Europe is preparing for a war with Russia

For three decades after the Cold War, Europe allowed national preparedness to atrophy. Risks of war seemed remote. Spending on militaries and recruitment plummeted. Civil defense was a relic of the past. And the US was presumed to be there in a pinch. That era is over.

Countries on both sides of the Atlantic seem alarmed that Russian President Vladimir Putin might soon widen his war beyond Ukraine. Europe is preparing for war because its leaders increasingly understand an uncomfortable truth: deterrence depends on what Putin believes, and America’s response to a widening war would be uncertain. The Belarusian exercises near the Suwalki gap are raising alarms because, despite Russia’s struggles in Ukraine, the deterrence equation has atrophied. Ask yourself whether Trump would go to war with Russia over a patch of land called the Suwalki Gap? Would Americans be ready for such a thing? The question answers itself.

Trump has done much to strengthen NATO, but his commitment to its mutual defense clause is uncertain. Moscow knows this. Russia remains bogged down in Ukraine. But Putin does not need another invasion on the scale of Ukraine to challenge NATO. He can move up an escalation ladder: sabotage, cyberattacks, assassination plots, drone or missile attacks — and then a limited military operation designed to test whether NATO still means what it says.