The answer to the question posed in the title of this article depends on how you measure the current global situation. Do you consider Russian aggression in Ukraine a local war or the first act of a global war? Do you have full assurance that the United States will immediately come to the rescue? Do you consider NATO’s level of deterrence against Russia to be sufficient? Are you certain you realize Russia’s goals and strategies? Are there vulnerabilities in the current strategy that invitation an aggressor?
Lately, we have been proceeding that Russia will be ready to attack Europe around 2030, and by then the continent needs to be full prepared and rearmed. But is Russia obliged to wait for specified a minute of European readiness? After all, it is appropriate to strike at the minute of least readiness. Why not now?
To realize this, we request to answer 3 questions: What is Russia’s strategical goal? How has war changed? And how can Russia usage the fresh nature of the war to accomplish its goal?
As I wrote in a erstwhile article, in the fresh planet of the “right of force”, American, Russian and Chinese interests coincide. They would all like to see Europe divided and weak, incapable of making strong joint decisions. They want a Europe that is not an independent centre of power but only a set of markets in which they can trade profitably. This leads to steps that can even be seen as a certain American-Russian rapprochement.
Thus, the Russian strategical goal is not to seize a part of European territory as was expected during the Cold War. It would be adequate now to sow panic and chaos; make a humanitarian crisis; make exile flows; and collapse and overthrow governments. This could make a domino effect that could bring extremist Eurosceptics to power, destruct European unity and (last but not least) cut support to Ukraine.
To realize how this could happen, we request to look at the face of modern war.
The fresh face(s) of war
The nature of modern warfare has changed radically over the past 3 years. While the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 looked like the Second planet War, extremist innovations since then (some of the most crucial were mentioned here) have changed the battlefield all fewer months. This has influenced not only tactics but besides strategies. And generals (in a phrase attributed to Churchill) are always preparing for the last war.
One of the typical delusions is that the war in Ukraine is simply a “poor country’s war” that is forced to usage a large army, while NATO can wage a “rich country’s war” with a tiny professional army and high-precision weapons. This concept from the days of Operation Desert Storm is outdated. As 1 of the leading Ukrainian military experts, Taras Chmut, says, “You don’t request to have the best equipment. You request to have adequate equipment in adequate quantities.”
At the same time, war is not only high-tech, but besides multi-domain. More than always before, it includes another types of confrontation, in addition to kinetic engagement. It now covers the economic, humanitarian, diplomatic, political, demographic, cyber, information, intellectual and cognitive (semantic) spheres alongside another domains.
The 3rd crucial feature of war is the crucial expansion of the amplitude of operations. In addition to clearly hostile actions, modern war includes (and Russian military doctrine emphasizes) alleged liminal operations. These affect activities that are not evidently (at least initially) hostile until they accomplish their goals, or those that, in the opinion of the another side, do not cross the threshold of reaction. Examples include the appearance of militants in east Ukraine in the spring of 2014 who initially seemed unserious. Following this, late we have seen the repeated infringement of the Polish border by missiles and drones (seemingly by accident); the inexplicable death of American soldiers in Lithuania; the fresh fires involving military equipment in Germany and Belgium; a fire affecting telecommunications networks in Poland; and the dangerous usage of electronic warfare in the Baltics.
Finally, the 4th crucial feature of war is that it is taking place for the first time in the postmodern world, which affects all another dimensions. I will only list the most crucial theses here:
- The emergence of cognitive (semantic) warfare to the fore, with the main battlefield becoming consciousness itself and what people think.
- A full-fledged reflection of war in the media and social networks in real time, which completely changes the perception of war within societies.
- The active usage of fakes aimed at the creation of an alternate reality for the opponent and 3rd parties: it does not substance what has happened, what is crucial is what is said about events.
- Post-heroic societies that do not approve of mass mobilization, despite the fact that war inactive requires immense armies.
From the point of view of European security, the question arises whether the continent’s countries are ready for specified a war — high-tech, multi-domain, liminal, postmodern. This means that there must be readiness of not only armies, but societies.
Russian strike
Most likely, we should not anticipate a Russian strike as a ground operation, featuring powerful tanks and motorized columns aimed at Baltic countries or the Polish-Lithuanian Suwałki corridor. alternatively of this, just imagine an attack on Poland that combines:
- massive rocket and drone attacks on energy, infrastructure and logistics facilities (by the way, drones can be marked as Ukrainian);
- cyber-attacks on government and infrastructure facilities;
- a navigation collapse due to the large-scale usage of electronic warfare;
- sabotage and terrorist groups creating abrupt “ecological” and man-made disasters;
- the destabilization of society (already heated) through social networks;
- the usage of a “fifth column” and “useful idiots”;
- crowds of thousands of mediate east refugees released across the Belarusian border.
I am not saying that everything will necessarily be like this. I just want to emphasize that the war could be completely different from the 1 Europe is preparing for. And specified a war requires importantly less resources than a Second planet War-style one, resources which are available in Russia today.
In specified a situation, the key issue is not the quantity and quality of weapons, but the readiness of the political and military leadership to respond quickly. It is besides crucial to measure the readiness of society to take balanced, mature and liable actions.
Dear reader, ask yourself: what would the political leadership of your country do in specified a case? Will governments be at a loss, not knowing how to respond? And what would you and your household do personally?
Conclusion
The increasingly frequent statements by Russian representatives that Russia is not going to attack Europe sounds like a wake-up call for European politicians.
Russia will neither wait for European readiness nor attack where it has long been expected. It will besides not usage the strategical approaches of the Second planet War.
This raises a number of questions that go beyond the military dimension. applicable issues now include the unity and cohesion of societies; control of the home information space; the ability of NGOs to support governments and societies in moments of extraordinary challenges; and the preparedness of political leaders to make decisions in a pre-threshold liminal war. Learning the lessons of Ukraine, for which Ukrainians paid with their own blood, is recommended here.
Purchasing tanks and armoured vehicles is not adequate to argue a Russian strike. They will not even leave the hangars. Superbly trained and brave soldiers will have no targets to get with this equipment. There will be no more wars like February 2022.
Europe has all the essential resources to defend itself. The problem is that governments and societies do not see that war is already on their doorstep. They do not realize that Russia should not be deterred or stopped but defeated.
Some will say I am causing panic. I already heard this in early February 2022.
Valerii Pekar is simply a president of the board of the Decolonization NGO, the author of 4 books, an adjunct prof. at the Kyiv-Mohyla Business School and Business School of the Ukrainian Catholic University, and a erstwhile associate of the National improvement Council.
New east Europe is simply a reader supported publication. delight support us and aid us scope our goal of $10,000! We are nearly there. Donate by clicking on the button below.
