Europe Prepares for War

Over the past few weeks, a noticeable shift has taken place in European political, military, and intelligence discourse. Senior figures across NATO and national governments have begun speaking openly about the possibility of a major war with Russia and about the need to prepare Europe for that eventuality. Prior to this, discussions concerning the threat posed by Russia centred on aiding Ukrainian efforts and the possibility of conflict with other European countries at some point in the future. Now, conflict with Russia is increasingly discussed as if it were an inevitability.

This shift in tone is best exemplified by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who warned recently that “Russia has brought war back to Europe” and that NATO must be ready for a conflict on a scale endured by Europe’s grandparents and great-grandparents. He went further, suggesting that Russia could be in a position to attack a NATO member within five years. The Chairman of NATO’s Military Committee, Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, went even further still by suggesting that the alliance may need to consider “preventive action” against Russian assets, including pre-emptive strikes on potential drone launch sites. While such remarks do not necessarily signal imminent war, they do indicate how far strategic thinking has shifted from deterrence through rhetoric alone towards deterrence by a demonstrable willingness to act.

Individual NATO countries have been expressing similar sentiments. In Britain, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton stated that the current security situation is more dangerous than at any point in his career and warned that “the price of peace is rising”. Crucially, he argued that responding to this threat requires more than strengthening armed forces. It requires a whole-of-nation response. This phrase has become increasingly common across Europe in recent times and represents the mobilisation of all facets of national life in preparation for conflict. In other words, total war.

British intelligence has echoed these sentiments. In her first public speech as head of MI6, Blaise Metreweli described the current environment as a space “between peace and war”, characterised by constant pressure below the threshold of open conflict. It was disclosed that she had recently held a lengthy telephone conversation with Sergei Naryshkin, head of Russia’s foreign intelligence service. Even as discussion shifts towards preparation for open conflict, channels of communication remain open. This contradiction between confrontation and conversation reflects the precarious balance between war and peace.

These warnings, however, have not emerged without cause. They coincide with a cluster of incidents across Europe that governments increasingly describe as components of a sustained hybrid campaign. Lithuania’s declaration of a state of emergency following repeated balloon incursions from Belarus is one of the most visible examples. While the balloons themselves may appear inconsequential, Lithuanian authorities have linked them to organised smuggling networks and the deliberate probing of NATO responses. The European Parliament has formally condemned these incursions as hybrid attacks.

The violation of territorial boundaries by Russian air and naval forces is not a new phenomenon and has been ongoing for many years. Between 2005 and 2022, the Royal Air Force scrambled fighter jets 136 times to intercept Russian military aircraft approaching UK airspace. However, in recent months this activity has escalated in both frequency and intensity. In June, Royal Air Force Typhoons were scrambled six times in six days over Poland. In November, the Royal Navy carried out two interceptions over the course of just two weeks, with Russian crewmembers directing lasers at the RAF pilots tracking them and jamming GPS signals in the surrounding area.

Elsewhere, Denmark’s intelligence services have accused Russia-linked groups of cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, including water utilities. Germany has faced suspected cyberattacks targeting the Bundestag, including during President Zelensky’s visit. Reports of Russian military aircraft repeatedly entering Baltic airspace, brief incursions near NATO borders, and ongoing cyber and sabotage investigations across several EU states all contribute to a sense of persistent, low-level confrontation. None of these incidents alone would constitute an act of war, but together they support the claim that Europe is already engaged in a form of undeclared conflict.

There are several plausible motivations behind the recent intensification of rhetoric. The first is a genuine belief that a wider conflict with Russia is becoming more likely. From this perspective, preparation serves two purposes. It enhances deterrence by signalling capability and resolve, and it improves battlefield effectiveness should deterrence fail. A second motivation is diplomatic leverage. By emphasising long-term preparedness and framing the war in Ukraine as part of a broader confrontation, European governments may be seeking to influence Russia’s calculations regarding any future peace settlement. Heightened rhetoric and increased military spending can function as signals that Europe is prepared for prolonged competition rather than eager to compromise. In this sense, preparation may serve less as a prelude to war and more as a bargaining tool for peace.

