On the eve of the anniversary of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the United States has entered talks with Russia to settle the war—without Kyiv’s involvement or consent. This week, it became increasingly apparent that U.S. President Donald Trump seeks a deal largely on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s terms.
Trump also seems to have aligned with many of the Kremlin’s views—not just on Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, but also on Europe’s future security order. What’s more, Washington seems to be making common cause with Moscow by boosting the same illiberal European political movements and attacking the same European governments, most notably with the support U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance and social media titan Elon Musk have been giving the pro-Russian Alternative for Germany ahead of that country’s election on Sunday.
If this is any indication of Washington’s new trajectory, it would mark the most profound transformation of U.S. foreign policy since perhaps the 1940s. Ukraine and its long-suffering people would be the first victims of a new U.S.-Russia alignment, but the effects would reach far beyond the current war. They include a redrawing of maps, a greater role for Russia in Europe’s affairs, and further fallout around the world as the United States reorders its great-power relationships and what’s left of its old alliances.
European governments are shockingly unprepared after decades’ worth of wakeup calls. It’s been almost four months since Trump’s election victory, yet they seemed to have no plan. It’s also been three years since Russia’s 2022 invasion, a decade since Trump and his America First movement became a major political force, 11 years since Russia invaded and annexed Crimea, and probably half a century or more since Washington began prodding Europe to take greater responsibility for its own defense. European governments are scrambling to hammer out a collective response, putting together emergency summits and assurances to Ukraine that it will not be abandoned.
The Trump administration has made its opening moves, and much is still in play. To help make sense of what may be an epochal breach in the West, we asked nine of our best thinkers what comes next. Read on for their responses, or click on an individual author and topic below.—Stefan Theil, deputy editor
Trump Risks Playing the Patsy
By Daniel Fried, distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council and former U.S. State Department official
The Trump administration has launched a fast-track effort to end the Russia-Ukraine war, but it is in danger of undermining its own approach. Key elements of the plan have been clear for months: a cease-fire roughly along the current front line, with the Ukrainian-held portion of Russia’s Kursk region an unresolved bargaining chip in Kyiv’s hand, and security arrangements for Ukraine, principally involving European troops but backed by U.S. air power and other support.
This could work. A sovereign and secure Ukraine would be a big win for Europe and the United States, even if the Ukrainian government controls only part of its country for the time being, like the West German government during the Cold War.
Security for Ukraine is critical. Insisting that Europeans put up the troops to deter renewed Russian attacks after a cease-fire is a bold move, and it is gaining traction. The United States has asked its European allies to specify what they are willing to provide to support Ukraine. This blunt approach may be intended to push the Europeans to put up or shut up. Some of them even seem to be getting closer to putting up: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has essentially accepted the challenge and will be visiting Washington next week to flesh it out. That’s not a deal, but it’s a promising start.
Now, however, U.S. President Donald Trump seems to be getting in the way of his own plan. The recent U.S.-Russia talks in Saudi Arabia seemed fine. There was no breakthrough, only the beginning of a process. But Trump’s subsequent attacks on Zelensky and apparent demands that Ukraine hold elections as a precondition for talks may break the momentum that Trump’s initial push had generated. The fight with Zelensky may be intended to soften the Ukrainians, but it has the effect of strengthening Russia’s hand, which is hardly the best negotiating tactic.
There will be more tests to come. Will Washington push Moscow to end the war, or will the Trump administration give in to the Kremlin’s demand that Ukraine hold elections first? Will the United States have its European allies’ backs if they agree to send forces to Ukraine? Will the Trump administration fritter away its leverage by agreeing to sanctions relief before Russia has earned it by fulfilling all the terms of a cease-fire? Reports that the United States was seeking to soften G-7 language that called out Russian aggression are dismal; they recall previous and foolish U.S. attempts to buy Russian goodwill through preemptive concessions that the Kremlin regards as weakness.
The Trump administration risks playing the patsy. If it sticks to its own best positions on Ukraine—and to peace through strength—it could succeed. Or it could stoop to a dirty deal with a dictator. It’s game time, and the Trump team needs to level up.
