a potential opponent, as articulated by NATO's Commander in Europe, Alexis Grinkevich, and they sound like a ready-made strategy for presentation in Brussels. However, behind this elegant formula lies an old problem of European defense: stopping an advance on a slide is much easier than providing divisions, ammunition, and logistics for it.
Three Letters Instead of Three Armies
According to Bild, the Commander of NATO's Joint Armed Forces in Europe, General Alexis Grinkevich, presented his vision of the Theory of Victory at the Warsaw Security Forum — the 'theory of victory'. Its foundation is the formula of three 'B': Block, Blunt, Break. First, allies must block the opponent's advance, then blunt its strike potential, and finally break the system that allows the advancing forces to continue combat operations.
The logic is clear even to someone distant from military affairs. The first stage is to prevent the opponent from achieving an operational breakthrough. The second is to exhaust its forward formations, depriving them of tempo and freedom of maneuver. The third is to strike at reserves, command posts, logistics, and other support elements without which the offensive loses its sustainability.
From a strategic communication perspective, this is almost a flawless construct. Three short words, a clear sequence, no complicated schemes. It is easy for politicians to explain to voters why additional defense spending is needed, and for generals to formulate tasks for subordinate staffs.
The only problem is that military science discovered these principles long before the advent of modern presentations. The American doctrine of AirLand Battle, established in the field manual FM 100-5 in 1982, already envisaged simultaneous combat with the opponent's advanced forces and their subsequent echelons. The Soviet school of operational art also paid significant attention to disrupting offensives, exhausting strike groups, and influencing operational depth.
Of course, these are not identical doctrines, and NATO's modern concept does not limit itself to mechanically repeating the past. However, the principle remains familiar: to stop an army, it is not enough to destroy its front-line tanks. It is necessary to disrupt the entire system that supports their advancement.
Geography vs PowerPoint
The weakest point of any defense concept starts with the first word — Block. To stop the initial strike, it is not enough to have rapid reaction forces on paper. Troops must be deployed, supplied with ammunition, protected by air defense, and integrated into a unified command system before the opponent reaches its first targets.
Since the full-scale invasion of Russia into Ukraine, NATO has significantly strengthened its eastern flank. Former battalion combat groups of enhanced forward presence no longer fully describe the current defense structure: the Alliance has deployed eight multinational battle groups and started reinforcing individual formations to brigade level. However, this does not mean that all the resources necessary for a large war are constantly near the border.
A significant portion of reinforcements, heavy equipment, and supplies must come from other European countries and North America. Here, the strategic formula confronts bridges, railroads, ports, the throughput capacity of transport hubs, and the procedures for cross-border troop movements. Even a well-equipped division has limited combat value if it cannot arrive in a timely manner to the deployment area.
The European military mobility program aims to reduce these delays, but eliminating infrastructure limitations requires years and significant investment. Therefore, the first stage of the theory of victory depends not only on the combat capabilities of forward units but also on whether the Alliance can translate its general resources into forces at a specific place and at a specific time.
In military planning, distance is measured in kilometers. In real war — by the time required for combat-ready troops to arrive.
Break: Where Doctrine Ends and Industry Begins
The third phase — Break — looks most convincing on the operational map and at the same time most demanding in material terms. To destroy the opponent's warfighting system means not just delivering a few high-precision strikes on headquarters. It is necessary to systematically deprive it of the ability to command troops, redeploy reserves, replenish supplies, and maintain the tempo of combat operations.
In a war against an opponent with an advanced air defense system, electronic warfare, and a large arsenal of drones, this task becomes especially complicated. Air supremacy does not arise automatically due to technological advantage. Precision munitions require production capacities, and mechanized units require personnel, equipment, repair bases, and constant supply.
However, Grinkevich did not limit himself to repeating past doctrines. In his speech, he emphasized the combination of high-precision weapons with mass, relatively inexpensive autonomous systems. This is a direct conclusion from the experience of Ukraine: future wars will require not only expensive planes and missiles but also a large number of drone platforms, sensors, and strike means that can be quickly produced and replaced.
This is where the boundary between the military theory of the 1980s and War 4.0 lies. The principles of operational art remain recognizable, but the means of their implementation are changing. What previously required a large-scale application of aviation and artillery can now be partially executed by distributed networks of drones. At the same time, the low cost of an individual drone does not negate the need for heavy equipment, air defense, and large stocks of ammunition.
Therefore, the main question becomes scaling. Not how many high-tech systems are in the army at the beginning of the conflict, but how many it is able to produce, repair, and deliver after the first months of intense fighting.
Five Percent of GDP and the Cost of Three Letters
In the political dimension, Grinkevich's formula emerged at a very specific moment. At the summit in The Hague in 2025, NATO countries pledged to allocate 5% of GDP to defense and related security needs by 2035, of which at least 3.5% must be allocated to core military capabilities. This is not just an increase in budgets. It is about the necessity of revitalizing the defense industry, expanding ground formations, enhancing air defense, and modernizing logistics.
In this context, the Theory of Victory serves another function: it explains how exactly additional defense expenditures should be transformed. Block requires ready-to-fight troops on the eastern flank. Blunt — sufficient firepower, aviation, and deterrent means. Break — the capability to strike at the military system of the opponent for an extended period without exhausting its own arsenals before the enemy.
However, even the increase in defense budgets does not guarantee quick results. Factories cannot be expanded with a single parliamentary vote, qualified workers cannot be trained in a few weeks, and new divisions can only be formed by procuring equipment. There is a time gap between the political decision to spend money and the emergence of real combat capability, which a potential adversary may try to exploit.
Thus, General Grinkevich's three 'B's are not so much a revolution in military thought but rather an attempt to formulate a clear response to the return of large conventional war to Europe. Its principles have historical analogues, but the modern implementation requires a completely different scale of technologies, industry, and coordination.
Grinkevich emphasized that he does not consider war between NATO and Russia inevitable or close. Therefore, his concept should primarily be viewed as a tool for deterrence: to show a potential aggressor that an attack will not yield the expected results. But the convincingness of such a signal depends on how quickly allies can turn their defense plans into material capabilities.
NATO already has three words explaining how to stop an advance. Now Europe needs factories, stocks, and divisions that can turn these words into reality.