Europe is quietly preparing for World War III

[abomvubuso]

Through a barrage of the warnings that have been circulating in the media lately about a possible war with Russia within the next few years, the European member states of NATO have already begun laying the foundations for defensive military actions in case Russian troops ever set foot on the territory of the alliance.

"Russia is preparing for war with the West", Bruno Kahl said last month, the head of Germany's foreign intelligence service. But it is unlikely to be a large-scale attack on NATO territory, he added. Moscow could opt for a limited incursion or step up its hybrid warfare tactics to test the alliance's resolve.

NATO is trying to prepare for both scenarios: an all-out war, or the use of less obvious techniques designed to undermine internal stability in the alliance's more vulnerable member countries.

There are multiple opportunities for Russia to test the cohesion of the alliance, including limited land grabs, former head of NATO's Multinational Corps Northeast, based in northwestern Poland, Lieutenant General Jürgen-Joachim von Sandrart told Newsweek just before he left his post last month.

The urgency is already apparent to senior military and political officials. Andrius Kubilius, the EU’s defense commissioner, said in September that NATO defense ministers and commanders “agree that Putin could be ready for a confrontation with NATO and the EU in six to eight years.”

Estonia’s foreign intelligence service warned in February that NATO “could face a massive Soviet-style army within the next decade” if Russia successfully reforms its military. The Russian army would be “technologically weaker” than NATO forces in areas other than electronic warfare and long-range strikes, but its “military potential would be significant.”

"If we take these assessments seriously, this is the time to prepare properly, and it is short. This means we need to make quick and ambitious decisions," Kubilius, a former Lithuanian prime minister, told Reuters.

The main catalyst has of course beenRussia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which led Sweden and Finland to abandon their long-standing policy of neutrality and join NATO, extending Russia's border with the alliance.

Across Europe, NATO is now struggling to raise defense spending above the 2% of GDP that the alliance has demanded, but so far failed to enforce. Historically, many countries have fallen far short of that target in the decades since the end of the Cold War. But times are now changing. Many European nations have pledged to meet or even exceed the target, and officials and experts generally expect the new Trump administration to double down on pressure on Europe to further increase its military spending.

The countries along NATO's eastern flank are well ahead in this respect. But how quickly Europe will be able to increase spending and support companies producing more equipment remains yet to be seen.

NATO’s top military official, Admiral Rob Bauer, said in late November that businesses “need to be prepared for a wartime scenario and adjust their production and distribution lines accordingly. While it may be the militaries who win the battles, it is the economies who win the wars.”

There are already visible signs of preparation across Europe for imminent confrontation with Russia. These efforts are especially impressive in the countries closest to Russia's borders.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said in July that NATO was “not ready now” for a possible war with Russia, but that it “will be ready” in the future. “They are already preparing for a conflict with the Russian Federation and they are preparing much faster than some people would like to see, in every sense.” And also: "We know this from the military preparations. We know how they are being conducted. And I want to tell you, they are preparing for a military conflict."

Germany has begun drawing up plans for how it would protect important buildings and facilities in the event of a Russian attack and how Germany would serve as a conduit for hundreds of thousands of soldiers heading east, the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported last month. The first draft of the strategic document, titled "Operationsplan Deutschland", is already 1,000 pages long, and that says a lot.