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Are Europe and Russia Slow-Walking to World War III?

Dangerous rhetoric has been escalating on both sides for some time now.

Putin’s recent declaration of Russia’s potential to “use all the weapons at our disposal” is the most explicit talk of nuclear war by a superpower since the Reagan administration invoked the prospect of “winnable nuclear war” over 40 years ago. How did we get to this point? Leaving aside the origin of the war with Ukraine, which Putin falsely continues to claim was forced upon Russia, dangerous rhetoric has been escalating on both sides for some time now.

To be sure, for Ukraine the threat from Russia is very real. But elsewhere the hyped-up language over the Russian threat is astonishing: “We are all eastern flank countries these days,” NATO’s top commander argues, while a British think tanker even claims, “The UK is a front-line state.”

European leaders have focused on two threats: the short-term potential for “hybrid” attacks from Russia, and the longer-term argument that “Russia’s well-oiled war machine” (in the words of NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte) justifies a massive military buildup.

Regarding “hybrid war,” intelligence officials warn of a potential attack on NATO that could come “within months.” The expressed fear is that Russia will somehow “test” the world’s most powerful military alliance, as if a simple poke from the Russian bear would “expose NATO as impotent.”

Russian leaders have long been obsessed about NATO. The notion that the Kremlin would now provoke a direct confrontation to find out whether NATO would invoke Article 5—“an attack on one is an attack on all”—beggars the imagination. Yet such imaginings are now running freely, in war games, “war fiction,” and realistic television portrayals. The threatening oratory has become so heightened that even leaders in the Baltic states—countries truly on the front lines—are now calling on Western leaders to tamp down their talk of an invasion. Those spinning the scenario whereby the Russian-speaking people of Narva, Estonia, are waiting to be happily liberated by Putin have rarely bothered to speak to the people who actually live there.

To be sure, warnings about the potential for arson or sabotage should be taken seriously. The speculation has been that Russia might attempt such actions to lessen European support for Ukraine. Yet history shows all too well that attacks on one’s soil tend to have the opposite effect and drive support for retaliatory action.

Indeed, the more realistic threat from Russia’s “hybrid war” is the ongoing attempt to use social media and other means as part of an “overall attempt to spread fear and uncertainty,” or in the more heightened language of British Prime........

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