Europe Reaps the Fruits of Its Slumber
By Ulrich Speck, columnist at Neue Zürcher Zeitung
The West has had three years to end Russia’s war on Ukraine in the latter’s favor. Kyiv begged for more weapons and ammunition, but neither Europe nor the United States delivered what was needed, and they often placed strict limits on what Ukraine could do with the weapons it received. At various points throughout the war, the Ukrainian military proved its capacity to turn Russia’s war of conquest into a failure—and in doing so, restore a European security order based on secure borders and self-determination, even for smaller and weaker countries. In other words, Europe and the United States had the opportunity to aid Ukraine and reject the imperialism that Russian President Vladimir Putin has turned into the raison d’être of his regime—an attitude that led Europe into two world wars and which many in the West believed had been thrown into the dustbin of history forever.
With an end to the war largely on Russia’s terms, as the Trump administration’s actions and statements seem to suggest is in the offing, Putin could claim victory. Conquest by force would be rewarded. An empowered Russia would expand again—on top of its previous occupations and annexations of parts of Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine after the 2014 invasion. That would send a message to all Russians that, despite their hardships, their leader has brought their country back to the path of glory and global power, teaching rebellious Eastern and Central Europeans a lesson, putting Western Europeans on notice, and leveling the playing field with China, instead of becoming its junior partner. Putin’s gamble would have played off.
There is no conceivable scenario where this experience would not encourage Putin and his circle to double down on imperialism and territorial expansion by force. Defeat—to be kicked out of Ukraine—might lead to a moment of soul-searching in Russia, weaken Putin’s rule, and open the possibility of change. Victory will put more wind in Putin’s sails and provide him with greater resources for his next steps. Should he get control of all of Ukraine, he will control a vast defense industry, military, and population to deploy against new targets.
For Europe, the risk of a military confrontation is rising steeply. As Putin has made clear in his two draft treaties to the United States and NATO, his goal is for Russia to regain the position of the Soviet Union of his youth: control over Eastern Europe, most of Central Europe, and at least parts of Southeastern Europe—and, as a consequence, dominance in a Europe that has been largely abandoned by the United States.
Russian success in Ukraine does not only mean that Putin would soon try do whatever it takes to get the rest of Ukraine under his control. He also has his sights on Moldova and Georgia, the latter of which is already dominated by a Russia-friendly regime. Next, he would wait for the right moment to attack a NATO country using conventional, hybrid, or other methods and move ahead with regime change and occupation. The primary goal would be to demonstrate that it’s each country for itself—that Western solidarity, as expressed in NATO’s Article 5 and the European Union’s mutual defense clause, are fantasies without foundations.
European leaders had the chance to frustrate Russia’s imperial ambitions early on and cheaply, since it was highly capable Ukrainians doing the actual fighting. All that was required was the fortitude to overcome habitual lethargy and overblown fears—and to realize that this was a unique opportunity to show Russia that wars of aggression and conquest remain taboo in Europe. They were warned, and they failed. The risks of acting then were far lower than the risks they face now. And the money they could have invested in their own security by way of supporting Ukraine is small change compared to what it will now take to mobilize their militaries, industries, and societies to secure their borders against a far more belligerent Russia in the coming years.
Putin’s Real Motivation for Negotiating
By Agathe Demarais, columnist at Foreign Policy and senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations
As Washington and Moscow prepare for negotiations over the future of Ukraine, it may help to focus on what each side really wants to achieve in such talks. On the U.S. side, President Donald Trump may assume that ending the war will boost his global prestige and perhaps even reward him with a Nobel Peace Prize.
For his part, Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to believe that he has restored Russia’s power to such heights that he is negotiating Europe’s future directly with the United States. Yet this is only part of the story. The Russian economy and state budget are under immense strain, and Putin knows that the war has become financially unsustainable. His most urgent objective, therefore, could be to get some U.S. concessions on the sanctions front.
Three financial warning signs are flashing red. First, the Kremlin’s traditional cash cow—Gazprom—is posting record losses following Moscow’s decision to close the gas tap to Europe. The firm used to bring in 10 percent of state revenues, so this is a significant shortfall. Second, Russia’s state-owned banks are increasingly reluctant to buy the country’s sovereign debt, raising questions regarding Moscow’s ability to finance its budget deficit at a time when sanctions curb its access to international markets. And third, new sanctions imposed by the Biden administration during its final weeks in the White House are biting: Russia’s liquefied natural gas plants in the Arctic have gone dark, and many Russian oil cargoes are idling for lack of fools willing to defy U.S. secondary sanctions.
