The continent is at risk. The demand to do nothing is not a rational response.
There is a class of intellectuals, politicians, academics, and bureaucrats, European as well as American, who think differently about Russia. They tell us the country is nasty and possibly a bit overzealous in its foreign policy, but that it presents no imminent threat to continental security, and simply doesn’t matter very much.
So why is Europe rearming, and does it have good reason to do so?
One reason is President Trump’s unrelenting pressure on European governments to spend more on defense. But equally importantly, Europe is spending more on defense because Europe is, and has long been, under attack from Russia.
Moreover, this war began at least 11 years ago, but has steadily expanded in scope as Moscow has bogged down in its war against Ukraine. Dmitri Trenin, then Director of the Moscow office of the Carnegie Endowment, observed in 2017 that, for some time, “the Kremlin has been de facto operating in a war mode”.
Russia’s threats to Europe encompass not only the war in Ukraine but also a comprehensive conventional and nuclear missile buildup that has now reached the point of being able to target all of Europe, from Great Britain to the Black Sea and the Baltic States.
Apart from the large force engaged in Ukraine, Russia is mobilizing new forces and deploying them along its border with Finland and the Baltic states, while deploying short and intermediate-range dual-capable missiles that can carry either conventional or nuclear missiles in Belarus.
As General Christopher Cavoli, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, told the US Senate in April: “Despite extensive battlefield losses in Ukraine, the Russian military is reconstituting and growing at a faster rate than most analysts had anticipated. In fact, the Russian army, which has borne the brunt of combat, is today larger than it was at the beginning of the war — despite suffering an estimated 790,000 casualties.”
As a result, the leaders of the intelligence services of Great Britain, Germany, Denmark, Poland, Estonia, and NATO Secretary General, Mark Rutte, have all stated publicly that within 2-10 years, depending on the speaker, Russia will either be ready for war with Europe or actually start one.
And should it prevail in Ukraine, there is no doubt that it will try to expand into neighboring countries as Ukrainian President Zelenskyy has repeatedly warned. But Russia’s war upon Europe is not confined to exclusively military capabilities.
In fact, for over a decade, Russia has waged non-kinetic, but now intensifying, attacks on European countries from the UK to the Black Sea. In this war, Russia has murdered and hospitalized both defectors and British citizens using radiological and biological weapons — in one case casually discarding a phial with enough nerve agent to kill thousands.
It has worked with Russian organized crime groups in Spain. It has carried out assassinations of leading defense industrialists in Germany and Bulgaria, and is seeking to assassinate prominent critics of the regime, like the Bulgarian-born journalist Christo Gozev.
Russia and its agents, including Chinese ships, have attacked European maritime infrastructure, cutting cables in the Baltic Sea, committed arson at Polish shopping malls and British warehouses, and has built a shadow fleet to avoid the sanctions imposed upon it by the West. Now, after some of those ships were interdicted, Russia is escorting them with fighter aircraft and naval vessels to intimidate European forces who are enforcing those sanctions and threaten military incidents.
In economic affairs, Russia has long sought to use the influence and money accruing to it from its energy trade with Europe to gain permanent political influence in European politics. This is particularly visible in the Balkans, Austria, and in Germany.
At the same time, Russia has in the past subsidized extreme right-wing parties like the Alternativ fur Deutschland (AfD) in Germany and the Rassemblement National (National Rally) in France. On top of all this, Russia regularly interferes in foreign elections, as shown in the recent Romanian, Moldovan, and Bulgarian elections, as well as the US presidential elections of 2016 and 2020.
Under the circumstances, remilitarization and the rebuilding of the resilience of European societies to withstand these attacks is not just fully justified, it is essential. Moreover, it is urgent that European governments find the means not only to raise spending but to increase the efficiency of that spending by orders of magnitude to provide credible and integrated forces that can deter Russia.
As the New York Times writer rightly notes, too often, military spending has led to so-called “zombie armies” that exist more on paper than in reality. There are also far too many well-known deficiencies in current European defense spending to enumerate here. But these shortcomings cannot be used to negate the campaign to defend Europe, and overcome these defects by attacking the need to rebuild military capability.
It is regrettable that Europe may have to sacrifice elements of its social contract and welfare state. But as Shakespeare observed: “When the blast of war blows in our ear, then imitate the action of a tiger.”
Those who highlight the sheer weakness of Europe’s current military forces are not hearing the blast; they have become more ostrich than tiger.
Ignoring the threat, or conjuring up a supposed militarism, will do nothing to defend Europe, especially a bloodied Ukraine that for three years has defended the continent against a barbaric attempt to wipe it from the map.
European defense, starting with Ukraine, is no longer an option that can be deferred. Rather, it is Europe’s fate, and must be embraced without further delay.