For Europe and NATO, a Russian invasion is no longer unthinkable

TALLINN, Estonia – The Russian president Vladimir Putin He once proclaimed the dissolution of the Soviet empire as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.”

At the time, in 2005, few expected him to do anything about it.

But then came the Russian occupation Abkhazia and South Ossetia of Georgia in 2008, his support for Ukrainian separatists and the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and, most famously, the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Now, with the rise of the former American president Donald Trumpwho in the past promised to leave NATO and recently threatened never to come to the aid of his allies, concerns are growing among European nations that Putin may invade a NATO nation in the next decade and that they will have to face their forces without US support.

This could happen as soon as five years after the end of the war in Ukraine, according to some officials and experts who believe there would be enough time for Russia rebuild and reorganize Your army.

“We have always suspected that this is the only existential threat we have,” said Major General Veiko-Vello Palm, commander of the Estonian army’s main ground combat division. possible Russian invasion.

“The last few years have also made it very, very clear that NATO as a military alliance, many countries, they are not prepared carry out large-scale operations, which means, in simple human language, that many NATO armies are not prepared to fight Russia,” Palm said during an interview in December.

“So it’s not very comforting.”

Anxiety for what experts describe as imperial ambitions The image of Putin has long been part of the psyche of states bordering Russia or that are uncomfortably close to it.

“I think in Estonia’s case, it was 1991” when alarm bells started ringing in his country, Palm said wryly, referring to the year Estonia declared its independence from the crumbling Soviet Union.

Denied

Even as Putin downplayed the Biden administration’s warnings that it plans to invade Ukraine, Moscow has dismissed concerns that Russia is planning an attack on NATO.

The head of the Russian foreign intelligence service, Sergei Naryshkinhe said in an interview last week with the state news agency RIA Novosti which are part of a Western disinformation campaign to fuel discontent against Moscow.

Europe’s concern has been fueled in recent months by the militarization of the Russian economy by Putin and others huge increase in expenses for his army and its arms industry, while at the same time some Republicans in Congress seek to limit U.S. aid to Ukraine.

“If anyone thinks that this is only about Ukraine, they are very wrong,” the Ukrainian president warned. Volodymyr Zelenskyat the World Economic Forum held this month.

“The possible directions and even timing of new Russian aggression beyond Ukraine are becoming increasingly apparent.”

NATO says it stands ready to defend the borders of its 31 member states, which have collectively increased national defense spending by about $190 billion since 2014, when Russia first invaded Ukraine.

But that was the beginning of rebuilding what had become a hollow military network across Europe in the decades following the Cold War, a process that could still take years, analysts say.

That “peace dividend,” as the change was called, deviated billions of dollars of military budgets to increase spending on health, education and housing.

Europe’s defense industry has also contracted as demand for tanks, fighter planes and submarines plummeted.

In 2006, concerned that they were not prepared for conflict, senior defense officials in each NATO country agreed to spend at least 2 percent of their annual national production on their militaries.

But it wasn’t a requirement, and when military spending hit its lowest point in 2014, only three of NATO’s 28 member countries at the time met the benchmark.

Last year, only 11 countries had reached the 2% threshold, although a Western diplomat said last week that around 20 member states were expected to reach it this year.

Exercise

The Alliance will test its preparedness in a month-long military exercise involving 90,000 soldiers, which began last week, in what officials say is the largest exercise NATO has conducted since the end of the war. Cold.

The fact that the exercise is a test of how NATO forces would respond to a Russian invasion has frayed nerves in neighboring states, particularly the Baltic and Nordic countries.

“I’m not saying that things will be bad tomorrow, but we have to realize that it is not certain that we will be at peace,” Admiral Rob Bauer of the Netherlands, chairman of the United Nations Military Committee, told reporters. on January 18th. BORN.

Referring to NATO’s plans to respond to its two main threats, he added:

“That’s why we are preparing for a conflict with Russia,” as well as what NATO considers the other main threat: terrorism.

The NATO exercise, known as Steadfast Defender 2024, is just one reason allies are nearing a “fever peak” of concern that Russia might invade sooner rather than later, according to Christopher Skaluba, director of the Transatlantic Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council in Washington. .

He said Russia’s resistance to last summer’s Western-equipped Ukrainian counteroffensive showed that Putin remained “long term“and could reorient its economy and population to rebuild its military within three to five years.

“Just because they destroyed everything in Ukraine doesn’t mean they will stay out of the game for a decade or more,” Skaluba said.

And the prospect of Trump returning to the White House has forced Europeans to grapple with the possibility that US support for Ukraine, or even its leadership role in NATO, could be drastically reduced as early as next year , Skaluba said.

Taken together, “this is supercharging broader concerns about Russia,” Skaluba said.

“It’s just this unique mix of factors that are combining to make this long-standing fear about Russian reconstitution, or a Russian attack on NATO, a little more tense than it has been in the last couple of years.”

Concern has increased in recent weeks.

In an interview given on January 21, GenerallEirik KristoffersenNorway’s top military leader has warned that “we have little time left” to build defenses against an unpredictable Russia.

“Now there’s a window that lasts maybe one, two, maybe three years, where we’re going to have to invest even more in a safe defense,” Kristoffersen said.

On the same day, the Finnish president, Sauli Niinistö, sought to calm concerns raised by reports that a constant defense scenario will test how NATO would respond to a Russian invasion of Finland.

“None of the war games that have been taking place for decades have been developed in real terms, and in this case I would not exaggerate,” Niinistö said on a national radio program.

This month, General Michael Byden, Sweden’s top military leader, and Civil Defense Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin warned that Sweden must be prepared for war.

Scenarios

“Let me say with the power of office” and “with absolute clarity: There could be a war in Sweden,” Bohlin said at a security conference.

The warnings triggered a firestorm of criticism from Sweden’s opposition party and experts, who called the statements alarmist and hyperbolic.

“Swedes wonder what the government knows that they don’t know,” wrote Magdalena Andersson, head of the opposition Social Democrats, in a subsequent editorial.

“Scaring the population will not make Sweden safer.”

However, Sweden is on the verge of joining NATO, following Finland’s accession last year, as both countries have put aside years of military non-alignment due to nervousness over Russian aggression.

And despite calling the situation “exaggerated”, the Swedish Prime Minister, Ulf Kristerssonmade clear that Russia continues to pose a grave threat.

“There is nothing to suggest that war is upon us now, but it is clear that the risk of war is significantly increased“Kristersson said in an interview with Sveriges Radio.

It is not lost on the Estonian government that the landmass that Russia conquered in the first days of its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 – before being pushed back to the current front line in eastern Ukraine – is roughly as large as the United States Baltics.

“His ambition is to restore his power,” the colonel said Mati Tikerpuucommander of the Estonian 2nd Infantry Brigade, which is based about 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the Russian border.

“We don’t think the question is whether Russia will try to invade us or not,” Tikerpuu said last month from his headquarters at the Taara military base.

For many Estonians, he said, “it’s just a question of when.”

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