To continue financing the war, the Kremlin has been drawing on the savings of its National Welfare Fund. Yet even the largest of reserves will eventually run dry, and the fund is no exception. Its liquid assets have shrunk by about 60 percent since the start of the war, although exact figures have been hard to gauge since Russia’s Finance Ministry shut down access to the relevant data. (This is a sure sign that alarm bells must be ringing in Moscow.) The Kremlin’s last-resort scenario—financial support from Beijing—is highly unlikely to materialize, which Putin surely knows. Since Trump’s return to power, China has been keen to avoid antagonizing the United States in order to avert a damaging trade war at a time when the Chinese economy is already struggling.
Moscow’s financial difficulties can only worsen, unless a sudden lifting of U.S. sanctions gives the Kremlin fiscal breathing room—by placing external debt and selling more hydrocarbons, for example. That is precisely what Putin is hoping to get from Trump, with as few concessions by Russia as Trump can be flattered into. Putin also knows that the longer the war continues, the higher the risks are that bleak economic conditions will fuel popular unrest (or, worse for him, a coup). If Trump wants to project strength, he would be better off playing the long game until Putin is in such a hurry to end the war that he makes far fewer demands.
The U.S. and Russia Align Against Europe
By Nathalie Tocci, director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali
For years, Russia has been Europe’s greatest enemy, trying everything short of war to divide the continent, bring down democratic governments, and support Kremlin-friendly leaders. Using money, disinformation campaigns, and election meddling, Russia has backed and boosted illiberal, nationalist, pro-Russian, anti-European Union, and authoritarian forces for years.
Now, the world’s most powerful leader—U.S. President Donald Trump—and the world’s richest man—Elon Musk—are aligning the world’s greatest superpower with Europe’s greatest enemy by actively supporting the same far-right movements, attacking the same democratic governments, and flooding the European information space with the same kind of disinformation, often including Kremlin talking points virtually word for word.
It was unfathomable enough that Washington, Silicon Valley, and Moscow are now partnering to make Europe safe for the toxic mix of autocracy and oligarchy that has long characterized Russia and now appears to be taking rapid steps toward establishing itself in the United States.
Even more dangerous is the fact that Europe’s formerly greatest ally has so much more power to do European societies harm. For all the resources Russian President Vladimir Putin has poured into his online troll farms, they are insignificant compared to the military, economic, political, and technological might of the United States. Moreover, Europe’s immune system to protect itself against the United States is much weaker. Occasional transatlantic spats aside, Europe’s policymakers have been accustomed to seeing the United States as their greatest friend and ally. It’s a massive psychological leap for Europeans to acknowledge Washington’ actively hostile intentions and bake these into their actions going forward.
What can Europe do to confront both the Russian threat and a United States that is actively trying to undermine it? On Russia, Europeans will need to do even more on defense and societal resilience. Europe belatedly banned RT, Sputnik, and other Russian propaganda outlets, but it will be far more difficult to divorce the European internet from some of the world’s most powerful and intrusive corporations. Already, X (formerly Twitter) has turned into a sewer of extremist and pro-Russian information since Musk purchased the network. Going into Sunday’s German elections, Musk campaigned for the far-right Alternative for Germany, and that party’s posts are getting far greater visibility on X. (U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance also promoted the party during a visit to Germany last week.) With U.S. tech CEOs cozying up to Trump since the U.S. election, we should expect this nefarious deluge to rise.
Part of the response will be to change the approach to Trump. Until last week, European leaders thought about pleasing him by buying more U.S. weapons and natural gas. But if Washington now wants to actively weaken Europe, the opposite is called for. Russia has taught Europeans that dependencies can be weaponized. With that lesson in mind, Europe should bolster its defenses by gradually reducing—and certainly not increasing—its dependence on the United States.
Perhaps this will turn out to be just a nasty parenthesis in an enduring transatlantic friendship. But it’s surely wiser for Europeans to assume and plan for the opposite.
10 Things Europe Can Do Now
By Garvan Walshe, former security policy advisor to the British Conservative Party
French President Emmanuel Macron had the right idea when he convened an emergency summit of key European leaders in Paris, but the meeting broke up in collective inaction. Normally, a benevolent United States would have knocked heads together and forced the Europeans to make progress, but now they are on their own.
Here are 10 steps European leaders can take now:
1. They should include Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in summits like the one in Paris; appearances matter in international relations. They should convene another summit next week in Kyiv, where they will mark the third anniversary of the war, in order to show that Zelensky leads one of Europe’s major nations, has a place at the top table, and will not be abandoned.
2. European governments should immediately seize the $150 billion in frozen Russian assets and give them to Ukraine, as international law allows. The money can be put to good use and buy more weapons and ammunition.
