The Risk Of War Is Once Again Real: Russia Is Forcing Europe To Face The Truth

When, last month, a group of defence experts gathered in Whitehall, the seat of the United Kingdom (UK) government, to discuss how prepared the UK and its allies are for a war they believe could break out in the next few years, their conclusion was rather bleak: they are not ready.

Those gathered at the conference, organized by the London-based research centre the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), were not warmongers; they were people in the know. Current and former members of the armed forces, government and NATO officials, researchers, and defence industry experts whose thinking is based on a widely accepted intelligence assessment that Russia is preparing for the possibility of a direct conflict with Europe.

The only way to prevent this, they say, is to ensure that, if war breaks out, Europe will win.

Greater investment in Europe’s chronically underfunded defence is crucial, but security experts are increasingly warning that a major shift in mindset across all areas is also needed. The time has come, they say, for European governments to involve their citizens and clearly make it known that the time when Europe could ignore the threat of war has passed.

“I think there are indications that societies are ready for this conversation, but I also think we are seeing governments that are still not confident enough to have that conversation with their public,” said Sam Greene, professor of Russian politics at King’s College London and an expert on democratic resilience.

There is a growing consensus among experts that Russia is already waging a hybrid war against the West by carrying out sabotage operations and injecting chaos and disinformation into domestic political debates. They point to overwhelming evidence, including repeated incursions by Russian aircraft and drones into NATO airspace and GPS interference in the Baltic states, to disinformation campaigns and sabotage attacks on critical infrastructure in multiple countries that are linked to Russian intelligence services. Russia has consistently denied involvement.