Despite much of the discourse pointing towards the need to prepare for impending conflict, serious questions remain about Europe’s actual readiness for a major war. Britain retains a reputation as Europe’s foremost military power, aside from Russia itself, but the reality is far from reassuring. Significant portions of the armed forces are effectively mothballed through years of underfunding, while much of the existing equipment is outdated or poorly suited to high-intensity modern conflict. Britain’s military also remains largely untested in the era of drone warfare against a modern military power, a form of conflict that differs substantially from counterinsurgency operations in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Most critically, Britain’s industrial base has been hollowed out over decades. The capacity to produce munitions, vehicles, and replacement systems at scale is simply not comparable to that of Russia. History suggests that industrial output is as decisive as battlefield performance. The United States’ dominance in the Second World War owed as much to its manufacturing capacity as to its soldiers. Britain, by contrast, is now dependent on complex international supply chains that would be highly vulnerable in a major conflict. With energy costs among the highest in the world and industrial output trending towards pre-industrial revolution levels, Britain simply does not possess the economic capacity to mobilise for war in any meaningful sense.

Beyond material concerns, Britain faces an additional problem of national cohesion. Compared to the two world wars, when Britain was an ethnically homogeneous, deeply nationalistic, and self-assured world power, the Britain of today is profoundly different. The country increasingly functions less as a nation and more as an economic zone, attracting people from around the world primarily for work and opportunity rather than to serve a greater purpose under a shared collective identity. Those who have come to profit from Britain’s comparatively prosperous economy are unlikely to possess the strong sentimental attachment to the nation that is historically necessary to fight and die for it.

Given this state of affairs, the state must rely disproportionately on young white British men to fight its wars, who might at least have an attachment to the nation. Yet the British state has spent much of its peacetime years persecuting precisely those who are most likely to possess strong patriotic sentiment and who, in ordinary times, would be most inclined to take up arms in its defence. Diversity initiatives in institutions such as the RAF have explicitly discriminated against white male applicants in pursuit of demographic targets. A persistent narrative in British politics suggests that society operates on two tiers, with the native population occupying the lower tier. A state that imports a foreign population and then grants it preferential treatment in housing, employment, and the justice system is unlikely to inspire a willingness to fight among those who have grown up in the shadow of these realities.

In the Britain of the early twentieth century, a young man could reasonably expect to buy a house and raise a family on a single income. Today, even with a dual-income household, the prospects of home ownership and family formation appear increasingly remote. When a young man has little to preserve in the first place, it is difficult to understand why he would be expected to fight. It is therefore unsurprising that a recent poll conducted by The Times found that only 11% of those aged 18 to 27 said they would go to war for their country, while 41% stated that there were no circumstances under which they would take up arms for it.

France, often cited as Europe’s other major military power, faces many of the same problems as Britain. While France retains a capable professional force and a stronger tradition of strategic autonomy, it is beset by even deeper political fragmentation, regular social unrest, and rapidly declining trust in state institutions. These are problems that have followed France since the French Revolution of 1789 and are unlikely to be resolved in the near future. Large-scale protests, periodic riots, and deep cultural divisions do not provide a stable foundation for sustained national mobilisation. A nation that struggles to maintain internal order in peacetime will almost certainly face even greater challenges under the pressures of war. The French military itself has repeatedly warned of recruitment difficulties and the limits of its expeditionary force model when a conflict with Russia would demand territorial defence. If Britain and France represent the premier military nations in Europe, this suggests an exceptionally bleak picture for the continent’s wider military capabilities.

Compounding these already severe challenges is the evolving posture of the United States. Washington has become increasingly explicit in its desire for Europe to assume greater responsibility for its own defence. The United States is now more focused on its own geopolitical priorities and direct military aims, particularly in the Indo-Pacific, and is less willing to subsidise European security indefinitely. For Europe, this shift presents both risk and opportunity. Greater self-reliance would enhance Europe’s hard power and grant it greater leverage when resisting external political influence. For the United States, it would reduce the burden of alliance management and allow greater strategic focus elsewhere. Whether Europe is willing or able to seize this opportunity will have to be seen.

All of this points to a fundamental contradiction at the heart of Europe’s current posture. Leaders are increasingly willing to speak in the language of existential threat and total war, yet the societies they govern are structurally and psychologically unprepared for such a reality. Defence budgets can be increased, but the industrial capacity and will to fight cannot be conjured at short notice. They emerge from long-term economic, political, and social conditions that European politicians have spent decades dismantling. The recent surge in rhetoric may therefore be as much an attempt to recondition public consciousness as it is a response to immediate threats. The central question at the heart of European national security is whether societies shaped by peace, industrial decline, and social fragmentation can adapt to a world in which security is no longer guaranteed.