3. All major European Union countries should immediately increase defense spending to 3 percent of GDP, if they haven’t already, and plan to raise it to 5 percent within three years. To facilitate this, they should establish a proposed European rearmament bank.
4. The United Kingdom and France should increase nuclear weapons production. They have the technology but cannot afford to grow their arsenals, so other large countries should help pay. Some of the effort should be devoted to substrategic weapons, and a way needs to be found for front-line states to take part in nuclear deterrence.
5. Sweden should send Ukraine its 100 or so Gripen fighter jets, whose capabilities and maintenance requirements make them ideal for Ukraine. Sweden should also divert Hungary’s order for planes to backfill its own fleet—and to demonstrate to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban that changing sides has consequences. In the meantime, Britain and others should help defend Swedish airspace.
6. Norway should fund Ukraine’s defense by using the vast oil and gas windfall earned by its national fund due to higher prices caused by the war. Maximizing current European 155mm artillery production would be a good use for some of this money. Spare capacity exists in the Nordic countries and Germany.
7. The U.K. should reopen an artillery shell production plant. Its failure to do so since 2022 is sheer carelessness.
8. A coalition of the willing should impose secondary sanctions on companies that do business with Russia’s intermediaries. A coalition format strips Hungary and Slovakia of their veto power and allows Japan and others to be included.
9. Expand the Organisation for Joint Armament Cooperation, of which the U.K. and several EU countries are already members, to centralize European procurement of strategic enablers that are too expensive for any one country to develop and purchase by itself, such as air defense, strategic airlift, command and control, and other essential capabilities.
10. Begin contingency planning—if it hasn’t already—for how European forces would fight Russia without the United States. This scenario has implications for doctrine, inter-services coordination, command and control, and logistics, all of which will need to be worked out.
Speed is of the essence. Flinching now would risk another continental European war.
This is a condensed version of an article published on Feb. 18.
It Has Become Asia’s War, Too
By C. Raja Mohan, columnist at Foreign Policy and visiting professor at the National University of Singapore
A significant new element in the Russia-Ukraine war has been Asia’s rising security profile in the heart of Europe. This includes China’s alignment with Russia, North Korea’s deployment of troops, and South Korea’s keener interest in the conflict since its rival got involved. New Delhi, criticized in the West for its reluctance to condemn the Russian invasion, tried to recalibrate its position by reaching out to Warsaw and Kyiv. But does any of this matter as U.S. President Donald Trump upends U.S. policy on Ukraine, Russia, NATO, and Europe? Will Asia’s role in the war and its resolution remain at the margins, or will it become more consequential? It will depend on how Washington and Europe ultimately deal with the conflict and Asia’s role in it.
The Biden administration promoted the idea of a strategic linkage between the European and Asian theaters—and encouraged Washington’s friends in the two halves of Eurasia to do more with each other. In response, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea raised their engagement with European security and became regular observers to NATO. With Trump now washing his hands of Ukraine, downgrading NATO, and negotiating with Russia over European heads, he leaves these four Asian-Pacific allies terribly embarrassed. In New Delhi, there is a sense of vindication about its policy of not giving up on the Russian connection over the last three years.
The United States’ Asian allies, who believed the Biden administration’s rhetoric on a rules-based international order and stepped up on Ukraine, now have to worry about the consequences in the Indo-Pacific that Trump’s strategic retrenchment will bring. Could Trump abandon Washington’s Indo-Pacific partners like how he has put the Europeans out to dry? Will Asian allies be asked to deal with the China challenge on their own?
On the surface, the joint statements that have so far come out of Trump’s engagement with Asian leaders, including Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, suggest continuity in the Indo-Pacific strategy that began during Trump’s first term: stronger alliances and partnerships in the region as part of an effort to balance China. But Trump has repeatedly reaffirmed his desire for good relations with Chinese President Xi Jinping and continues to reflect the strong sentiment within the MAGA movement against taking responsibility for the security of others, let alone risk new wars.
And in a major flip of former President Joe Biden’s understanding of the security interdependence between Europe and Asia, Trump has signaled his interest in a triangular summit with Putin and Xi. Trump has also signaled his interest in encouraging China to play a role in ending the Russia-Ukraine war. Meanwhile, there is a sentiment in Europe favoring closer relations with Beijing to cope with Washington’s retrenchment. Next week, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will head to India with all 27 European commissioners in tow, another sign of rising European engagement with Asia.
