Ellie Cook
With warnings swirling over a possible war with Russia in a matter of years, NATO's European members have already started laying the groundwork for defenses, should Russian troops set foot on alliance soil.
"Russia is preparing for a war with the West," Bruno Kahl, the head of Germany's foreign intelligence service, said in late November.
But it's not likely to be a large-scale attack into NATO territory, the intelligence chief warned. Moscow could opt for a limited incursion or upping its hybrid warfare tactics to probe the alliance's conviction, Kahl said.
NATO is trying to prepare for both scenarios: an all-out war, and less obvious techniques designed to undermine stability in the alliance's member countries.
"There are multiple options for Russia to test the cohesion of the alliance," including limited land grabs, the former head of NATO's Multinational Corps Northeast based in northwest Poland, Lieutenant General Jürgen-Joachim von Sandrart, told Newsweek just before leaving his post in November.
The urgency is now obvious from senior military and political officials. Andrius Kubilius, the European Union's commissioner for defense, said in September that defense ministers and NATO commanders "agree that [Russian President] Vladimir Putin could be ready for confrontation with NATO and the EU in six to eight years."
Estonia's foreign intelligence service warned in February NATO "could face a Soviet-style mass army in the next decade" if Russia successfully reforms its military. The army would be "technologically inferior" to NATO forces in areas other than electronic warfare and long-range strikes, the service said, but its "military potential would be significant."
"If we take these assessments seriously, then that is the time for us to properly prepare, and it is a short one," Kubilius, a former Lithuanian prime minister, told the Reuters news agency. "This means we have to take quick decisions, and ambitious decisions."
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