What endures, though, is the new reality of Eurasian security interdependence. If the Biden administration framed this linkage at the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, Trump’s retreat three years later reinforces the prospect for the inevitable rejiggering of great-power relations within Eurasia.
Trump Remakes the Security Order
By Jo Inge Bekkevold, senior China fellow at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies
U.S. President Donald Trump has long promised that he will end the war in Ukraine. If that remains the goal, there are two starkly different choices for achieving it. One is to enhance military assistance enabling Ukraine to regain territory currently occupied by Russian forces; the other is to lure the aggressor, Russia, to the negotiation table to stop the fighting. Trump has chosen the latter alternative.
The United States has not only engaged Russia in peace talks in Saudi Arabia without the participation of Europe or Ukraine, it has also demanded that Ukraine hand over territory to Russia and huge swaths of its natural resources and economic infrastructure to the United States. Trump has ruled out NATO membership for Ukraine. In addition, Washington insists that European countries spend 5 percent of their GDP on defense and take on the responsibility to defend Ukraine, as the United States prepares to reduce its military presence in Europe. Even though U.S. officials have signaled that they still support NATO, the Trump administration is now driving the most comprehensive remaking of Europe’s security landscape since NATO expansion in the 1990s—or, if the transatlantic rift deepens, since NATO’s creation in 1949.
Indeed, the Trump administration seems to believe that helping Russian President Vladimir Putin save face and giving him much of what he wants in Europe is the best way forward. But to what end? There are at least three possible answers to this puzzle.
First, giving in to Putin is the quickest solution to stop the fighting now. Second, it is the best possible way for Trump to create leverage to force Europe and Ukraine to make a whole range of economic, military, and other concessions to the United States. Third, by enticing Putin, the United States may be attempting to put a wedge into the China-Russia partnership. If we assume that the United States’ foreign policy is still informed by geopolitics, then its current approach to Ukraine and Europe suggests that it wants to settle the Russia-Ukraine war as soon as possible to enable a more comprehensive military rebalance in Asia, while simultaneously trying to play the Russia card in its larger rivalry with China.
Accommodating Russia in Europe carries risks for the United States. In any global competition, Washington would be better off working with, rather than against, Europe—a continent that, despite its problems, retains much economic clout. And even though Europe is militarily weak now, this could change if the current trajectory of rising spending and greater security awareness continues.
China is taking a great interest in the day-to-day unraveling of the transatlantic relationship. Speaking after U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance at the Munich Security Conference last week, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi emphasized that China and Europe are partners, not rivals. Europe has been in a tenuous process of de-risking itself from Beijing, but it may now find China more dependable than an erratic or even openly hostile United States.
Finally, if Washington indeed has a larger strategic motive, it may be miscalculating the geopolitical logic of the China-Russia partnership. Trump offering Putin parts of Ukraine will not change Moscow’s view of Beijing in any significant way. With China focused on its rivalry with the United States in the Pacific, Moscow’s threat perception of Beijing is relatively low. Rather than causing a split between the two Eurasian powers, Trump is only enhancing Putin’s bargaining position.
Lessons From Ukraine’s Strikes Into Russia
By Mick Ryan, author of The War for Ukraine: Strategy and Adaptation Under Fire
On the battlefield, the first two months of 2025 have seen a new development with important repercussions for the next phase of the war: Ukraine’s systematic campaign of strategic drone and missile strikes on military and economic targets deep inside Russia. How Ukraine has achieved this capability carries important lessons beyond the the current war, especially for European NATO countries as they seek to rearm.
With U.S. aid now in doubt and the extent of future European weapons deliveries uncertain, Kyiv has demonstrated the ability to rapidly develop a strategic strike capability, which was the preserve of the superpowers until recently. With a mix of weapons that includes ballistic and cruise missiles, guided munitions, and long-range drones—many of which Ukraine now produces itself—it has achieved strategic parity with Russia in conventional strike operations.
Ukraine’s attacks on Russian energy, logistics, and industrial targets are part of its economic warfare against the Kremlin. But they also reflect Kyiv’s desire to change the narrative about the war, inflict political pain on Putin, and posture itself for negotiations to end the war.
The attacks come as Russian advances—slow but relentless throughout much of 2024—appear to be stalling along much of the front line. The costs to Moscow are rising, with NATO officials estimating 530,000 Russian casualties in 2024 alone and British intelligence saying that December 2024 and January 2025 were the two deadliest months of the war for Russia.
When Russia began its full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukraine did not have much capability for long-range precision strikes. Initially, the Ukrainians modified old Soviet-era surveillance drones for strike operations. The United States supplied Ukraine with HIMARS and ATACM launchers, while Britain provided Storm Shadow missiles that extended its ability to strike Russian targets. More recently, Ukraine has domestically developed and produced several additional strike systems, which have now been hitting military targets such as headquarters, troop concentrations, airfields, logistics nodes, fuel depots, and munitions storage, as well as strategic targets such as oil refineries and defense-related factories.
The Ukrainian military also expanded its strategic strike options at sea. It has developed and deployed uncrewed naval strike vessels against a much-reduced Russian Black Sea fleet to secure the western parts of that sea. Without the capacity to build a conventional navy to contest sea lanes, Ukraine also developed naval drones that can launch aerial surveillance, strike drones, and anti-aircraft missiles.
Ukraine’s rapid development and adaptation of its strategic strike system shows that domestic solutions to such problems can be delivered quickly, cheaply, and without the use restrictions that foreign weapon suppliers often impose. Ukraine’s approach has provided multiple options for strike operations at an affordable cost. Given the uncertainty of future U.S. support to allies and the growing threat posed by Moscow and Beijing as Washington retreats, this is exactly what many nations in Europe and Asia need as they seek to rapidly upgrade their military capabilities.
What Is Russia Up To in Europe?
By Keir Giles, author of Who Will Defend Europe? An Awakened Russia and a Sleeping Continent
Since Russia resumed its campaign of sabotage and disruption across Europe in earnest in early 2024, there has been much speculation as to what exactly the Kremlin’s aims might be. That question has even greater urgency today. With the United States seeking to “partner” with Russia and the looming prospect of a Moscow-dictated settlement being imposed on Ukraine with U.S. assistance, Russia’s intelligence services may be free to step up their campaign of mayhem across the continent.
Some of the attacks so far have appeared confusingly random; it’s hard to see how Russia benefits from arson at an IKEA in Lithuania or a small warehouse in London. That’s led to a supposition that Moscow’s primary objective has simply been to foster a general antipathy among European populations toward their governments’ support for Ukraine by sowing fear, uncertainty, and doubt. But few of the attacks have even registered on the public consciousness of the targeted countries, so it’s difficult to see how this amounts to a serious terror campaign.
It’s only after stripping away the seemingly pointless attacks and focusing on those with an obvious objective that the pattern of Russia’s activities in Europe becomes clearer. And that pattern consists of not only actual sabotage but also reconnaissance, probing, and testing in the physical and digital domains, with a focus on communications, logistics, and emergency preparedness.
In 2020, I participated in a study by the Swedish Defence Research Agency, which listed where and how Russia might carry out covert attacks across Europe ahead of an overt military attack on a NATO member—with the aim of immobilizing the continent and rendering it unable to respond.
We’ve seen the items on that list ticked off one by one over the past year, including cyber intrusions; the activation of human assets; the jamming of GPS and other navigation systems, including for aircraft, attacks on subsea communications, and energy infrastructure; and other physical sabotage.
Everything we have seen in Europe suggests that Russia is testing the accessibility of its targets, the impact of its actions, and the reactions by the authorities in the targeted countries.
Each time Russia carries out an attack of this kind, it learns about the target country’s capacity for detecting it, mitigating the consequences, and prosecuting the offenders. All of this helps the Kremlin’s planners identify the softest targets for when they decide the time is right for a full-on campaign.
As Europe scrambles to ramp up support for Ukraine and to determine whether to send troops to support a cease-fire, Russia’s aim could be to intimidate or deter countries from doing so. And the worst-case scenario—preparation for an overt attack on a NATO member state—is still on the table. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s confirmation of limited U.S. interest in defending Europe last week lent weight to earlier calls for Washington to withdraw its forces from NATO’s eastern frontier. That’s the surest way to turn the possibility of a challenge from Russia into a probability.
We must hope that Russia’s campaign of sabotage and probing is also a learning experience for the target countries, helping them be better prepared for if and when Russia turns up the heat. So far, the publicly known attacks have been individual and isolated; the impact would obviously be much greater if Russia conducted a coordinated mass campaign across multiple locations and domains. That should focus the minds of the governments and the public in Western Europe that have only now realized that they, too, are a target for Russia. Because if NATO’s defense chiefs are right that Moscow is planning military attacks beyond Ukraine, there is no part of Europe that isn’t at risk from Russian efforts to coerce or immobilize the victim and its allies.
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